btb:

I have a pdf copy of the sheet music of the nocturne in c minor. I don't know the policy regarding the posting of sheet music. so, if you want me to send it to you, send me your email by pm or however you wish.

Peyton:

I'll try putting in on boxnet although I did have a problem doing that also.

Please give it another chance. I promise you it will be worth the effort to hear this enchanting piece. And knowing you...you'll have it learned in two days!!

OK...it's working on boxnet. You don't have to download it, just listen. And I only recorded about half, since the last half was basically repeated. Again, the quality is bad, too tinny, but I think you'll hear its beauty anyway.

Nocturne in C minor posth

No, I'm not playing it, it's Valerie again.

But I am learning it and loving it. Definitely Slavic in its melody.

karaeloko: I don't think you have to worry about it. The copyright on it has long ago expired.

Kathleen

Yeah, I figured that one out. It's just that there is always the righteous poster that has to say something about copyright infringement everytime.

My webpage is acting up so I uploaded it to savefile.com

Nocturne in c minor post.

http://www.savefile.com/files/70134

Not to worry.

If the forum police come to arrest you, we will all visit you in jail and bring a file inside a chocolate cake.

Kathleen

I tried but I couldn't find a download button...

I got it to play. Very pretty.

Peyton,

The download button is on the lower right corner. Should be orange.

A huge thank you to Karaeloko for the copy of the Chopin Nocturne in C minor (1837). No sooner printed than the Nocturne is under the fingers ...

While I'm writing this blurb, I'm listening to Kathleen doing a mighty fine job of playing the first 24 measures of the Nocturne ... take a bow madame!! ...

This Nocturne is clearly not written by the mature Chopin of 1837 ... and has all the indications of a fresh hand in the the art of musical composition ... Frycek could be on the money in suggesting the earlier date of 1827 ... when Chopin was a 17 year old student under Elsner.

The Nocturne would fall under Chopin's extremely high standards of "not being worthy" ... here we see a budding genius using his first LH rhythmic outline to underpin his calling card largess of lacy RH extravagances ... but these are early days ... the format of eighth-note measures with experimental small chords on the 3rd and 7th beats will be discarded by the poet in later Nocturnes ... already in the opening opus 9 series we see a sparkling LH rhythmic pulse and the emergence of the characteristic Chopin inner double chords.

Chopin was yet to formulate his extraordinary aesthetic musical balance in this early study ... the work is top-heavy with lacy RH embellishments ... his noble poetic instincts drove him to a Spartan simplicity of design in his later works ... with brooding long-held notes and chordal passages crying out for the injection of those masterly nimble-fingered extravagances ... sheer genius.

Thank you again everybody ... I'm in a 7th heaven working up this early gem.

Funny, one moment it's not there, then it is. Got it! Thanks.

Numerian has given us his thoughts on that special Chopin something which has us coming back for more.

I'm sure lots of people ... especially the ladies can track down a wagonload of emotions in the
music of the Chopin... their sense of intuition is legendary.

But just to throw a slightly different slant on why we all like Chopin ... my take is purely a reaction to aesthetics... in this case sound aesthetics ... a reaction to an art form in sound.

Something dreamed up by man ... which acts as a
beacon of man's highest achievement to date.

In this same category, I would place a favourable reaction to seeing for the first time the Athenian Parthenon at sunrise, Rembrandt's "The Night Watch", Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel , Hoagy Carmichael singing "Stardust" at the Paladium, a summer evening viewing of " A Midsummer Night's Dream" on Regents Park,
van Gogh's Arles paintings ... but there is no nostalic emotion involved ... just a humbling sense of awe at being lucky enough to have the insight to appreciate an aesthetic masterpiece.

Just so with a Chopin Nocturne ... a supreme aesthetic sound pattern.

btb I'm glad Karaeloko came through with a copy of the Nocture. Peyton please PM me your email address so I can send you the no 19 Waltz.

There's a wisp of a legend that Chopin wrote a nocturne while he was mourning for his favorite sister who died at the age of 15 in 1827. This would be a good candiate for that work.

Admire your line of thought Frycek ... is there any way of linking the date of the Nocturne in C minor to the tragic death of Chopin's favourite sister?

Frycek:

I thought Chopin's favorite sister was Ludwika. At least that's what I've read. She and Frederick, being the two oldest, seemed to have a closer relationshop.

I'm quoting from Chopin: by Bernard Gavoty

"...the four Chopin children soon divided themselves into two cliques.. There was the "big kids" club, made up of Ludwika and Frycek; then there was the little kids' corner, where Isabella and Emilia played.

And it was Ludwika whom he called to Paris to get him through those last difficult weeks. She was at his side when he died.

She was also his tutor and taught him to play the piano although he soon surpassed both her and Chopin's mother. She was a very good musician herself, never tiring of playing four-handed with Frycek. She was and would remain the confidant of her brother. She also resembled him a great deal. "

The Chopins buried the youngest sister Emilia on on April 10, 1827.

It is very possible that Chopin composed this lovely nocturne for his youngest sister, who was a born poet.

Just a thought...no proof

btb: I am overwhelmed that you think I have so much talent. I'm sorry to deflate your impression of me, but that is not I playing the F minor nocture. How I wish it were so. It's Vladimir Ashkenazy. Who, in my opinion, plays so many of Chopin's compositions much too quickly, often ruining the melody line.

Again, just my opinion.

Ugh! I had a lesson yesterday and have swallowed my pride and stubbornness and am now practicing Hanon. After I heard Mel play the Heroic Polonaise (he said he played Hanon everyday)...just the first page or so and only after 7 days, I couldn't hold out any longer. Not only Hanon but Bach AND I put a new battery in my metronome (sp?).

Although I have the hardest time figuring out how I'm supposed to use it. The truth is I have a lousy sense of timing and can't even tell if I am keeping up with its beat.

You've all heard that expression: "...marches to the beat of a different drummer." Well, that's me.

Kathleen

He loved Ludwicka like another mother as big sisters so often are loved. She was also the most musical of his siblings so they had that in common. He actually played with Emilie, wrote and acted in plays with her, wrote a newspaper with her. He was three years younger than Ludwicka, two years older that Emilie. Who know which was the favorite? I doubt if even he did. He adored them both, in different ways. The odd sister out seems to be Isabella to whom he was closest in age. I picture her as a quiet bookworm. In one letter Chopin encloses a leaf from a famous battlefield "for Isabella," so I gather she was into history. She married her father's assistant teacher.

Re metronome. First just wind it. Set it to more or less the appropriate speed and let it tick in the background. Don't try to play to it at first, just let it be there. After a few days of this you'll get over you intimidation and find yourself unconsicously forming your rhythm to it. At least that's how it works for me.

Since no really knows the actual date of the nocturne I doubt that could ever be proven. Some scholars put it into the right time period and I'm inclined to agree with them.

Thanks for the tip on the metronome. Will give it two weeeks. If I'm not completely "looney-tunes" by then, I give it a permanent home on my piano (somewhere near the far end, however).

Kathleen

After looking up the Frederick Chopin Society in Warsaw ... under Google Chopin ... and dotting down the progressive dates for the various Nocturnes

opus 72, no. 1 (in E minor) ... 1827
C# minor (post.) ... 1830
C minor (post.) ... 1847 ... which is very confusing in the light of the group's date of 1837 ... and begs the question as to the authority for this date.

Frycek wants to stick with the date 1837 ... while my persuasion is that the C minor (post.) Nocturne is the work of a fledgling genius ... the date 1827 fits the bill.

My argument is based on the maturing evolution of a genius. In advancing to a higher plane Chopin's voracious search for exciting geometric note structures (his Etudes bear testimony) will have involved a constant search for unexplored new geometric note patterns with which to populate his compositions.

Ever upward ... Chopin will have steadily dumped those note pattern combinations which didn't sparkle ... to eventually achieve his sublime Nocturne format ... where each and every delicate note forming the overall structure is sheer poetic magic.

The two posthumous Nocturnes show tell-tale signs of a novice ... the unrelieved sameness of the 8-note LH note patterns (not again used) would later be "hotted up" by Chopin into ever-varied rhythmic injections as first evidenced in the LH role for the opus 9 Nocturnes.

It's a mystery how scholars have managed to tie the opus 72.1 Nocturne dated 1827 to the 17 year old Chopin ... this brooding masterpiece is far too polished and mature to be the workings of a schoolboy ... even if he was destined for genius.

Nobody is likely to buy my argument ... with that dratted Ashkenazy fella casting his CD spell ... and making every single Nocturne sound like a foretaste of heaven ... well I tried!!

My apologies for having gone "heavy" on the much-valued company ... when you're drunk with the overwhelming impact of suddenly gaining access to the last of the Chopin Nocturnes (20 and 21) ... you find yourself needing a stiff talking to ... to "get real" ... not to mention a stiff black coffee to regain composure.

But on a gentler note ... having joined the queue to stomp Georges Sand for leaving Chopin "in the lurch" ... I thought it only fair to hear what she had to say about the genius:

"Gentle, sensitive, and very lovely, he united the charm of adolescence with the suavity of a more mature age; through the want of muscular development he retained a peculiar beauty, and exceptional physiognomy, which, if we may venture so to speak, belonged to neigher age nor sex. It was like the ideal creations with which the poetry of the Middle Ages adorned the Christian temples. The delicacy of his constitution rendered him interesting in the eyes of women. The full yet grateful cultivation of his mind, the sweet and captivating originality of his conversation, gained for him the attention of the most enlightened men, whilst those less highly cultivated like him for the exquisite courtesy of his manners."

btb:
I know it is impossible to judge people's motives in real life, and even more impossible with historical persons. But I can't help thinking if Aurore really loved Chopin she deserves a little compassion. Loving a pianist is not the most favourable of destinys one could have, the total time he pays attention to you can probably better be measured in seconds than in minutes

(It might still be worth it, I think, just now listenining to Lipatti playing Chopin waltzes )

Ragnhild

Share your view Ragnhild.

A belated congratualtions on the 55.1 Nocturne ...
your flow was exemplary and your handling of the
"lacy extravagances" quite delightful ... for a moment I thought I was misjudging the author of the recording as happened in commenting favourably on Kathleen's playing when it was really Askenazy ...
it was only at the end of your recording where you
came slightly unstuck on the 2nd mountain (near the end) and then raced the the final climb with the repeated top Fs that I realized that it was really you ... and that you were fallable after all ... not that I'm being critical in the slightest ... on the contrary ... I'm totally blown away by the remarkable continuity and general mastery of fingering which you exhibited.

You're an example to us all ... we salute you.

try again

In my book "The Master Musicians" by Cuthbert Hadden published was back in 1909 I discovered this picture of Chopin ... from the Hanfstaengl Collection.
[img] http://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/Chopin7.jpg [/img]

Not pressing the right buttons!!

Hi All:

I've been busy cleaning my house since I have neglected it somewhat over the past few weeks. When I can write my name on the dust on my piano, I know it's time for the mop and bucket brigade.

As much as I would like to dislike George Sand, she did take very good care of our dear soul for many, many years. He was very happy with her and her children (much of the time) for quite a while. She saw to his every need. In fact, she spoiled him. And he loved her for it.

Whether she loved him, is a different story. I've read some interesting theories on how the roles were reversed in their case. She was the more masculine. She set out to catch him (as most males would court the woman they loved), and he let himself be caught. He was the more feminine. He loved to be cared for and looked after...as a lot of women do.

She considered herself a "mother-earth" type of person, and she wasn't above writing about herself as kind, caring and good-hearted, always putting other people's needs above her own.
She could find justification in everything she did, even when it was evident that she was the one at fault. She wasn't an angel, but she wasn't the devil either.

I am grateful to her for taking such good care of Chopin all those years, but I can't quite forgive her for breaking his heart. It seemed that after they parted, his health deterioriated very quickly. I think he just gave up. He just didn't seem to care about much after that.

They were both quite unusual people, to say the least.

btb: I do so enjoy your analyses of Chopin' works. Just today, my friend said to me that most of the compositions Chopin wrote were very sad. And I had to answer her that it was all in the way you listen to his music.

Although most would say it is highly emotional. I don't listen with my emotions, I listen with my ears. I can't quite analyze his music, but I hear the intricate workings of his genius in the harmonies, chord progressions, single note voicing, etc. After listening, I will admit that that's when it hits me. And, that's when I am moved by it all.

I don't believe that most of Chopin music is sad. Much of it is. Much of it is filled with anger, despair and rage. But there is so much that is pleasant, charming, hopeful and happy.

Do you agree?

Kathleen

Actually Frycek doesn't want to stick to the date 1837 - I want to stick to the date 1827 when Chopin was 17. See how easy it is to confuse things? The fact that it was published in 1937 confuses things even further. (All those 7's)

Well, I, for one, think because of its haunting simplicity is one of the best nocturnes he wrote.

At least, I can play it after only two weeks practice.

Can't say the same for the 55.1. But I love it anyhow although it has given me about 20 more gray hairs over the past weeks.

Kathleen

Kathleen,
Sadness and happiness are on the same roller-coaster track ... merely at opposite polar ends.

Anyone who "so knowingly" presumes to write off Chopin's music as just so much highfaluting gloom and doom, and therefore lacking in joie de vivre, will be discovered to be young and fashionably immature.

Chopin commands the sharp poetic economy of the Classical Greek dramatists.

Sorry, can't get this to work either. btb, PM me this image and I'll try to get it up.

http://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/Chopin7.jpg

Hi Frycek,
Thank you for interest in trying raise the Chopin picture.

I thought I was home and dry having received the
following e-mail from webmaster@pianoworld.com

The file Chopin7.JPG has been uploaded, it is 11.6 Kb in size.

The location of the file is
http://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/Chopin7.JPG

Upon reflection, it might well be that I wrote up the JPG in lower case lettering ... would this
change have incapacitated the process?

By the way ... what does PM mean? My guess is post me ... to your e-mail address via the webmaster?