Étude, Brute? The case for Chopin
commentarymagazine.com
commentarymagazine.com
This may be a consequence of the properties of the creations. People who want to listen to a concerto will share the experience with many others, and typically won’t be able to buy it all just for themselves. People who want to be involved in the contemporary art world can and often do buy physical works of art for themselves, and it doesn’t matter whether or not the artist could convince a theater of people to pay to sit down together and appreciate it for 30 minutes. If art patrons want to buy physical pieces for themselves, you need a bigger pool of artists to serve them; but if you want to fill opera houses, it’s better to have a few artists that everybody has agreed to like.
In any case, I imagine that the last century has perhaps produced the most technically proficient musicians on possibly every instrument, across all genres. Sometimes I'm blown away by some of the younger players and their flawless technique.
Anyway, paganini was a virtuoso first and foremost, the closest analogy would be a modern player like Horowitz or argerich, although liszt was similar but composed way more than paganini
Chamber music actually sounds a lot better with historically accurate venues and instruments, albeit the latter is not generally possible. In fact there's a bit of a refocusing on chamber music lately in the "classical" world, now that the quality of recorded media is better and big concert halls have become less important. Performing Chopin's music in a huge, modern-day concert hall means trying to turn it into something quite different than what it actually was when Chopin wrote it.
I highly doubt Chopin only intended his music for a specific space. Chopin's music translates to large concert halls (with proper concert grands, of course) quite well. Every great pianist will adjust for the room.
Of course this will always be a debate. Some believe Bach's WTC should only be played on keyboards from Bach's era (ignoring the piano.) What a shame that would be to us all.
Well, it depends - the idea you talk about is certainly out there, but I think most commenters don't really take it all that seriously. There's a lot of great stuff in classical music that's by unheard-of, "minor" composers, and even some pieces the composer of which is entirely unknown, and we can only make guesses as to their rightful "attribution". As to the focus on the "quality of the work", there is a bit of a hierarchy in classical music where some genres (i.e. "formats" of music) are considered to be inherently more worthwhile than others. In instrumental music, for example, a "concerto" or an "overture" would be a chance for the composer to show off their best work, while a "symphony" would be slightly lower in ambition, and maybe a "suite" would be slightly lower again. So if you're familiar with these designations, you can kinda sorta predict what the composer will be going for, and whether it will be derivative "filler" or not.
It was careless of me to say that works by Chopin sound like they are obviously by him. Recently, a friend played a piece by him that I was unfamiliar with, without saying who wrote it, and I told him it sounded like an unusual imitation of Chopin. I'd still say that his distinct voice was present in that piece, and that it's there in just about everything he published.
There's a good reason Chopin is a solo piano staple.
I've been playing solely Chopin for the better part of 3 years. I started on Preludes, now I stumble through Nocturnes and poke a bit at the Ballades, Etudes, and Scherzos.
People really need to learn about Chopin's music. There's juts so much to unpack in each Nocturne, each Ballade, it's truly incredible.
I started from very little skill, but by practicing Chopin almost daily I have gotten much better at sight reading and gained a new appreciation of his music.
My absolute favourite is Nocture op. 9 no. 2, apart from the very ending it's fairly simple to play if you are an intermediate or better pianist, but the difference in just hitting the right notes and actually playing it is night and day, and something that when you come back to the piece you can really gauge your progress with.
I had the privilege of playing it at a wedding a few years ago, on a beautiful Ibach concert grand piano, in a centuries old church ... the acoustics were fantastic and it was a very fitting piece.
edit: not too hard but I should say I don't feel I'm at the point I can really do it justice emotionally, as you say, haha.
That said, this line certainly raised an eyebrow for being pretty sensational:
>Of the well-known composers of the 19th century, Fryderyk Chopin (as his name is spelled in Polish, his native tongue) is the only one whose complete works continue to be played regularly—indeed, without cease.
When was the last time you heard his piano trio performed outside of a music school, for instance...?
"Of the well-known composers of the 19th century, Fryderyk Chopin is the only one whose complete works continue to be played regularly"
...is incorrect. There's not a single composer whose "complete works" get regularly played, and even given Chopin's fairly small catalog (for a major 19th century composer) there are plenty of marginal works that rarely get performed. Considering his long and respected career as a music critic and author, I'm kind of surprised to see Terry Teachout's byline on this.
It's a bit hard to take a critic seriously when they're capable of forgetting facts like this...
The linked article is really a pseudo-book review of the recent biography "Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times" by Alan Walker.
His technique paved the way for Liszt and Debussy études, and Godowsky expanded their utility. Most technique after him is influenced by him in some way.
In his day it's acknowledged his work was appreciated, the article mentions his patronage. However, imagine present day people in your field who are respected as luminaries. They take time to publicly disparage your work.
Despite his supporters, it could have easily been traumatic to him personally and professionally. Could he have been more successful or inspiring to young composers otherwise?
In general it's quite a sad theme. I hate to see this same story so recurrent throughout history. In the 21st century we've finally simplified the concept to one word: "haters".
Criticism is just as important as praise, but not when it's unbalanced or done unproductively. Why as human beings must we treat each other this way and close our minds to things that are don't fit a mold?
The damage to individuals is never fully visible and the cultural price is never fully known.
We must be excluding lesser works and juvenilia since those works by Chopin exist and aren't regularly played today.
Ok, let's start hashing...
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