Étude Op. 10, No. 8 and 9

Story time:

The other day I was at my locker in the music building pulling out my two pages of Chopin to sightread when one of my colleagues, Scott Troyer, came up to me grumbling something about not being able to compose choral music in the manner of Eric Whitacre.  He is composing a piece for our choir to perform next year (which I'm looking forward to!)  I  say to him, "Scott, it's not  that hard."  I then tell him to follow me into a practice room and I have him sit at the piano.   By this time he's thoroughly confused, especially when I grab his hands.  I then drop his hands on they keys and say "there you go, that's your first chord."  I walk off as I hear him laughing behind me.

As I said in one of my earlier posts, I started sight reading a few beginner piano books so that I could feel good about myself while I try and make it through these etudes.  The books are, for the most part, in chronological order.  One thing that I've noticed is that I really enjoy classical and romantic children's pieces rather than 20th century or contemporary children's pieces.  The more classical pieces in general make so much more sense and make for better one-page pieces than the later pieces.  Playing a binary piece comprised of mostly I, IV, V, a few sevenths, and maybe a modulation makes for a more coherent and whole piece, with a beginning and end, than a more modern through composed work with almost atonal dissonance.  From the perspective of a child, the classical pieces would make more sense and would probably be less frustrating to play and practice.  One of the pieces in the book was titled  Penguin March (or something like that)  The left hand was playing I V I V I... etc. in the key of Db, however, the right hand had a melody comprised of only white notes, thus the penguin (black bottom, white top.)  Cute idea, but I believe it was poorly executed and too dissonant for a children's piece.

Etude 8 was a decent sight read, although I was not a fan of the constant 16th notes in the right hand.

Etude 9, however, was a lot of fun to play.  Even playing it slowly I was able to get a feel for the piece.  It has a beautiful melody with a constant 16th note bass figure outlining the chord.  Being only three pages long it is shorter than some of the etudes, but it still remains very expressive (trading off between f pp p f pp ff pp and finally ppp at the end.)  Chopin wrote expressions into the piece in great detail using words such as "with passion, a little agitated, very smooth, like a whisper, with force, and leggierissimo - meaning very light."

Total time spent sight reading: 1 hour 20 minutes
Total time spent writing: 40 minutes

Étude Op. 10, No. 5 (mm. 24-end) - 7

In the spring of 1834 Chopin went with Ferdinand Hiller, a fellow pianist, to attend a music festival in Aix-la-Chapelle, known today as Aachen located on the western edge of Germany.  At this festival he and Hiller became friends with the composer Mendelssohn.  From Mendelssohn we can learn a bit about Chopin and Hiller's personalities as well as playing styles.  Mendelssohn wrote a letter to his mother saying that

He (Chopin) and Hiller have considerably improved their technical equipment.  Chopin is now the first among pianists.  His playing provides us with as many surprises as we find under Paganini's bow.  Hiller is also a virtuoso full of strength and grace.  Unfortunately they both have the Parisian mania for the tragic pose.  They exaggerate the sentiment, and time and rhythm suffer for it.  But since, for my part, I go to the opposite extreme, the result is that we complement each other.  I seem a perfect pedant, while they are like modish young exquisites. (Bidou 106)

So when performing Chopin or Hiller, exaggerate rubato, the musical line, expression, and bring out the emotion in the piece.  When performing Mendelssohn, use rubato, but remain much more reserved and never lose a sense of time.

I considered yesterday one of my better sight reading days!  Etude 7 came rather easy and is a beautiful piece. In my piano lesson on Monday my teacher had me sight read a hymn, as she often does, out of the blue Mennonite hymnal.  The sight reading came much more naturally than it ever had in the past and for the first time she simply said "good" and we continued with the lesson.  It seems that even after two weeks this has been paying off!  I also decided to supplement my sight reading with a few beginner piano books.

Since I am now blogging every other day I will add up my time for the last two days:
Total time spent sight reading: 1 hour
Total time spent writing: 30 minutes

Étude Op. 10, No. 3(mm. 26-end) - 5 (mm. 1-24)

Regarding Technique and Originality:

In the autumn of 1831 Chopin arrived at Paris.  His early years in Paris were spent performing, later spent composing.  A few performances were done in concert halls, however, he later chose more intimate Paris Salons as preferable performance spaces.  It was in these Salons that Chopin met many prolific composers and virtuosic pianists of the time.  One of these pianists was the composer and teacher Friedrich Kalkbrenner.

[Kalkbrenner's] playing was smooth, sustained and harmonious, not seeking after an effect of power, but delightful in its sonority of tone and perfect in its evenness, pure rather than impassioned in style, and based exclusively upon finger-work. (Bidou 95)

Kalkbrenner even invented a "hand-guide" which was a bar of wood placed under the pupils wrists to raise them in order to teach the fingers to acquire firmness and produce tone and quality of sound by themselves.  All of Chopin's contemporaries recognized that Chopin's technique was superb, however, it was not the result of practice.  Chopin's father wrote to Chopin that "your mind has been more employed than your fingers.  Other have passed whole days working at the keyboard, but you have rarely spent a whole hour practicing the works of others" (96).    That is to say, Chopin spent a great deal of his time fiddling around at the piano and composing instead of practicing technique.  Needless to say, Kalkbrenner was appalled the first time he saw Chopin perform!  "[Kalkbrenner] was scandalized at the boldness of Chopin's fingering" (96).  Kalkbrenner, in attempt to civilize Chopin's technique, offered him lessons for three years.  Chopin consulted his family about the issue.  Elsner, his original teacher, wrote Chopin saying that he must not become a copy of Kalkbrenner's technique lest he lose his originality, which is what makes him notable and prolific.  Chopin wrote Elsner back saying that "I shall never be a copy of Kalkbrenner; he will be powerless to turn aside my intention, which may be bold, but is a noble one: namely, to found a new epoch in art" (99).  Chopin took a few lessons, but decided not to continue, however, he dedicated the Concerto in E minor to Kalkbrenner out of thanks.

I can't wait until I'm finished with the etudes and into more relaxed, and much less technique heavy, genres.  The required virtuosity to even sight read SLOWLY these pieces is simply not in me.  I find that more often I am simply taking the pieces a chord at a time to find out how the pieces are put together.  The melody is still there, it just lacks the specific rhythm and meter that makes it a work of art.  Oh well, it is interesting to analyze these pieces.

I believe No. 4 is a brief study on a trade off in melodic line between the left hand and right hand in order to keep the melody consistent and recognizable.

From the first part of No. 5 I can guess that the etude works on arpeggiations to the jumpy nature of the right hand melodic line.

Total time spent sight reading: 30
Total time spent writing: 1 hour

Posts...

... may end up being every other day.  And so the busy life of a music major ensues.

Étude Op. 10, No. 1 - 3(mm. 1-26)

I am now moving on from preludes to etudes.  Etudes as a genre started to be seen around the early 19th century.  An etude, a French word meaning study, is a composition usually designed to aid the student of an instrument in the development of his mechanical and technical ability. Such technical skills  are scales, arpeggios, octaves, etc.  Chopin created the concert etude which is designed not only for study purposes, but also for public performance and which combines technical difficulty with high artistic quality. (Harvard Dictionary of Music)

The first set of these etudes were published in 1833, although the first two etudes were written as far back as 1829 (when he was 19 years old!)  Bidou writes that "we may find in the Etudes a compendium of Chopin's musical idiom.  At the same time he concealed his pianistic science behind the magnificence of his art" (118).  Basically saying that the pieces remained as beautiful as any piano work while still remaining as technical practice.

Above is a video of the Op. 10, No. 1.  For now my sight reading will be very slow until I can finish these etudes.  I'm not looking forward to the next couple of weeks.  No. 1 works on arpeggios, No. 2 on chromaticism.  As far as I can tell, No. 3 works on distinguishing melody in the right hand while many other notes are being played.  All have been beautiful so far, but I think I like No. 3 the best so far.  I'm more of a fan of Chopin's slower and more romantically emotional pieces.

Total time spent sight reading: 30 minutes
Total time spent writing: 40 minutes

24 Preludes. Op.28. 24(mm. 17-end)

Finished with the preludes!  The only trouble I really had with prelude 24 were the long runs in the right hand.  I could never manage to run theme while still playing the bass with a consistent tempo.  User error: PEBKAB (problem exists between keyboard and bench).  When it boils down to it I'm just not very coordinated.  I'm playing Mozart K381 duet with my piano teacher and I always have issues with trills in the right hand (or both hands for that matter) while the left hand is playing accompaniment.  Something I'll have to work on in the future.

Total time spent sight reading: 20 minutes
Total time spent writing: 15 minutes

24 Preludes. Op.28. 22(mm. 2-end) - 24(mm. 1-17)

Continuing off of March 19th's theme of the importance of influences in a composer's life, in July of 1829 Chopin headed to Vienna.  The purpose of the trip really being simply to "make a name for himself" as the cliche goes.  Bidou writes that "he was famous at Warsaw.  But this local praise was no longer enough for him" (40).  Chopin desired to be judged by the same audiences who had heard Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.  When he arrived he met with a publisher named Haslinger who announced that Chopin's Variations on La ci darem la mano  would be published the following week.  In order to "stimulate the sales" Haslinger encouraged Chopin to give a concert performing the variations.  If you are in the music business you must be flexible and adaptable:

The concert took place on August 11, 1829, at the Imperial Theater.[...]  Chopin was to perform the Variations on la ci darem la manoand the Krakowiak for piano and orchestra.  But the orchestra had recieved Chopin with sour looks at the rehearsals, and made so many mistakes, that, by the advice of the manager, the composer had to replace the Krakowiak by two improvisations.[...] He sat down at the piano white with rage.  Perhaps his rage was an advantage.  "I was in despair and yet the Variations made such an impression it was followed by a thunder of applause and several recalls. (42)

Chopin then gave a second concert, this time playing the Krakowiak (apparently the orchestra just needed some practice).   It is interesting to think of composers not only being performers, but being such virtuosic musicians that they are able to give a performance based purely on improvising on a few themes!  In today's musical culture, improvisations are usually done with a background band or ensemble.  It's hard to picture going to a performance where the musician simply sits down at a piano, completely exposed, and improvises on a theme, sometimes a theme chosen from the audience then and there.

While in Vienna Chopin met Gyrowetz (conductor and composer of over 150 works), played works for two pianos with Czerny (a composer of over a thousand works), made acquaintances with Schuppanzigh (first to interpret Beethoven's quartets), met the violinist Mayseder, met the composer Konradin Kreutzer, composer Franz Lachner (only 26 at the time), and the composer Seyfried, among many others.

Chopin left Vienna after having made the impact he was hoping for.

Prelude 22 was a wonderful piece once I finished it, although I did take it quite slow.

Prelude 23 was also taken much slower, however, I don't think that it took away from the piece.  Looking at the piece initially I was hesitant due to the non-stop 16th note melodic line, however, within the context of the piece it made for a beautiful melody.  This is the only prelude so far that does not have a definite end!  The 16th notes in both hands simply run straight into a quarter note with a fermata without any written ritardando. It is the Eb that occurs in the second to last bar that makes the piece sound like it ends on a I7.

One page into prelude 24 is not enough to write about, more tomorrow.  (I feel like this is becoming a theme.)

Total time spent sight reading: 30 minutes
Total time spent writing: 1 hour