SOME COMPOSERS DEVELOP their style over time, while others hit their stride early on. Those who evolved step by step include Haydn, Wagner, Janáček, Scarlatti, Liszt, Glass and Carter. Other composers appeared seemingly fully formed, including Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Richard Strauss, Saint-Saëns and Boulez. As both pianist and composer, Frédéric Chopin’s genius manifested itself from the start. At eight, the budding prodigy had his first composition published (a polonaise) and made his debut as a piano soloist with orchestra. It soon became clear that Chopin preferred to concentrate on smaller forms instead of large-scale symphonies, choral works and operas. Fortunately, his composition teacher at the Warsaw Conservatory, Joseph Elsner, had the foresight to let his pupil follow his own path.
Leaving Warsaw for good at twenty-one, Chopin settled in Paris and found himself in the vortex of a thriving intellectual and artistic scene dominated by Balzac, Hugo, Delacroix, Rossini, Berlioz, Auber, the young Liszt and other luminaries. Piano construction had evolved into something close to our modern concert grand paradigm, and virtuoso pianist-composers like Henri Herz and Friedrich Kalkbrenner ruled the roost, pleasing the public with glittery operatic paraphrases, potpourris, battle pieces and other easy-to-digest salon fare.
While Chopin churned out a few opera paraphrases and variation sets of his own, they were informed by an entirely new level of pianistic ingenuity, where new sonorities, figurations and modulatory patterns intermingled to unprecedented, often startling effect. Even in Chopin’s earliest works with opus numbers, the essence of his keyboard style was fully formed. Take, for instance, the astonishing bravura of the seldom-played First Piano Sonata finale’s cruelly demanding double notes...
Leif Ove Andsnes playing the finale from Piano Sonata No. 1
or the Variations on Mozart’s “Là ci darem la mano” from Don Giovanni for piano and orchestra (the work that inspired Robert Schumann’s famous “Hats off, a genius” review). Get past its rather foursquare construction, and the piano writing’s tactile fluidity and judicious deployment are immediately clear, along with subtle harmonic twists and turns not easy to absorb in one hearing...
Alexis Weissenberg playing the fourth variation on "Là ci darem"
Yet for all of these innovations, a strong classical streak steadfastly prevails throughout Chopin’s oeuvre. That much is clear from the way the composer stuck with absolute forms for his titles (Waltz, Ballade, Etude, Nocturne, Mazurka, Polonaise, Scherzo, Sonata, Impromptu and the like) instead of descriptive or programmatic fodder, as his colleagues Schumann, Berlioz, Liszt and Mendelssohn were apt to use. Beethoven’s thunder appealed to Chopin far less than Mozart’s elegance and proportion and Bach’s organizational powers and contrapuntal acumen. Indeed, Bach’s influence has more than a little bearing upon the 24 Préludes Op. 28. Chopin also adored Bellini’s operas, and it shows: Slow down the Impromptus or the faster Waltzes, sing the glittery passagework out loud, and you’ll discover bel canto cavatinas. Slow down the Fourth Ballade’s thunderous coda, bring down the volume, and concentrate on the top melodic line: an instant aria!
A good guided tour through Chopin’s sound world might commence with the Nocturnes. The form owes much to the development and standardization of the sustaining pedal, which meant that sustained figurations could exceed the normal left-hand span. The Irish composer John Field first applied the word “Nocturne” to lyrical pieces with long, dreamy melodies supported by lilting, broadly spanned accompaniments. In his B major Nocturne, Chopin picks up where Field left off. Seeming simplicity characterizes its opening theme, which comes to a sudden halt at its first climax only to resume in tempo with another idea. Remnants of the original theme reappear like signposts while embellishments and decorations intensify the melodic discourse. Without warning, Chopin shatters his wistful mood with an abrupt, almost violent recitative in B minor, an ending that “defies analysis, but compels acceptance,” according to composer Lennox Berkeley...
Artur Rubinstein playing Nocturne No. 9 in B major, Op. 31, No. 1
It’s a short step from Chopin the poet to Chopin the poet-virtuoso and his Etudes
Op. 10 and 25, which many rightly consider the cornerstones of Romantic piano technique. Each of these gems addresses a specific technical challenge, without giving the pianist much respite. At first hearing, the A-flat Op. 10, No. 10 and E minor Op. 25, No. 5 offer catchy, operatically inspired themes within a basic A-B-A song form structure. But notice the slight shifts in texture and phrasing when the tunes repeat, not unlike viewing an object from different perspectives and at different times of the day...
Louis Lortie playing Etude No. 10 in A flat major, Op. 10, No. 10
Louis Lortie playing Etude No. 17 in E minor, Op. 25, No. 5
Reduce the opening C major Op. 10, No. 1 and closing Op. 25, No. 2 etudes’ taxing arpeggios to their harmonic essence, and you get the bedrock security of a Bach cantus firmus...
Louis Lortie playing Etude No. 1 in C major, Op. 10, No. 1
Louis Lortie playing Etude No. 14 in F minor, Op. 25, No. 2
One wonders if Bach’s organ chorale preludes had any bearing on the E-flat minor Op. 10, No. 6, where a plaintive right-hand cantabile is supported by a chromatically undulating tenor commentary and long, sustained bass lines...
Louis Lortie playing Etude No. 6 in E flat minor, Op. 10, No. 6
