Wiki ai-knowledge

Part 5: Interpretation of Chopin's Works II (pp. 109-123)

16 min read

Part 5 of chopin-pianist-and-teacher-as-seen-by-his-pupils (pp. 109-123).

Coverage note: this page range does not contain the Mazurkas (they fall earlier in Part 2). It runs from the tail of the Nocturne op. 9/2 entry through the end of Part 2: Nocturnes (opp. 9/2, 15/2, 15/3, 27/1, 27/2, 37/1, 48/1, 48/2), Polonaises (opp. 26/1-2, 40/1, 53), Preludes (op. 28/17, 28/20), Scherzos (opp. 20, 31, 39), the trio of the Funeral March from the Sonata op. 35, and Waltzes (opp. 34/2, 42, 64/1, 64/2, 70/2, 70/3).

Question this unit answers

What did Chopin actually ask for, piece by piece, in his own Nocturnes, Polonaises, Preludes, Scherzos, the Funeral March trio and Waltzes — and what generalizable performance principles can be reconstructed from those individual demands? The section is a compilation of pupil testimony (mostly Lenz, Gutmann via Niecks, Mikuli via Pozniak, Mathias via Pugno, Dubois, Kleczyński, Liszt via Lachmund), organized by opus number rather than by principle, so the reader must extract the principles themselves.

Key terms

  • Variant / ornamented return — Chopin’s habit of replacing a printed figure (reprise, cadenza, upbeat) with a written-out or improvised alternative, entered by hand into favoured pupils’ scores (pp. 109-110).
  • String of pearls (delicatissimamente) — the ideal for a fast ornamental run: even, luminous, and extremely delicate rather than brilliant (p. 109).
  • Gliding / sliding fingering — using one finger (e.g. the third) to slide from a black key to a white key for maximum legato (p. 109).
  • “Combing” (with the thumb) — sliding the finger along the key and releasing it only at the outer edge, to control the exact length and decay of a note (p. 113).
  • Question and response (phrase as dialogue) — Chopin’s recurring pedagogical metaphor for two-part melodic units: op. 48/1 bars 2-4, op. 31 bars 1-2 (pp. 113, 117).
  • Recitative — a section to be delivered as declaimed dramatic speech rather than as measured melody (op. 48/2 middle section, p. 113).
  • Una corda pedal (second pedal) — used as an expressive colour to differentiate repeated statements of a theme (op. 27/2, p. 111).
  • Undulating left-hand figure — Chopin’s standard accompaniment texture, to be kept “very soft and subdued” (p. 111).
  • Feeling a metre in its subdivision — conceiving the Polonaise op. 40/1 in quavers (a counted 6/8) as a safeguard against excessive speed (p. 114).
  • Rubato over a steady bass — the Waltz op. 42 model: continuous stretto prestissimo in the right hand while the left keeps strict time (p. 120).
  • Up-bow effect (retiré) — a lifting, string-player’s gesture applied to weak-beat left-hand chords to make contours flexible (p. 122).
  • Lingering accentuation — a slightly delayed, muffled bass accent (“distant cannon”) in place of a plain sforzando, pedal-assisted (p. 115).
  • Touchstone piece — a passage that reveals whether a performer is “a poet or merely a pianist” (op. 35 trio, p. 119).

Propositions

  1. Chopin’s printed text is not a fixed object: he authorized, and himself habitually played, ornamental variants at reprises, upbeats and cadenzas, and wrote them into pupils’ scores (pp. 109-110).
  2. Printed dynamic/expression markings can be wrong and should be corrected by musical logic: op. 27/2’s third statement of the theme must be forte, against the printed delicatezza/diminuendo, because a weaker third statement after a crescendo middle section “produces no effect” (pp. 111-112).
  3. Chopin’s own tempi were slower and more intimate than modern practice in the Nocturnes; the op. 15/2 metronome mark is best read against a 4/8 bar, otherwise the piece “loses all its character of enveloping intimacy” (pp. 110-111).
  4. Chopin suppressed programmatic titles once he had conceived them, preferring the listener’s own inference — “Let them guess for themselves” (op. 15/3, p. 111).
  5. As a general rule, wherever the left hand has an undulating accompaniment figure, it must be played very soft and subdued (p. 111).
  6. Repeated statements of a theme must each receive a different dynamic level and a different shade of expression, with pedal colour (una corda) as one of the means (op. 27/2, p. 111).
  7. Notated notes have rhetorical functions: inner crotchets can be “thematic elements” requiring exact weight, and a two-bar unit can be a question answered by the next bar (op. 48/1, pp. 112-113).
  8. Transitions between notes — the connection of a semiquaver to the following long note — are objects of study in their own right, requiring specialized touch (gliding, “combing” with the thumb) and long practice (p. 113).
  9. Chopin also let pupils’ own good ideas stand even where he did not play them himself, provided they were musically convincing (Liszt’s added dynamic scheme in op. 40/1, p. 114).
  10. Grandeur in Chopin is destroyed by speed and by force: the op. 53 Polonaise must not be jouée vite, and its famous octave passage began pianissimo with little increase in loudness (pp. 114-115).
  11. Low bass accents are best realized as slightly delayed, pedal-blurred rumbling rather than as clean sforzandi (op. 53, F minor episode, p. 115).
  12. A note that carries an extra-musical meaning is exempt from the surrounding dynamic curve: the tolling bass of op. 28/17 keeps the same strength throughout the diminuendo, “because the clock knows no diminuendo” (pp. 115-116).
  13. In the Scherzos, the opening cell is the interpretative key to the whole piece: op. 31’s triplet group must be a question — soft, round (tombé), weighted — and Chopin dwelt on it at every reappearance (p. 117).
  14. Chopin’s cantilenas are to be modelled on Italian bel canto singers (Pasta, Rubini), explicitly not on French vaudeville style (pp. 109, 118, 119).
  15. Some intensifications belong to oral tradition rather than the score: before the middle section and coda of op. 20, Chopin made an unmarked crescendo and stringendo, relaxing it at the last chord before the middle section but not before the coda (p. 117).
  16. Chopin’s writing is conditioned by his instrument and by particular pupils’ hands: the unplayable bass chord of op. 39 was conceived for Gutmann, and Chopin himself arpeggiated it on his light-touch, narrow-keyed Pleyel (pp. 118-119).
  17. Subdued expression in a lyrical trio does not contradict a march’s tragic character — Lenz explicitly rejects the critics’ claim that the op. 35 trio breaks the poem’s mood (p. 119).
  18. Rubato in the Waltzes means rhythmic freedom in the melody over a metrically steady bass, including compressing opening bars (op. 64/1’s four bars “almost into two”) before the real tempo enters with the bass (pp. 120-121).
  19. Physical gesture shapes sound: applying an up-bow lifting motion to third-beat left-hand chords makes it “impossible, with such a touch, to strike the notes unvaryingly” (p. 122).
  20. Long stretches must be felt as single phrases (op. 64/2, bars 9-16), a tradition transmitted directly from Chopin through Mathias (p. 122).

Arguments

  • Against fast, thunderous Chopin. The argument runs through op. 53 twice: Hallé reports Chopin’s personal distress at hearing the Polonaise played fast, on the grounds that speed destroys grandeur and majesty; Gutmann independently reports that Chopin could not “thunder forth” the piece and began the octaves pianissimo. Two independent witnesses, one about tempo and one about dynamics, converge on the same conclusion: monumentality in Chopin is not produced by volume or velocity (pp. 114-115).
  • Metre-in-subdivision as a tempo safeguard. Mikuli’s report of Chopin’s advice to feel op. 40/1 in quavers is backed by a practical proof: nobody can count six quavers aloud, clearly and loudly, in an over-fast tempo. The physical limit of the voice is used to fix the tempo — an objective check rather than a matter of taste (p. 114).
  • Correcting the printed text by musical logic. Kleczyński (from Fontana) does not merely report the op. 27/2 forte; he justifies it dramaturgically — the middle section develops crescendo, so a feebler third statement of the theme is ineffective — and then registers puzzlement that the faulty marking was never rectified in Chopin’s lifetime. The argument is that structural consequence outranks the engraved marking (pp. 111-112).
  • Extra-musical meaning as a dynamic exception. For op. 28/17 the reasoning is explicitly semantic: the bass note is a clock striking eleven, therefore it cannot diminuendo with the right hand, since clocks do not. Programmatic content is invoked to override the notated dynamic curve (pp. 115-116).
  • Slower tempo preserves character. Mathias/Pugno’s re-reading of the op. 15/2 metronome mark (52 to the quaver, a 4/8 bar rather than the printed 2/4) is defended by consequence rather than by documentary evidence: at any other tempo the Nocturne loses its “enveloping intimacy” (pp. 110-111).
  • The trio as a diagnostic. Lenz argues that the op. 35 trio is the hardest thing in the movement precisely because it is the easiest to trivialize — nothing is easier than reducing it to platitude, nothing harder than raising it to the sorrow of the whole poem — and so it functions as a test of whether the player is a poet or a pianist (p. 119).

Evidence

  • Chopin’s autograph variants: the ornamented upbeat to the first variation of op. 9/2 (end of bar 4) replacing a single B flat; the added passing F sharp between bars 5-6 and its parallel spots (bars 13, 21), which “Chopin insisted on”; a replacement figuration for the printed twelve-fold gruppetto cadenza, “copied into the scores of his favourite pupils” (pp. 109-110).
  • Gutmann’s testimony that Chopin always played the return of the op. 9/2 principal subject heavily ornamented and with a different closing cadence (p. 110); a further bar-24 variant transmitted via Makomaski, a pupil of Tellefsen (p. 110).
  • Chain of transmission for op. 15/2: Chopin to Mathias to Pugno, who reports playing it at 52 to the quaver (pp. 110-111).
  • Kleczyński’s report of the abandoned title for op. 15/3 (“After a representation of the tragedy of Hamlet”) and Chopin’s remark on withdrawing it (p. 111).
  • Fontana’s demonstration of the three-tiered dynamic scheme for op. 27/2 (piano / pianissimo with una corda / forte), reported by Kleczyński (p. 111).
  • Gutmann’s claim that Chopin “forgot to mark the change of movement” in the op. 37/1 middle section, which Gutmann played faster (p. 112).
  • Lenz’s detailed lesson account of op. 48/1 bars 1-4: the G-A flat crotchets always too loud or too soft; the semiquaver G to C junction never satisfying; the descending C before the quaver rest either too short or too long; Lenz’s own solution of “combing” the key with the thumb (pp. 112-113).
  • Gutmann’s report of Chopin’s tyrant/supplicant image for the più lento D flat major middle section of op. 48/2, bars 57-100, to be played as recitative (p. 113).
  • Lenz’s account of being refused permission to play both the op. 26/2 Polonaise and the op. 31 Scherzo (“You cannot play this piece”), while succeeding with op. 26/1 (pp. 113-114).
  • Liszt’s report (via Lachmund) that Chopin liked Liszt’s soft-then-loud handling of the op. 40/1 reprise even though Chopin did not observe the nuance himself (p. 114).
  • Liszt’s demonstration at the piano of the lingering, pedal-blurred bass accents in the F minor episode of op. 53 (bars 138-51), explicitly credited to Chopin’s own playing (p. 115).
  • Mme Dubois’s instruction to Paderewski about the op. 28/17 bass note from bar 65, with the old-castle-clock-striking-eleven explanation (pp. 115-116).
  • Jane Stirling’s account of Chopin playing the C minor Prelude op. 28/20, which she called “La Prière” (p. 116).
  • Johanna Laurecka (long Mikuli’s assistant), via Pozniak, on the unmarked crescendo/stringendo before the middle section and coda of op. 20 (p. 117).
  • Lenz on op. 31 bars 1-2 as “the key to the whole piece”, dwelt on at each reappearance, and on Chopin’s Pasta / Italian-song versus French-vaudeville rebuke about the cantilena from bar 65 (pp. 117-118).
  • Lenz on the op. 39 dedication to Gutmann and the bar-6 bass chord Chopin himself arpeggiated on his Pleyel (pp. 118-119).
  • Lenz’s comparison of the op. 35 trio to Rubini singing “il mio sasso” (Bellini, Il Pirata) and “fra poco” (Donizetti, Lucia) (p. 119).
  • Chopin’s autograph added inner voice for op. 34/2 bar 8 (G sharp-C then G sharp-B above the D), written into Lenz’s copy with the remark that Lenz would never be able to play the piece but understood it (pp. 119-120).
  • Lenz on op. 42 as a musical clock “according to Chopin himself”, played as continued stretto prestissimo over a steady bass (p. 120).
  • Dubois’s anecdote of the great lady at Chopin’s last Paris concert (1848) asking the secret of his fluid scales in op. 64/1, and the “limpidité délicate” that “had never been equalled” (pp. 120-121).
  • Schiffmacher, via Tasset, on the retiré up-bow gesture applied to op. 64/2’s third-beat left-hand chords and the anticipated F double sharp (pp. 121-122).
  • Mathias, via Pugno, on op. 64/2 bars 9-16 as one phrase, with a printed nuanced extract, “directly from Chopin” (p. 122).
  • Lenz on Chopin’s high private regard for the unpublished op. 70/2 in F minor, which he often heard Chopin play (p. 122).
  • Chopin’s own letter of 3 October 1829 on the trio of op. 70/3: the bass melody must dominate until the violin’s E flat in bar 37 (pp. 122-123).

Quotes

  • “Chopin insisted on this F ♯ and its repetition in parallel passages (bars 13 and 21).” (p. 109)
  • “Otherwise, at a different tempo, this Nocturne loses all its character of enveloping intimacy” (p. 111)
  • “Let them guess for themselves.” (p. 111)
  • “In most of the pieces where, as in this one, the left hand accompaniment consists of an undulating figure, Chopin wished it to be played very soft and subdued.” (p. 111)
  • “‘Since it lies within your capabilities, you must be able to do it.’” (p. 113)
  • “‘It must have an intention’, said Chopin.” (p. 113)
  • “He wanted a question on the G–C [bars 2–3], a response in the C [bar 4].” (p. 113)
  • “‘A tyrant commands’ (the first two chords), he said, ‘and the other asks for mercy.’” (p. 113)
  • “As for interpretation, I remember Chopin’s advice to feel the Polonaise in quavers.” (p. 114)
  • “he began them pianissimo and continued thus without much increase in loudness.” (p. 115)
  • “but give them a slightly lingering accentuation, like the muffled rumbling of a distant cannon. The pedal will help to obtain this effect.” (p. 115)
  • “no diminuendo, because the clock knows no diminuendo. That bass note was the clock speaking.” (p. 116)
  • “‘It must be a question,’ taught Chopin” (p. 117)
  • “‘It must be a house of the dead’, he once said.” (p. 117)
  • “‘That’s the key to the whole piece,’ he would say.” (p. 117)
  • “This trio is a touchstone for recognizing whether the performer is a poet or merely a pianist; whether he can tell a story or merely play the piano.” (p. 119)
  • “In his own performance it embodied his rubato style to the fullest; he would play it as a continued stretto prestissimo with the bass maintaining a steady beat.” (p. 120)
  • “‘It should unroll like a ball of yarn’, he said; the real tempo came in with the bass in the fifth bar.” (p. 121)
  • “It becomes impossible, with such a touch, to strike the notes unvaryingly.” (p. 122)
  • Bel canto as the root of piano tone (Part I): the Pasta / Rubini references here (pp. 109, 118, 119) are the same principle applied — the singing model is invoked not as a metaphor but as a specific stylistic school Chopin names, and its negative pole (“not of French Vaudeville”) shows he meant a particular kind of singing, not singing in general.
  • Rubato with a steady bass (Part I): op. 42 (p. 120) and op. 64/1’s compressed opening (p. 121) are the concrete demonstrations of the doctrine that the left hand is the conductor while the right is free.
  • Restrained sonority and rejection of pounding (Part I): confirmed empirically at op. 53 (pp. 114-115), and extended to the accompaniment texture rule at op. 27/1 (p. 111).
  • Suppleness of hand and wrist, gesture-based touch (Part I): the gliding third finger (p. 109), “combing” with the thumb (p. 113) and the retiré up-bow (p. 122) are all cases where the specific physical gesture, not the note-value, produces the musical result.
  • The score as a provisional record: the ornamented variants (pp. 109-110), the corrected op. 27/2 dynamics (pp. 111-112), Gutmann’s claim about the unmarked change of movement in op. 37/1 (p. 112) and the unmarked op. 20 stringendo (p. 117) together push against Urtext literalism — but they also sit in tension with Chopin’s extreme fussiness over four notated bars in op. 48/1 (pp. 112-113). Chopin was simultaneously the most exacting reader of his own text and its freest reviser.
  • Pedagogical selectivity: Chopin flatly refused pupils pieces he judged beyond them (op. 26/2, op. 31, op. 34/2 — pp. 113-114, 119), which qualifies any reading of his method as purely technical progression; repertoire assignment was itself part of the teaching.
  • Instrument-dependence (links to the Pleyel discussions elsewhere in the book): op. 39’s unplayable chord, arpeggiated on a light-touch narrow-keyed Pleyel (pp. 118-119), shows that both notation and execution presuppose a specific instrument.
  • Chain-of-transmission problem: much of this section is third-hand (Chopin → Mathias → Pugno; Chopin → Mikuli → Laurecka → Pozniak; Chopin → Tellefsen → Makomaski → Kleczyński; Chopin → Dubois → Paderewski). The claims are pedagogically valuable but evidentially uneven, and the book presents them side by side without ranking their reliability.

Open questions

  • Where do Chopin’s authorized variants stop being variants and start being a different piece? The op. 9/2 material (ornamented reprise, replaced cadenza, added passing notes) implies a fluid text, but no criterion is given for inventing new ones today.
  • Is the op. 27/2 forte third statement really Chopin’s intention, or Fontana’s (and Kleczyński’s) dramaturgical inference? The passage argues from effect, not from a reported instruction by Chopin himself.
  • How far does the “clock knows no diminuendo” logic generalize? It licenses overriding notated dynamics wherever a performer posits a programmatic image — a potentially very wide door.
  • The op. 15/2 tempo argument depends on reinterpreting the notated bar as 4/8. Is there manuscript or first-edition support, or is this purely Mathias’s oral tradition against the printed metronome mark?
  • What exactly is tombé as a quality of touch (op. 31, p. 117)? “Round”, “weighted” and “fallen” are given as near-synonyms without a technical description.
  • Gutmann’s claim that Chopin “forgot” to mark the op. 37/1 tempo change is unverifiable and self-serving; is it corroborated anywhere else in the pupil literature?
  • The retiré / up-bow gesture is reported only by Schiffmacher via Tasset. How widely was this string-derived technique part of Chopin’s teaching rather than one pupil’s rationalization?

Graph View