MUSICOL 121: Chapter 17 - Chopin's Piano

Who was NOT a Romantic composer?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Frédéric Chopin did NOT compose

symphonies.

Who composed Nocturne in F-sharp?

Frédéric Chopin

How did Chopin support himself?

He gave piano lessons and sold his music to publishers.

Catacomb

Human made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Some nineteenth-century catacombs, such as that of Paris, are decorated with human bones, the remains of disposed graves.

mortuary signals in the march

Other mortuary signals in the march include the evocation of tolling bells, the minor somber mood, the slow dotted rhythms of the march, a harmonic ostinato.

"Night piece" is the definition of a

nocturne.

Tempo rubato

"Robbed time," the free treatment of meter in performance, cultivated by Chopin.

Sophie Gay, a friend of Chopin also wrote:

"To say his farewells to us, he played, with the expression that you know. First, a Polonaise that he had just composed, and which is dazzling with force and verve. It is a joyous riot. Then, as a counterpart, the Polish Prayer. Then to finish, funeral marches that, despite myself, made me dissolve in tears. It was the cortege that lead him to his final abode."

Chopin, Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35 (1839)

1. Grave - Doppio movimento 2. Scherzo 3. Marche funèbre: Lento 4. Finale: Presto

Chopin's Marche Funèbre

A (March movement), B (interlude in the style of the nocturne), A (return of the March)

Nocturne

A character piece usually written for solo piano, first cultivated by the Irish composer John Field, then developed by Chopin. Typically an ABA form, characterized by a cantabile melody on the right hand accompanied by arpeggiated left-hand accompaniment. Chopin eventually developed the nocturne into a considerable more complex genre that synthesized various rhetorical modes of the piano, including the allusion to dance genres and to singing genres that are not strictly related to the art of bel canto.

Legato style

A form of playing that emphasizes the continuity between pitches of a melody.

Etude

A musical composition for one instrument, usually short and f considerable difficulty, designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular aspect of technique. Chopin wrote two sets of Etudes Op. 10 (1833) and Op. 25 (1837), which contained novel performing techniques of piano performance. The two sets have since become part of the concert repertory. Franz Liszt was the first pianist to master these pieces and include them in his repertory.

Descending tetrachord

A musical emblem of lament, evocative of sorrow. It is the central melodic gesture in the Funeral March section. It consists of a group of four descending notes that fall within the span of a perfect 4th.

Bel Canto

An aesthetics that emphasizes the beauty of the singing voice in operatic song. Bel canto favors the production of legato melodies, the use of a light tone in the higher registers, an agile and flexible technique capable of producing with ease ornate embellishments, breath control, limpid diction and graceful phrasing. Composers Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, and Giuseppe Verdi cultivated the operatic art of bel canto. Chopin strived to imitate this aesthetics of singing at the piano.

Important Funeral Marches:

Beethoven, Symphony # 3 "Eroica", Movt. 2 Wagner, Richard: Interlude "Siegfried's Death and Funeral March" from The Twilight of the Goods (1876), Act III, scene 2. The Twilight of the Gods is the fourth opera of the cycle The Ring of the Nibelung (1852-1876) Berlioz, Grande Symphonie Funèbre et triomphale Op. 15 (1840)

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)

Chopin writes in his diary while in Stuttgart and upon knowing of the Fall of Warsaw in 1831 "Oh God! You are! You are and have not avenged yourself today! You have had not enough of the Muscovite crimes, or you are, yourself, a Muscovite!"

Pieces heard in class:

Etude in c minor, op. 10, called "The Revolutionary" (1831) Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35 (1839): third mvt, funeral march. 1. Grave - Doppio movimento 2. Scherzo3. Marche funèbre: Lento 4. Finale: Presto

Nocturne in F-sharp is a

character piece.

Chopin was most noted for composing

character pieces for piano.

Which technique do you hear in Nocturne in F-sharp?

decoration of the melodic line