Polonaise is originally a stately, march-like Polish dance, primarily a promenade by couples. Frederic Chopin is born in Poland, and he wanted to write some patriotic music pieces. This blog post is about Polonaise op.53, no.6 written in A flat major maestoso. I really like how the music is ‘brave’ and spiritual. It is also interesting how Chopin can compose such a peaceful music as Nocturne and such a courageous piece.
First video is by legendary pianist, Vladimir Horowitz, who is no longer living. Second video is by a young pianist, Lang Lang. The emotion I get from these videos are extremely difficult. Just compare the time: 5 and 7 minutes.
The point starts by a bold octave of E flat. Then, the right hand have the passage of half-notes. Even though the notes tend to get loud, it is important to keep the voice small. With repeating notes, the famous theme melody appears, and I really like the confidant, yet beautiful flow. The left hand is very uncomfortable, since the scale is too big. This piece is especially difficult for the people with small hands. You also have to be careful not to overflow your emotion, and control the feeling. Music may become too disorganized. After the rapid scale, the theme melody reappears more furiously. Even though the notes are similar, the mood of the music is quite different, and have a ‘grand’ feeling.
After the melody ends, the new passage is introduced, and it is very rhythmical. Even though the music becomes very different from the beginning, Chopin surprisingly returns to the key melody after a trill. It was especially surprising when I heard this piece for the first time. The section ends with rich and full chord, and it seems that every agony and pain are gone…
From A flat major, music suddenly changes its tone to E major. A flat is same note as G sharp, and Chopin used the chord of G sharp-B-E-G sharp. The primary note do not change, but there is clear difference from the beginning if you listen carefully. The hardest part of this piece is the left hand octaves. Even though the pianists above play them mindlessly, it is very difficult how the low notes have potential to get loud, yet the melody is in right hand, and the sound should be small. In this sense, appearance may be deceiving, I think. This pattern repeats, and then the rhythm of long-short-short appears, even though they are played in fast pace. Soft melody is played, and it reminds me of a water flowing naturally. The tone seems to get disturbed, and at last, the magnanimous theme melody reappears suddenly. It is Chopin’s genius how the reappearance of the theme is so natural and pleasant to hear.
The piece ends with grand finale. This music gives me a sense of relief.
Nocturne is a gentle piece of classical music. How did the name originated? Nocturne is from nocturnal, which means happening in or active during the night, or relating to the night (Cambridge). Chopin wrote numerous nocturnes, and Liszt’s Liebestraume is also a nocturne. This post is about nocturne op.9, no.2, which is written in E flat major, andante.
The music is overall peaceful and sweet. Even thou crescendo and decrescendo indicate the volume, tempo usually also ‘sways’ by the different volume of sound. The music starts to decrease, and gets even smaller by poco ritardando, and the sound should be both small, yet expressive. As the music develops, the notes get more complex, and the main melody comes back after series of chords. Even though the music seems repetitive, there are some variations into, such as 4:3 ratio in poco ritardando. As the music reaches to the denouement, new melody is introduced, with 8:3 ratio between right and left hand. Climax is marked by right hand octaves and left hand bases in fortissimo. Right hand solo cadenza appears, and then the music concludes in pianissimo. Even though ‘nocturnal’ can remind about horror and evil as Dracula, I think this music is more of a lullaby with a mild passages.
Waltz refers to a musical piece with three beats in a bar written for dance. Each measure contains three beats, strong-weak-weak. This is the overall trend of this kind of music. Waltz is known to many people by Frederic Chopin. This post will talk about Mephisto Waltz by Franz Liszt (I feel I have preference towards Liszt). Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke refers to the dance in the village inn. As like with other Liszt’s works, this piece is also very difficult to play, and requires considerably big hands.
The piece starts with the repeated hitting of low E, and there is an accent in the first beat by the ornament D-sharp. The notes develop to complete interval of E, B, F sharp, D, and A. This is not very harmonic, and contributes to the eerie mood of the music. Since the left hand reaches from E to the F sharp of the next octave, the one who cannot comfortably press should unfortunately give up the F sharp. The music then settles down, and the mood goes up slowly. The interchanging octaves between left and right hand are very confusing. A chill solo is played in marcatissimo, which is feeling of march. After the arpeggios of B and E, the melody that truly resembles a waltz is played in A major. The chord shifts at the end from A to F sharp minor, and suddenly to A flat major.
Delicately, each hands quickly plays two notes, and then glides down. The right hand seems to be very active yet light in the tone. The ongoing right hand scale-like passage is not a normal scale nor half-noted scale. For the left hand, in second and third beat, the two bottom notes of the chord are same, and only the top note of the chord moves by half note. After a frightening pause, a glissando, or literally gliding, moves from low B to high E. Left and right hand should be in harmony (match each other) to play without troublesome noises. This kind of pattern repeats in different tone, or D flat major. After furious firing of octaves, the cheerful melody in the beginning reappears.
The joyful passage decreases with intensity, and enters the phase of un poco meno mosso, or slowing down one step. Melodies are in mainly half notes. The pattern of heavy-light arpeggio repeats and there is a long (relatively to the tempo of this piece) rest of four measures. Delicate passage of right hand declines, going up and down. When this pattern ends, the piece enters the poco allegro e rubato, or little bit fast with freedom. The left hand arpeggio is unique, seems to be harmonic or not. The music reenters the un poco meno mosso, and the melody is constant, with extremely difficult right hand passage.
In piu mosso, or faster than before, the melody is mainly played by the left hand bases, and the right hand becomes busy. After a while, the music makes a preparation to enter the furious coda, with strenuous octaves. Coda is in presto, or really fast. While the left hand plays chords, the right hand plays two octaves in one beat. ‘Crazy’ right hand jumping appears, and this performer of the video above gets in a lot of trouble. Climax is by the rapid right hand arpeggios with minor tone left hand chords. The climax ends by the declining right hand passage. After quite flow of melody, extremely rapid ending is played, concluding this wild waltz in A major.
I noticed how people think rhapsody and ballad are genre that are newly introduced in nowadays music. However, rhapsody and ballad are genres originated from classical music. Rhapsody is a type of music that is free in structure and often has strong personal feelings of a composer. Ballad in nowadays are mainly love song, but in classical time ballad, or ballade was type of music that is poetic or tells story.
Video above is Hungarian Rhapsody no.12 by Franz Liszt. Below one is Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, which is today’s popular music. Even though one is instrumental and one is lyrical, you can notice how the two pieces are similar. As a Romantic music, Hungarian Rhapsody has no formal composition, but rather free in the style of the music. Starting from c sharp minor, it goes to E major, then repeat c sharp minor, and ends with splendid D flat major. I am sure you are familiar with the melody in 5:57 from the video. In Bohemian rhapsody, the mood of the beginning is despair, and the solo part is lyrical. Choral passage of Bohemian rhapsody is followed, and then climax is marked by E flat major, including lyrics as “Oh~~ baby~~~” Bohemian rhapsody is written totally free, and the song reveals the emotion of the artists a lot. What do the similarities tell? Modern rhapsody is developed from Classical rhapsody.
The video right above is Chopin’s ballade. There are too much ballads in today’s music, and I cannot think up a representative of typical ballad. Unlike rhapsody, ballade and ballad do not share much similarities. Chopin’s ballade is not a love song; rather it is poetic and often melancholy in its mood. Most of the modern ballads are focused on love, and have sweet and bright melodies. Then where did the term ‘ballad’ come from? Both ballades and ballad might have derived from ballares, or French dance song in medieval time. I think it is interesting how both ballades and ballad are from same terminology, yet so different in terms of music.
In classical era, scherzo means ‘joke,’ and inserted in middle of sonata or symphony. However, Frederic Chopin composed scherzo in his style, and this post is about the second scherzo. It is b flat minor, and start out with presto, or very fast.
Beginning is sotto voce, or in small sound. Then, sudden burst comes out and soon repeats the very beginning. Another burst comes in A flat major, and then repeats the beginning. A while after, c minor chords are played, and D flat major is introduced. After descending scale in poco ritardando (bit slower), smooth melody is played in con anima, or with anima. Left hand broken chords are played in sempre legato (continuously smooth). Melody is played two times, and mood changes with C flat chord, with sempre piu crescendo (keeping increasing). The section is ended in lowest and highest D flat, and this is repeated once more, with few changes.
Next section is in A major, in sostenuto (keeping the note long enough) and sotto voce. After b minor melody, C sharp and G sharp are played ascending in delicatissimo, or delicately. After the repeated melody, C sharp is carefully pressed in slentando (slowing in pace), introducing new passage of espressivo, or having facial expression. Left bases are played in legato. After C sharp minor passage, it is changed to E major after poco ritardando and then a tempo (in orignial tempo, in this case, presto). E major passage is in leggiero (lightly), and increases by poco crescendo, piu crescendo, and piu crescendo ed animato. After the passage ends in E, the A major melody is repeated, until the next E major passage.
Then, the arpeggios are played furiously, leading to g minor in agitato, or intense. The rhythm is played in g minor, d minor, and then to E flat minor, ending in E major. Violent progress is made, and descend furiously to the b flat minor. In sempre con fuoco (constantly energetically), right hand plays the new melody while the left hand has descending b flat minor scales in octaves. However, as the piece goes, the intensity of music is decreased by sempre diminuendo (constantly decreasing), and e calando (getting weaker). The passage disappears in smorzando e retardando, or disappearing with slowing down.
After the disappearance of previous passage, the very first beginning is repeated, until the rapid arpeggio in D flat major. It suddenly goes transition to A major, and then develops into D flat major. Last part of the piece is played in piu mosso, or faster than before. In the scale of A-A-B flat-B flat-B-B-C, the music goes stretto e crescendo, or with gradually increasing speed and loudness. Right hand have descending arpeggio, while the left hand plays the melody in marcato (highlighting individual notes). Music goes toward the end in sempre piu mosso, and marks the grand finale with D flat major chord.
I think the music is attractive in its large scale, and how the overall trend is shifted from b flat minor to D flat major. I feel the music has splendor, and also the softness in parts of the music.
Also referred as Liebestraume, this piece is one of the Nocturne that Franz Liszt composed. The piece is in A flat major, with a unique 6/4 beat. For this piece, I would like to have two performances; Romantic musics can have different interpretation, and such differences get extreme especially for works by Liszt. I noticed a lot of differences after listening to these musicians.
Tempo for this piece is poco allegro, con affetto, meaning a bit fast, with ‘loving emotion.’ Melody of E flat- C- C- C is played with dolce cantando, or softly singing. It is interesting how the A flat major piece does not have A flat in the melody until the end of the section. The theme melody is played again with little variation, and then the key of the music changes. With poco crescendo ed agitato (little increasing and spirit), the piece procedes to C major, a minor, E major, c sharp minor. After crescendo robusto, fermata of unusual F flat is held, descending to fermata of G. Mood seems to get intense, but soon settled, leading to the new section.
In piu animato, con espressione, standing for with more liveliness and having ‘facial emotion,’ theme melody is played in B major, but developed. After the melody is played again, B major turns to C major, and in sempre stringendo (increasing in speed), new melody is introduced. Flow is by C major, f minor, C major, a minor, and then E major with the emotional theme melody. Melody is played twice, and E major is shifted to A flat major, the tonic of the original music. Another melody is introduced with appasionato assai (extreme passion), and marks the high G octaves, followed by descending octave scales in rinforzando, or increasing in volume (unique how decreasing scale have increasing voice). Climax is marked by the chord, F, G, B flat, D flat, F (from low to high note), and decreasing half notes are played. This relaxing part goes leggiero, or lightly, and dies out for the last part.
In Tempo primo, the theme melody in A flat major is played again in dolce armonioso (softly, harmonious). As the melody changes, the piece slowly goes into poco a poco ritenuto (a bit and bit of slowing). After piu smorzando e ritardando, or more disappearing and slowing, the piece has several harmonic chords, and have a peaceful end with a fermata.
I think as Traumerei by Schumann, the piece is peaceful, emotional, and extremely charming…
Traumerei is a piece written by Robert Schumann. It is one of the collection of pieces called Kinderszenen, op.15, which meant ‘scenes from childhood.’ Traumerei meant ‘dreaming,’ and it is famous for its sweetness and calmness of the piece.
It is F major piece, tempo of Moderato. Moderato means ‘medium,’ but in this piece, it is interpreted as slightly slow. The piece start out with F major chords, and then turns to B flat major, which is an usual pattern of melody flow. Then, by going through dominant C chord, the melody repeats. Then, a new chord is introduced, having C sharp, E, and A. With unusual chord development, it returns to dominant chord and repeats the previous melodies again. Some people omit the repeat. After the repeat, the music turns to G minor, and then develops to the previous melody in B flat major. After short melody, B flat major is shifted to d minor, and then returns to C, introducing the theme melody. For the last part of the piece, there is a fermata of subtonic chord of C. After the fermata, the music goes ritardando, with a slight taste of g minor, but soon becomes the ending of F major.
This piece is romantic how the melody is long and dramatic. I think that the music gives extreme emotion of peacefulness and calmness, but not as much as the man who weeps in the video above. The music does not really follow the classical form of tonic-subdominant-subtonic, and free in transitioning and changing chords. Tempo of the music often changes depending on the mood of the notes. I think this piece is able to relieve and ease our mind and soul.
Etudes is a ‘practice piece’ for improving techniques of piano skill. However, during the Romantic Era, composers wanted to ‘show off’ their skills in piano. Chopin composed his own etudes, requiring intense techniques in piano playing. However, Liszt also composed his practice pieces, which was Transcendental Etudes. As the name suggest, those pieces are hard. I too think that Liszt’s etudes are crazy. In this post, I would like to introduce some famous pieces out of 12 etudes.
Mazeppa, Allegro
The piece is an allusion to the figure called Mazeppa. The piece requires extremely rapid ‘jumping’ of hands. It is important how you play the note at the high part, and then shift to the middle of the piano within a second. This piece is especially miserable to the people with small hands. You should able to reach an octave for some parts in the piece.
Feux follets, Allegretto
Liszt showed the playful scene, and I agree how the piece is bright and vivace. Even though the performer looks relaxed, the piece is insane. The piece is overall relaxing with quiet beginning and quiet end, even though your hands get tortured. As I see these kinds of pieces, I really want to see how the composers would have actually played such kind of music.
Wilde Jagd, presto furioso
This is a three-beat piece, starting out ‘wildly.’ This gives me an impression of a prey getting hunted. From c minor, it turns to E flat major, develops, and ends in C major. It is very genius how Liszt inserted four-beat melody in three-beat piece by using the dotted eighth notes. Music does involve mathematics in terms of rhythm and note arrangement.
Appasionata, Allegro agitato molto
Beethoven also had a piece called Appasionata, even though it is not named by himself. Appasionata of Beethoven is sonata no.23, op.57. Interestingly, both Appasionata of Beethoven and Liszt are in f minor. However, Liszt composed as an etude, emphasizing on left hand technique. Left hand should be agile enough to support the melody of the right hand. I really think the piece deserves the name of Appasionata, full of passion in the art.
The performer on this post is Boris Berezovsky, a Russian pianist with great strength. Music is not always a relaxing job.
Etude in music refers to pieces for technic of the individual. In other words, etudes is a ‘practice piece.’ However, Chopin, a romantic composer, showed his poetics of the piano. Chopin’s etudes was his exploration of the resources of the instrument and the potentialities by new (at that time) piano technique. This post will introduce some famous etudes out of 12 etudes op.10 and 12 etudes op.25.
This is often referred as ‘black key’ since the right hand seems to only press black keys on the piano. However, few notes on right hand are white hand. It is interesting how Chopin managed to compose a piece without use of white keys on the melody. Even though Chopin almost only used black keys, the melody is very diverse; it is the genius of the composer.
This is famous as a name ‘revolutionary.’ Chopin composed this piece when he heard his homeland Poland getting invasion. This piece have emphasis on the left hand arpeggio, which has to support the melody of the right hand. At the end, even the chord ends in C major, it seems to be a minor end. Chopin applied the paradox of the major and minor.
This piece is famous for its great difficulty. Right hand requires constant and rapid movement of chords of third degree apart. Even though it looks ‘easy’ on the video, it is extremely hard to press two notes every time with such clarity. Moreover, the piece is in B major, which has 5 sharps, making the music reading even harder.
Often referred as ‘winter wind,’ this piece is interesting that it shows sudden explosion after a quiet introduction. For this piece, it requires the right hand arpeggio to support the left hand melody. Chopin’s genius is shown how he can naturally shift the mood of the piece, even though the major purpose is to enhance the technique in piano.
Composers long time ago, such as Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, were not available in today’s world. Fortunately, we have their written works, which is music scores. Music scores are the only available materials from the composers, and the artists are to interpret the music score. Some people may ask, “Why do people make loads of CD with the same piece? Isn’t them all from same music score?” The ones who will raise this kind of question probably did not have experience with classical music (not as an insult). The reason why for numerous recordings is that interpretations of the pieces are different among the artists. There are differences such as tempo, dynamics, and rhythm in same music. For illustration, refer to the two videos of La Campanella by Franz Liszt.
Since the beginning, the two artists, Evgeny Kissin and Yundi Li, show magnificent differences of their interpretation. While Kissin plays the piece ‘lightly’ and with more vivacity, Li plays it with more weight, having more pedals. As the piece goes on and repeat the theme, the differences are shown more extremely; Kissin have detached notes with liveliness while Li plays more lyrically. At about 1:50 in both videos, while Li have crescendo in ascending scale, Kissin kills the sound. As you listen, you can realize how Li slows in the tempo gradually while Kissin continues his tempo. At the end, Kissin seems to emphasize ‘force’ while Li increases the intensity gradually to the end.
It is never impossible to judge the ‘superiority’ of musicians when they are in at certain level.
Posted by deanl12 
Vivace assai con sempre animato 