Chopin Etude op.10 N.6

[quasimodo]

Said to be the easiest Chopin etude but already a challenge for me.
23 more to go!

[rachfan]

Hi quasimodo,

You've made a very good start in performing this etude, but it still needs more polish to bring it up to performance level.  You do a nice job in etching the cantabile melody, and where there are chords in the RH, you voice the top notes well.  These are important elements in playing this piece.

The main objective of this etude (because it features constant passing and neighboring tones in the accompaniment) is the cultivation of finger legato to play  cantabile (foreground) in the RH and with a delicate touch in the LH (background).  The LH figuration needs to be little quieter too.  For that reason, the etude is meant to be played with virtually NO pedal for clarity, except for light touches in a couple of places.  Using pedal with this pieces casts a haze over it making it sound more like Debussy, which is to be avoided.  The sonics of your recording, unfortunately, aren't great.  Is it a PC or laptop mic recording?  It's hard to discern exactly what you're doing or not doing with the pedal.  Maybe you could discuss that a bit here?

A few points: Going into measure 5, you have a RH tonal leap up to the E flat.  Recall, this is a cantabile.  No soprano could possibly attain that note as fast as you're playing it on the piano right now.  A singer pauses ever so slightly to prepare for a leap like that.  So likewise, where piano imitates the human voice in this instance, you need to make a subtle delay before taking that E flat.

Measure 13: The last four 16ths in the RH (and there are more of those figures) should not be rushed, but played a bit leisurely to make them more lyrical.

In the chromatic bridge section starting at measure 29 on the way to the reprise, you have some wrong note fluffs in there starting down around 32 or there abouts.  Some additional practice should iron that out and give you more confidence in executing that section. 

Measure 39: You don't really spend the smorzato, or a dying away effect there.  Although it actually starts at the very beginning of 39, you merely play a very brief ritardando in the last few notes of measure 40.  You should really make more of the smorzato.

Again, I think you've got the general feel of the piece and have brought it along quite well.  You just need to refine it a bit more.

I hope this helps.   

 

[soupman]

Urtext version has a D natural before the last key change (Bar 28).
Scholtz has it as a Db, as does the Mikuli edition (Schirmer) and
the Freidheim edition (Schirmer). That's 3 votes to 1 for Db.
I don't count, but I like the Db too
Any scholar out there have any definitive insight?

[rachfan]

Hi soupman,

I don't consider myself a scholar, but I'd like to offer a response anyway, if that's OK.

In the well-regarded Paderewski Edition, that note is indicated as a D# being governed by the key signature still in effect and the absence of any accidental in this particular edition.  (I play the D#.) The editorial board (Paderewski, Bronarski and Turczynski) primarily studied the composer's manuscripts, the original French edition (H. Lemoine) and the original German edition (F. Kistner).  They also consulted the editions by Mikuli (Kistner), Klindworth (Bote & Bock), Scholtz (Edition Peters), Bulow (Universal Edition), Riemann (Steingraber), Pugno (Universal Edition), Brugnoli (Ricordi) and the venerable Urtextausgabe (Breitkopf & Hartel).  So they looked at many "votes" and evidently the D# prevailed.  They definitely saw the D natural option in the original French edition (more on that in a moment) and very likely must have seen as well the D flat option in Mikuli, and if so, apparently were not swayed by it, despite Mikuli's having been a student of Chopin (as was Klindworth).  

Here is their commentary on the note based primarily on the manuscript, the German edition and structural analysis of the passage in the score in order to justify the probable correct note being a D#:

"Before the last semiquaver of this bar the French edition puts a natural, which is not in the manuscript or German edition.  Although this version produces a smoother link with the figure in the next bar, it conflicts with the structural principle of this figure, in which the penultimate note (which is the same as the first) and the last note in each group of six semiquavers are harmonic notes."

So in other words, changing the note to a D natural (or the D flat you mention) would have made the note melodic, thus placing it out of context with the same last note--which serves a harmonic function--in the previous group of 16th notes, and, as well, out of context with all the other similar measures for the very same reason.  While the voice leading value of a D flat is intriguing, there are also the same precedents in the score to consider in reaching for a justification for change.

One of the problems with these variances, which run rampant in Chopin editions, is that unlike Liszt, for example, who was very meticulous in examining his publisher's proofs, Chopin, obversely, was most often casual, cursory and careless about it.  Thus there are many errors and unauthorized changes.  Look at the debate for generations over the E or E flat in the third measure of Chopin's Prelude Op. 28, No. 20 in Cm! The second issue is the value of penciled changes of notes by Chopin in Mikuli's (or Klindworth's) scores entered during lessons.  The unanswerable questions are: 1) where these legitimate corrections of misprinted notes in the score (due to Chopin's inattentiveness in reviewing, correcting, and approving publishers' proofs)?, or 2) was Chopin actually "re-composing" in the moment and on the spot, as he simply discovered a sound he liked even better, yet did not formally notify his publisher of the revision(s) for future reprintings?  I imagine it's a difficult conundrum to unravel, even for musicologists.    

I hope this is helpful.

[soupman]

Thanks! That is definitely very worthwhile insight. Also, in my haste I actually incorrectly said Db and I meant D#. (Sorry, my mistake, but then that proves my own non-scholar status).
The D natural can probably be argued because of the interesting angular harmonies that come in the next few bars. (But I think the D natural is almost a little bebop sounding too, lol).  D sharp is the solution for me, thanks again!