Chopin - Nocturne Op. Post: Lento con gran expressione in C# minor

[chopinthemaestro]

Hello.

I am new to this forum but I hope to learn a lot from all of the contributors on here.

I have started to really appreciate Chopin's music and in particular, I adore this piece which is sublime music!!

The recording that I have of this piece is played by Daniel Barenboim and it is his interpretation that I know very well as I have listened to it many times.

Anyway, recently I started listening to others' interpretations on you-tube as I wanted to see the variations in phrasing etc of this delightful piece.

What I came across, was quite astonishing!!  It seems that up to 50% of the people on there play a different note to Barenboim. I do not know which exact bar this occurs because I do not have the music for this piece but in fact after the intro. part which is repeated, it is in the next section when the music moves from C# minor chord to C# major before moving to well, there in is the discrepancy.......Barenboim plays in the left hand F# as the lower note of the notes played whereas some others seem to play D# as being the lower note which I have to say seems very odd to me    but then again I am used to hearing Barenboim's interpretation with the F# rather than the D# so I guess it is difficult for me to be objective about it. 

Does anyone know how this discrepancy has arisen?? Does anyone know what Chopin actually wanted in his original score of the piece or was the fact that is was published posthumously a factor which has resulted in this discrepancy?

I don't know how but I think it would great to have a poll on this point to see if there is a majority of people that favour one note over the other?

I am not sure how this is done but perhaps someone could help me set up a voting system as I am curious to know whether I am the only person to whom D# sounds incorrect and F# sounds that it belongs in the piece.

I would be interested to hear others' opinions on this point!

Best Regards   

[pianisten1989]

The only thing is to get the music yourself (Get the Paderewzki edition) and look for it yourself. Uhm... otherwise, ask your teacher/anyone who knows. If that doesn't work (like if different persons different answers), play what you think is the best. =)

[cygnusdei]

D# F# A C# is a half-diminished chord.

I've only seen two scores in person; the Mikuli edition (Dover), and the Henle urtext edition. They are almost identical, and both have the half-diminished chord.

Other passages in this Nocturne also suffer from notational discrepancies among extant recordings.

[alessandro]

That is a fine question.
In a recent Henle edition that I have, two versions of this Nocturne are published one after the other.  There are differencies, but mainly in notation.  The differences I'm thinking of is a # in fourth and third last bar (at the end), a sign that is put in between crochets (#) which I only can understand as "it's up to you, dear musician, you can play it with or without".  And indeed, it is playable with or without, but musically it gives a slightly other difference in meaning.  This nocturne, as many of the nocturnes, has a certain tristesse, melancoly, to it.  Since it's a 'Posthumous' one, I can't avoid thinking at Chopin's death, or that he considered it somewhat 'worthless' since it only has been published after his death; it could be that he wasn't totally satisfied with the piece, he maybe worked a long time on it, put it aside, reworked, put it aside, never got totally satisfied with it and finally died.  So there probably had to be dealt with what we could call a very advanced sketch, a work far in progress but never truly finished or edited...  But inevitably, there is this subjective death in it.  I do not pretend that this Nocturne speaks about death, I don't think it was Chopin's intention to 'speak' about death, at least not in this particular Nocturne.  Now I would like to make a little side step to a Walz of Chopin, Walz number 34/2.  It is a deeply sad piece of music.  So sad, so pessimistic, so tragical, fatal, so black.  Even within the piece itself there is this sort of "non-music" and it is ending totally "down", "at the bottom of everything", nothing expanding, not something 'universe'-like, but deep in the ground, where there's no light anymore, no sound.  Even in this Walz we can here some attempts to be joyfull, but they fail every time.  And then suddenly this very sad "Do", that change of key, so "out of hope".  Again an attempt for happiness but nope, nothing to do.  The sadness and hopelessnes is the winner...  I do not think that this Walz at one point can be played like a Walz, it is never a Walz and it never becomes one.  Only the introduction could eventually be seen as attempt to become a Walz.  In the Nocturne Posthumous, I can also hear sadness, less 'thick liquid' than in the Walz, but there are, surely at the end with these I don't know the correct word in English three rolls of note (arpeggio's ?) up and downwards, that give a lot of air in the end.  But first things first.  It is lento, starts with a kind of heavy, prologue, not really an introduction but really a moodsetter.   Makes me think of 'the end', it is also fatal.  And than strangely, a repetition of that intro.  It should be played differently, but in such a way that it is not a very different thing, but just an other attempt that gives no immediate result, no 'answer', that tells nothing about what will follow.  Then things go slowly, higher...  and higher...  but... - what do we expect ? - the first part swoons down, goes deep down, with a cramp, to end, well not end totally but definitely change.  We could go in a lot more detail for this first part but let's skip to the 'at first hearing' nice second part.  Almost delightful, one could almost dance to this part, "there is some fun once in a while, but is this really the fun we should believe in and stick to ?".  It is an interrupting fun, moody, is it trustworthy ?, weren't we kind of down and dreamy in the first part, I'd rather prefer (what is typical for a depression) stick to that mood, I was better in and over there...   Now the delightfull part fades away, in those repetition of triolets', second part dies away and then lifts of away to end with, in my opinion, one of the most light notes in pianoliterature.  "Light" in the meaning of light like a far away tinkling star, but also very light as opposed to heavy and not infinitely ppp but just that audible like an impossible marriage of velvet and crystal...  Ah there again, that theme, the repetition of that theme, we'll play it a little bit more piano than the first time, to accentuate the factor of 'reminiscence', maybe it is talking about regrets.  Finally, the three - allow me to call it - rolls to end in the last four bars with what is clearly - and now we come to the topic - different from one edition to the other.  The (#).   This piece, in opposition to the Walz, doesn't end in total air- and blackness, but leaves a little air, and puts a slightly smiling end to the experience. One can die with a slight smile on its face.  In one version you 'could' (you're not obliged) play the # immediately after that last very 'delicatissimo' roll and let slip in positiveness right away, then there is a more totally positive end.  But that could be in my eyes a little grotesque.  I prefer to play the # only in the last bar, so you let 'hear' delicately, subtly a glance of positiviness, it just changes mood so little, less drastical then the first option, and let slip in positiveness only at the utter and very end. 
So up to you to choose !
Good luck.

[alessandro]

I just would like to add the information in the preface of the Nocturnes, Henle Verlag edition 1980...

"...three of the twenty-one Nocturnes, as is the case with works in other forms, were only published, contrary to Chopin's express wishes, after his death in 1849...  The editorial principles which have been applied derive from the method followed in the preceding volumes, according to which, when several sources were available, a uniform "source-layer", as one may call it, was, as far as possible, taken as a basis.  This basis can often be established by the conformity of certain definite criteria (such as the engraver's annotations, the publisher's numbers, etc.) between the autograph and one of the first editions published in one or the other country.  In the absence of autographs, an attempt was made at ascertaining, from biographical notes, letter extracts, etc. with what publisher the composer at the period in question happened to be most closely associated.  By adopting this method it was found possible in certain cases to draw conclusions regarding the authenticity of the first editions published by that firm.  Besides manuscripts and first editions... editions of Mikuli and Paderewski, as well as the Oxford Edition, were likewise always consulted...  The posthumous nocturne in c#minor (KK IVa Nr. 16) exists in the form of an autograph, several manuscript copies..., a first edition, and an early impression.  There is an interesting passage in the autograph in which the time-signature of the right hand is 3/4 and that of the left hand 4/4.  The other sources - which by the way are more fully marked than the autograph - retain in this passage the time-signature for both hands.  In comparison to the natural rythmic flow of the Chopin line, this reading seems more constrained however, and one gains the impression that copyists and publishers, not being quite sure of the then rather unuasual feature of a different time-signature for each hand, sought for this very reason to provide independent solutions..."

Further on in the preface...
"...The signs in brackets are not found in the sources, but it would appear that they were omitted therefrom by some oversight only..."

So, after have given you a little bit of my view of the Nocturne maybe this has helped to understand why there are different printed versions of that Nocturne.