Chopin's Barcarolle - but what with??

[paulonaise]

I have recently learned Chopin's Barcarolle and have intentions of performing it in local music festival recital classes where typically the format is a 15-minute programme with at least two contrasting works.

Having spent many months absorbed in Barcarolle and experiencing it all depths and musical qualities I am left wondering how to accompany it with another shorter (maybe 5 minute piece) that contrasts and complements but still leaves its to stand in all its lyrical beauty.

Any suggestions gratefully received.

[general disarray]

I have recently learned Chopin's Barcarolle and have intentions of performing it in local music festival recital classes where typically the format is a 15-minute programme with at least two contrasting works.

Having spent many months absorbed in Barcarolle and experiencing it all depths and musical qualities I am left wondering how to accompany it with another shorter (maybe 5 minute piece) that contrasts and complements but still leaves its to stand in all its lyrical beauty.

Any suggestions gratefully received.

I'm sorry that your reasonable request has been overlooked until now.

The "Barcarolle" is problematical.  It's a stupendous composition.  I've been working on it for the first time this past month and it strikes me as being nothing less than a miracle.

First of all, it's "water music," a Venetian boat song, but its powerful climax, to me, is almost funereal.  Complex suspensions crowd upon one another, building up nearly to the point of harmonic dissolution until the theme sounds, to me, quite grief-stricken.  But then, in the coda, Chopin moves from his Bacchian/Tragic mode into his Apollonian one, evoking resignation of the noblest sort.  There's nothing like it in the repertoire.

If I only had one piece to preface it with, I'd choose Ravel and, particularly, "Une barque sur l'ocean" from "Miroirs."  The piece is over 7 minutes, but it's "water music" and very evocative and predicative of the journey that the "Barcarolle' completes.

Just my idea.  Best wishes for your final choice.   

[Alde]

Bach and Mozart always seem to go well with Chopin.

[sh4j9fp5]

I have played it after Pagodes by Debussy - both of them are sort of dreams, Debussy never saw Japan, Chopin never visited Venice. Besides, I think the Barcarolle is a piece of tremendous erotic tension, the sexiest music I know together with Wagner's Tristan and Liszt's Mephisto Waltz. Good luck!

[paulonaise]

Thanks very much for these thoughts I am find it a fascinating exercise listening to great performers playing some of these pieces (Ravel & Debussy) immediately followed by great performances of Barcarolle (e.g. Rubinstein).

I had thought about Bach or Mozart too but I just wasn't sure where to start.

Someone else, in face to face discussion, had suggested something early English, Purcell, Bryd or Orlando Gibbons but I am not very familiar with music of this period.

[ramseytheii]

All the pieces people have suggested have one thing in common (or really two things): they are all filigree pieces, pieces which show off fantastical and beautiful runs of the finger (or, to put it another way, they are all related to Chopin's work).  If you really want something that contrasts, play some pieces of Schumann, Medtner, or Prokofiev. Play Messiaen or Schoenberg. The pieces suggested are all wonderful, though slightly predictable, and frankly are not a true contrast.


Walter Ramsey

[general disarray]

Besides, I think the Barcarolle is a piece of tremendous erotic tension, the sexiest music I know together with Wagner's Tristan and Liszt's Mephisto Waltz. Good luck!

Yes indeedy, it is!  The "Tristan" comparison is perfect -- Wagner and Chopin here both seem to tap into Freud's notion of Eros and Thanatos.  Sex and Death.  Whoopee.