Chopin's cello sonata op.65 in Gm

[il pianista]

As mentioned in the subject I'm practising the piano part of the cello sonata in Gm of Chopin, more specifically the fouth part (final-allegro), and I have some questions about the rhythms...
In the urtext edition of G. Henle Verlag, the comment about measure 53 says following: "In A (autograph), Chopin writes the 16ths in the left hand directly beneath the third notes of the triplets in the right. [...] We argue for simultaneous execution." Unfortunately without graphical support (i.e. the conventional "asynchronous" notation is used), and there's nothing said about similar passages such as 57 and following (triplet 16ths vs. "normal" 16ths and other combinations). I thought listening to recordings would solve the problem, but at an allegro speed (kind of 160bpm) it's quite difficult to hear...
So my question is: how do you deal with those polyrhythms? And if you play them strictly as written, how do you practise them?
Thanks a lot!
Damien

[hkilhamn]

Hi,
I played this sonata last summer, and I have thought a lot on this problem, because it keeps coming up in Chopin and Schumann all the time! I think in the first instance, m.53 and m.55 they should both be triplet rhythms, i.e. come together on the third triplet quaver.  My edition (Peters) actually has triplets in the left hand. In m.57 I have the dotted quaver rhythm, but I still do them like triplets. It makes more sense musically, it just feels wrong to do an extra dotted rhythm instead of just keeping the flow with triplets. Although it's not that big a deal when we can't hear it in a fast tempo like this. It's gonna be a 16th note and it's gonna be an upbeat and there's not a lot of room for different versions of it...
 
Another example of this in a completely different musical context is Bach's Jesu, Joy of man's desiring. A played an arrangement of it in a chamber music trio, and we had a discussion if the second violin part (in the original) was to be played like normal dotted rhythm as the score says or if it should be triplets together with the first violin. I think triplets sounds nicer here too - it makes the melody sound as one entity with two voices, not two different things.
 
Hope my thought helps you and good look with the Chopin, fantastic piece!

[il pianista]

Hi hkilhamn,

thanks for your reply, it brought some enlightenment... I was too much looking at differences between the rhythms (why this here and not there and what did Chopin mean by it etc.) and I didn't see the wood for the trees. By the way, I've heard too about the same problem with Schumann (although not yet seen it myself).

Another question (as you've already played the sonata): what fingering do you use in 55 (similar passage 135)? The fingering of the editor mainly reads 5-1-5/2-5/3-etc., while I often miss that double 5 at a higher speed. And how to play the first 2 beats of 84 at high speed remains a mystery to me...

Thank you for your help!

And by the way, it is indeed a fantastic piece - if you can play it! But it reveals a rather unknown part of Chopin, what makes it even more difficult to play...

[quantum]

It was a notational convention in Chopin's day that the dotted-eighth--sixteenth was a shortcut for a  triplet quarter-eighth.  This is usually the case when the dotted rhythm was combined with triplets in another voice.