Chopin Ballade 1 op. 23

[sroka]

Right before the presto con fuoco, the piece is in 6/4 time.  But then it changes back to cut time (2/2). 

Why is that? 

Is it because the presto is in recapitulation?  Is there a link between the presto con fuoco and everything leading up to it?  I know that at measure 94, where it is labeled a tempo (meno mosso) this is where the first theme of the ballade is reinstated.  I just want to know why Chopin decides to change meter and what's the musical purpose of it. 

[4greatkeyboards]

I see so far we have no replies to this. Let me just say that I also play  Ballade 1 (and 4).

And I have no idea what the answer to your question is. If people really understood what Chopin knew of music theory we would have more like his music. The masters like him with Rachmaninoff at the foremost never did write down their music theories in text. Only in Etudes. Why was that? I don't know. Do you think they could verbalize it? Why did they not?

I remember Chopin once quipped that Liszt's music "was not music at all" in a theoretical sense.

If someone knows the answer to your question of this thread let them post it now. I also am interested.

[chopin2015]

So it's like a fast valse. it's still chord, bass, chord, bass in the left hand and then bass, chord, bass, chord. like a polka valse.

[kalirren]

I think it moves to cut time at the Presto con fuoco because it stops being a double waltz and starts being a fast dance, like a line dance.

The key difference is subdivision.  In the bulk of the piece before the Presto con fuoco, we have two units of waltz-like triple meter compounded into the measure, and the subdivision of the half-measure into three beats is very important.  At the Presto, the switch to the half-note beat argues for much less emphasis on subdivision entirely.

[steinway43]

Who cares why. Just play the damn thing!

[4greatkeyboards]

Let me just say that I feel that tempo and meter are not central to the composition. I think it is driven by the melodic structure.


That said I also remember how new and strange and appealing Chopin's RUBATO was. Even Liszt commented on it. He said 'it never varied' and that it was like wind blowing through the trees in a forest in that the boughs moved but the trunks never did. This is a qutoe from "The Great Pianists" book.

[j_menz]

Let me just say that I feel that tempo and meter are not central to the composition. I think it is driven by the melodic structure.

The you have a very strange idea of the work, I must say. The way the melodic structure is repeated with different tempi and metres is part of the essential structure of the work.

That said I also remember how new and strange and appealing Chopin's RUBATO was.

Gosh, you must be old! 

[brassica_nigra]

I am studying the first Ballade and agree with the idea that this represents an abrupt change from the walt-like quality of the preceding sections.

Seems likely that Chopin may have wanted to indicate a doubling of the tempo as well which is what cut time means to many musicians.

And what about the ONE - two - ONE - two - beat emphasis that is customary with cut time?  Can't quite make this out as I practice but maybe my ear is just biased by playing it incorrectly too many times, but neither can I make this out in any of the seminal recordings of this piece.