Piano Forum

I'm an amateur trying to learn music theory and ear training by myself, and I've been struggling with Ijzerman's book "Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento" for some time. I tried to learn it one year ago, gave up, and now I'm trying again. Recently I began to identify some schemes in what I play. I can see that they are quite clear in the music of Mozart and Beethoven. But, when they occur in the music of Chopin, they frequently deceive the listener. The schemes are clearly implied, but some notes are simply missing, usually substituted by a chromatic passing tone to the next tone of the scheme. If you are familiarized with the scheme, you can almost hear the missing note! For example, in Chopin's first Ballade, in G minor (attachment 1), there is a clear example of this scheme of Ijzerman's book (attachment 2), but the encircled blue note is not what is expected. Instead of approaching the third degree of the scale from the fourth degree, Chopins surprises us by doing this from the sharp second degree. But you can almost hear the fourth degree! Another example occurs in the second movement of Chopin's Bb minor sonata (attachment 3), that follows this other scheme (attachment 4), but with many missing notes, replaced by chromatic passing tones, marked with a blue circle. Again, if you are familiarized with the scheme, you "hear" the missing notes!

I remember that Charles Rosen's book "The Romantic Generation" begins with the topic "Imagining the sound". Are these excerpts from Chopin's music examples of what he is talking about?