Piano Forum

Pages: [1] Go Down

Topic: Dotted rhythms in Chopin and Schumann (Read 2061 times)

frodo3

PS Silver Member
Full Member
Posts: 124

Dotted rhythms in Chopin and Schumann

on: February 24, 2023, 11:51:15 PM

I'm here to be educated by you guys.

I could spend a few hours to research myself, but instead I will rely on your expertise. So I noticed a lot of dotted rhythms in Chopin mazurkas.

The typical "mazur" rhythm is
3/4 time: dotted 8th note, 16th note, quarter note, quarter note

So I see this rhythm throughout the many Chopin mazurkas. I also see this rhythm at the beginning of Schumann's Carnaval op. 9.

Schumann also used dotted rhythms in the finale of his symphonic etudes and in the 2nd movement of his Fantasie op 17 2nd movement. In the case of the Fantasie - he does not use dotted rhythms any more than Beethoven did in his 2nd movement of the op 101 piano sonata. Beethoven also used dotted rhythms throughout his boogie-woogie variation of the sonata no 32 and in other places.

My questions:
1) What other works of Chopin used dotted rhythms besides his many mazurkas?
2) What other works of Schumann used dotted rhythms besides the 3 works I mention?
3) Did Chopin overuse dotted rhythms?
4) Did Schumann overuse dotted rhythms?

Thank you.

Logged

dottedrhythm

PS Silver Member
Newbie
Posts: 1

Re: Dotted rhythms in Chopin and Schumann

Reply #1 on: February 25, 2023, 02:56:38 AM

I'm sure both used dotted rhythms a lot as many composers do. Here are a few that come to mind:

Schumann piano concerto first movement uses dotted rhythms at the beginning and a couple other places in the movement - maybe 5% is dotted rhythm. Also the last movement has sort of a "mazur" rhythm used for a little while except in form of "quarter note, quarter note, dotted 8th note, 16th note" instead of "dotted 8th note, 16th note, quarter note, quarter note".

Chopin uses dotted rhythms in preludes #8 (throughout the entire piece) and preludes #9 and # 20. Also funeral march of 2nd piano sonata. Also Etude #5 opus 25 - except this is in the form of a "scotch snap" instead of standard dotted rhythm.

Logged

lostinidlewonder

PS Silver Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 7839

Re: Dotted rhythms in Chopin and Schumann

Reply #2 on: February 25, 2023, 03:00:08 AM

Lol creating accounts to respond to yourself?

Logged

"The biggest risk in life is to take no risk at all."
www.pianovision.com

mjames

PS Silver Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 2557

Re: Dotted rhythms in Chopin and Schumann

Reply #3 on: February 25, 2023, 11:49:52 AM

The over-use of dotted rhythms in Chopin's mazurkas is excused by his harmonic and melodic ingenuity. There's more creativity and spontaneity in opus 56 and 59 than Schumann's entire ouvre.

Logged

ahinton

PS Silver Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 12149

Re: Dotted rhythms in Chopin and Schumann

Reply #4 on: February 25, 2023, 12:21:34 PM

The "boogie-woogie" passage in the second movement of Beethoven's Op. 111 is not strictly speaking a dotted rhythm.

Perhaps Beethoven's most obsessive use of dotted rhythm is in the Grosse Fuge that closes his Op. 130 string quartet.

The notion that either Schumann or Chopin O/Dd on dotted rhythms in their music has never occurred to me and, now that the topic has been raised, it still doesn't...

Logged

Alistair Hinton
Curator / Director
The Sorabji Archive

frodo4

PS Silver Member
Full Member
Posts: 130

Re: Dotted rhythms in Chopin and Schumann

Reply #5 on: August 15, 2023, 07:27:29 PM

Quote from: ahinton on February 25, 2023, 12:21:34 PM

The "boogie-woogie" passage in the second movement of Beethoven's Op. 111 is not strictly speaking a dotted rhythm.

Perhaps Beethoven's most obsessive use of dotted rhythm is in the Grosse Fuge that closes his Op. 130 string quartet.

The notion that either Schumann or Chopin O/Dd on dotted rhythms in their music has never occurred to me and, now that the topic has been raised, it still doesn't...

ALL excellent points! Thank you. I might add that the Wikipedia article shown below MAYBE includes the boogie-woogie Beethoven example I gave as a dotted rhythm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dotted_note
A pattern using longer notes alternating with shorter notes is sometimes called a dotted rhythm, whether or not it is written as such.

Logged

Sign-up to post reply

Pages: [1] Go Up

For more information about this topic, click search below!