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Topic: Dotted rhythms in Chopin and Schumann  (Read 1189 times)

Offline frodo3

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Dotted rhythms in Chopin and Schumann
on: February 24, 2023, 11:51:15 PM
I'm here to be educated by you guys.  8)  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.

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Offline dottedrhythm

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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. 

Offline lostinidlewonder

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Re: Dotted rhythms in Chopin and Schumann
Reply #2 on: February 25, 2023, 03:00:08 AM
Lol creating accounts to respond to yourself?
"The biggest risk in life is to take no risk at all."
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Offline mjames

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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.


Offline ahinton

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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...
Alistair Hinton
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Offline frodo4

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Re: Dotted rhythms in Chopin and Schumann
Reply #5 on: August 15, 2023, 07:27:29 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.
For more information about this topic, click search below!
 

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