Mickiewicz poems and Chopin ballades

[pianobabe56]

How do you feel about the assigning of certain Mickiewicz poems to the Chopin ballades (Konrad Wallenrod = First Ballade; Switez = Second Ballade; Switizianka = Third Ballade; Pan Budri = Fourth Ballade)?

Schumann wrote, "He [Chopin] told us then how he was prompted to his ballades by poems of Mickiewicz."

This statement, however, concerned only the Second Ballade. Do you think the ensuing connection between Mickiewcz's other poetry and other Chopin Ballades is valid (as supported by Alfred Cortot and Robert Basadesus)?

And does anyone know where I could find these poems?

[pianonut]

i once found a really great site on the internet.  it was polish and had been translated into english.  i gave the whole article to my teacher, carl cranmer.  i'll try to find it again.  try typing mickiewicz and chopin or something like that.  look for polish site (language).  this article was really long, and really great!

[pianonut]

ok  i found it.  in the Polish Music Journal.  the site:

www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/PMJ/issue/2.1.99/zakrzewska_bbl.html

scroll down and click on Article's text.  there's lots of info.

[pianonut]

theres some good 'liner notes' also under:

www.bluegriffinrecording.com/component/page.shop.flypage/product_id.20/option.com_phpshop/Itemid.2/

you have to scroll down quite a bit

[pianobabe56]

Thank you so much! These look great! 

[pianonut]

you're welcome!  that 2nd ballade is really hard.  i wonder if chopin had a connection with the poem Switez because he wished that some of his polish hometowns (and people) had simply suddenly vanished instead of having to endure such pain and hardship.  it made life easier for him to think about this with the poem.  a prayer that would turn a town into a lake with beautiful water lilies.  this seems to be about war.  where noone would ever know what happened on the earth at a certain spot because of the beauty above.

if you have to write a paper, or something, i would do a comparison of what chopin had gone through (losing his family) and the sudden devastation (which reminds me of the middle section of the ballade - and corresponds to the russian invasion of the poem) and final ensuing dreaming of chopin for the way it was before.  little memories here and there - yet something else permanently taking it's place.

[steinwayguy]

ythat 2nd ballade is really hard.

Duh.

[pianobabe56]

What a cunning display of wit, and a barely-disguised attempt to boost a post count with minimal effort!  Way to go, SteinwayGuy!

[dinosaurtales]

Duh.

I simply MUST know how you do the big letters.  They would come in so handy at times, like your post above, for example!

[rodrk352]

      Back on the subject of the 2nd ballade....
      (Personal Recap)
      I started tackling the 2nd ballade a few weeks ago and it is still giving me fits.
      The article by the Polish scholar was... (what shall we say?) confusing. I'll take a closer look some other time and try to parse those complex sentences.
        When she says the AABA rhyme scheme is mirrored in the opening bars, well, right now my opinion is not "duh!" but more like "huh?'. Has Chopin ever translated another rhyme scheme into music? Or is this the only example she could find? And are there examples of any other composer writting a piece of music that mimics the rhyming pattern of  an "ode," or a "sonnet," for example? I'm scratching my head. She give extensive proofs for her opinion, and she's the scholar, and Polish too. But I think the content of the poem, and not it's form was the primary inspiration for Chopin. She's being much too analytical.
      And when she describes the "diabolical waltz" near the end, that doesn't sound right in my interpretation. But she's got the poem right in front of her, I guess. Sounds more anguished than "diabolical."
     She is right about the first theme sounding like a Sicilian tune. It always seemed to me like a German landler. Scarlatti has a Siciliana in one of his sonatas, and they both have a similar character.

[pianonut]

i agree with you about the content of the poem and not exact words.  it's sometimes helpful to put your own version or your own words to parts (to get through difficult memory sections).  listening to it over and over must help the memory part, too. 

steinway guy, please forgive my simple statements at times.  i started working on it last year (when i first saw it - i thought my teacher was trying to get rid of me).  then he showed me some cool tricks to playing that middle section, and other parts.  i took on other pieces and somehow lost interest in it before performance ready, but it is 'in my fingers' to relearn better.  it is truly a bravura piece.  very sad, very romantic, and very descriptive.