Pre-concert - Schumann Kinderszenen n°1/Chopin Ballade 4

[suterd7]

Hello there ! I am new here, and I would love to hear some critical opinions on my playing. I am an advanced amateur pianist, and I am especially interested in developing "story-telling" abilities for the pieces I attack. Here I share one recording I did at home, for the first piece of the Kinderszenen by Schumann, followed by the 4th Chopin Ballade. Let me know what you think !

[essence]

i have only listened to a little bit, but in both pieces, particularly the Chopin, you need to have greater continuity and flow and cut out almost all the rits. try singing it.

Particularly opening bars of chopin, it is an introduction, it should be beautiful but not too emotional.

I found this video instructive the other day.

[suterd7]

Thanks a lot for your reply ! Criticism well-taken  , I think I see from which type of esthetics you come from. But I feel really far from that kind of school - I mean this is not at all how I see this piece. I don't think this is supposed to be fluid and continuous like you say - again only my opinion - but to me I see this as a tragic story-telling, very intimate and somehow disruptive piece - Chopin had just lost two of his best friends at that time, one from tuberculosis (!). To me making it very singing can sound beautiful, but - in my opinion - this does not align with the darkness of the whole piece - so I am not doing this on purpose. Same for Schumann, especially with the repetitions, some form of narrative is highly needed.

[essence]

I have been listening to and playing the ballade for about 60 years, and certainly telling a story is key. What story?

The opening is in major key, it is very tricky to follow all Chopin's dynamic markings - but it is like a film with time mixed up. Maybe like 'Once upon a time in America' where, in some versions, it starts with the ending?

Those opening bars, to me, look back at the happy times. The joyful times.

Then one is plunged into the f minor melody. There should be a quite different feel.

The happy time returns, intertwined with the melancholy, at what I regard as the emotional climax in bar 125 and follwig. A remembrance of past loves.

When I say singing, I dont just mean projecting the melody - I mean phrasing it the way a singer would. A singer does not stop/start all the time.

[essence]

From bar 8, look at the phrasing marks Chopin gives. It lasts from bar 8 to bar 10. Yet you split it into two phrases. Why? You are contravening what Chopin wrote, and for the listener it is frustrating.

My Paderewski edition conforms, I understand, closely to Chopin's intentions.

[suterd7]

Yeah I see what you mean - nice way to describe the Ballade. And I understand your point. I just don't feel like "singing" is always how a piano should sound, especially in these (many) passages written mezza voce, it is more like murmuring. I hear many playing these passages very loud, I just cannot reconciliate this with what Chopin wrote. Again this is just my opinion ! Also if I may, I think it is essential to listen to the full interpretation to understand what the interpreter has to say - I mean take 4 great pianists, say Argerich, Richter, Zimmermann, and Pollini, listen to their first bars of the 4th Ballade, it will come out completely differently for each of them...but without listening to the whole piece, it is impossible to understand their narrative.
Concerning the phrasing you mention, in fact I am not splitting anything, just playing the repeated motif differently. The legato is maintained as Chopin wrote. When repeating a motif, one should never play it the same I think. Either one insists on it, or one reflects on it. I chose the second. Was inspired by a Master Class from Murray Perahia for this.

[essence]

i agree the first time the melody appears it should be a murmur. Chopin marks it as mezza voce. It is the initial story of the lover, spoken in soft reverence.

I'm sorry, you do split the phrase. You have a massive rit in the middle of bar 9. It is not the repeat of a motif, it is one long motif.

Let me check the pianists you mention.

The good thing is this all inspired me to play the piece just now, helped along by my grandson who seemed to want to join in randomly (he is 3 years old).

[essence]

Listening to the Perahia masterclass. I agree with most of what he says. He does not in any way put in arbitrary rits. Rubato depends on a good firm pulse.

He says what my link says about the opening.

One thing the student does in the opening pages is to slightly rush the semiquavers.

Remember, when the melody starts, you are gong on a journey. You are not looking around for your boots and coat.

The recording I grew up with and influenced me was Moisiewitsch

[suterd7]

Cute that your grandson is joining  ! Listening to others I do agree that I wait a bit more between the two iteration of this double motif than others - but somehow I just feel like even though I could do many things better, I would still stick to that if I had to redo it. And I found some greats who are even "worse" than me  ! This one by Cherkassky is quite interesting - very slow, and with a lot of freedom.

1
Anyway, let's not split too many hairs on split phrases
Thanks for the link to the recording, I will listen to it !

[suterd7]

Very interesting interpretation ! I never heard someone play these double notes around 6:50-7:00, this is new to me. Also it seems to me that he takes a lot of freedom from the score with the pedaling and the nuances, but it comes out as truly original and convincing.

[essence]

'Others' do not have any wait in the middle of the phrase at all!

Cherkassky i normally admire but not convinced by this Chopin. Maybe he takes longer to get out of the initial dream.

The double notes are not of course Chopin.

Maybe we are talking about the difference between tempo elasticity and actual rits.? Anyway, carry on, you have a lifetime to investigate your own interpretation.

[essence]

Let me get back to it again - grandson has been taken to the park so will not disturb me.

BTW when I played this in a masterclass the teacher advised me to play the repeated notes without fully raising the key - this gave a lot more control and expressive possibilities and legato.

Also, like you, I am a keen amateur, wish others would add their two cents here.

[suterd7]

Yeah I also do this for the repeated notes, this indeed helps a lot for continuity of the phrasing.
Concerning the rubato vs splitting, I don't know...to me it is hard in the end, because I see your point that breaking it can be disturbing and it should certainly not be a complete break like between two sentences - there it would go against what Chopin wrote - but still when just playing the whole thing very continuously makes it hard for me to construct a narrative, and at least from my side I find this sentence boring when just going from one motif to the next same one like if the melody was moving somewhere else (many greats do this...and I just don't feel it...) One way or another, I feel the need to underline that the second motif carries a different weight, and waiting a little bit, without fully splitting the sentence like you would do between two sentences, can convey this. I guess Cherkassky may overdo it a bit but I also like that he is really telling a story here.

Concerning masterclasses, my feeling as I am growing older is the following. I did quite a few of these, and I got a lot out of it, but one thing I really dislike in retrospect is the kind of almost religious respect one had to display for whatever the "Master" says, whether or not it fully contradicts what the previous Master said ! In my professional life as a scientist, we spend our time respectfully disagreeing with each other, Nobel prize-carrying or simple student, and this is totally fine - everything is about the argument, not who makes it. I wish I would have seen more of this open-mindedness when I was a musical student - because at the end of the day I think nobody really knows what Chopin would have thought of how people play him today.

My favorite pianist is Radu Lupu. When he did not like something about a recording he made, he could not simply "insert" an improved part, because he felt the whole piece makes a full narrative that you tell from A to Z. I really like that idea - separate parts of a piece are meaningless in the absence of the whole context.

[essence]

i also am originally a scientist, theoretical physicist, who moved on to technical software.

Interesting you mention Radu Lupu - someone I also admire.

A story. Check out this this:

I studied this piece with a teacher at the Guildhall school of music in London before going up to Cambridge. I did the slight pause thing, and he wrote a big arrow in my score to keep it moving. I had not realised I was doing the pausing/rit. thing.

Nobody would say Radu Lupu is not phrasing, but the beat is firm and constant, with some elasticity at times.

[liszt-and-the-galops]

I've never really understood the obsession with making a piano "sing" outside of pieces in the "Brillant" style (e.g. Czerny, Hummel, Field, early Chopin, etc.) or in passages marked "cantabile," "bel canto," or something along those lines.

Perhaps this deserves a separate thread, but honestly, I don't get that style of writing at all. Beethoven satirized it about eight years before Chopin (its most well-known advocate) was even born. Most of the composers who wrote in that style (Carl Czerny and Henri Herz, to give two examples) have been dismissed as "empty" maximalists, and when they wrote stuff like this it's hard to disagree (both of these pages are from the second movement of Czerny's Op. 268 Sonata no. 10).


What I don't really understand is why early Chopin seems to have avoided this fate. Especially in his early works there's not much that separates him from the likes of Czerny and Hummel.

He did mostly outgrow this style of writing and plenty of his pieces are still masterworks, but honestly I don't get why his earlier works are often placed on the same pedestal.

To get back to "story telling" with music, IMO Alkan is one of the very best composers in this area. Though his more well-known works (e.g. Concerto for Solo Piano) are certainly... not very accessible, pieces like Op. 31 Preludes no. 8 and the latter two movements of his Op. 33 Grande Sonate are much less challenging and still are incredible pieces of pianistic storytelling.

[suterd7]

Thanks Liszt and the gallops, very interesting - I was not aware of Beethoven making fun of this. I think it is really an interesting aspect of piano music, I mean typically for Schubert's music one has the feeling (and this is also stemming from his own musical upbringing) that everything can be sung - and maybe this is how it should sound on the piano for most of his work. But I also believe the piano is so more than that - it can sing for sure, but also whisper, shout, etc. Given what we know about Chopin's playing and character, I think there is certainly room for different types of voicing.
Also the story-telling itself is something I almost never heard about during my studies, and of course it may also be debatable whether this is always the right spirit. I mean for Bach, Mozart, not so sure...but somehow from Beethoven on until the end of Romantics (Debussy and others are yet another story) I feel like this is a valid take on music to approach pieces as stories - even though many of these stories are not concrete but rather purely emotional journeys.
I still vividly remember my piano teacher saying (and this was at the level of professional students...) how Rubinstein was the absolute model and Horowitz was to be avoided at all costs. At the time I diligently consented, but now I think this is absolutely horrid. I mean at the end of the day, they both play very compellingly, and to me this is what makes music interesting. If everyone would play like Rubinstein, well what is the point, let's just listen to his recordings then... And also I think that whatever the interpretation is, one always somehow compromises something - I mean I am not sure it is possible to render the beauties, ambiguities and depth of the whole piece to reach kind of an ultimate interpretation. I think this is an illusion, and a dangerous one. When you listen to interviews of many of the greats, what comes out of it is often their admiration for completely different types of playing, seeing how each brings something different to the table. I also love when I see them constantly doubting - which contrasts with the dogmatism I sometimes experienced at Conservatories - and nicely fitting the famous quote from Bertrand Russell.
OK - end of my erring thoughts.

[essence]

Just to clarify - there is a difference between 'make the piano sing the melody' and 'use your voice to sing the melody, as an experiment'. I was talking about the latter, and it can be useful to play around with different vocal phrasings.

The voice is the finest instrument, and singers are well trained in phrasing.

Take the following - my favourite performance of my favourite song. Lots of small repetitions, but the line continues. The repetitions have differences in tone.

See how Moore phrases around 1:35, with a slight slowing, completely at one with the singer.

To take another claire de lune (which I know you know)

Pires keeps a firm beat. As you know the notated rhythm is not obvious to a listener, so it is important the pianist communicates it.

On the other hand, the 'emotional' performance is dreadful. No idea where the beat is. Pedalling is poor. Sudden rushes. Too painful for me to listen to the end.

[essence]

ps. I wish a few more here would make some comments. I feel exposed!

[essence]

Sorry, only just listened to Cherkassky - he is one of my favourites too.

But somehow he manages to keep the line, just, whereas I don't think you do. It is a combination of phrasing, rubato and tone.

Of course, Cherkassky is a high bar. Impossible.

[suterd7]

Look, I don't want to be harsh, but I think at some point you may stop hammering your point. While I am certainly not a concert pianist, as you may have understood earlier on I disagree with you on your point of criticism. Again there are many things to improve in my interpretation, but in the view of the story I want to tell this is not one of them. "Breaking the line" is highly subjective, and I don't hear it (and neither did the many people who heard me play this in concert). You hear it, fine, but I don't, and there is no one "right" or "wrong" here - continuity in musical phrasing is not an objective entity - as you are a physicist, you may even look at the sound spectrum of that part, and I don't think you will find it shockingly split... also sorry, but you may understand it is a bit weird to be hammered with criticism about a nanosecond split from someone who has listened to 45 secs of an 10-minute recording.
And finally, in terms of "respecting the score", you posted your reference recording earlier on, and this pianist (while I don't dislike his interpretation), is widely "disrespecting" the score, to a level way beyond waiting a nanosecond between two parts of a phrase. I mean adding notes, wildly pedaling, nuances sometimes widely off, etc. So you don't like the way I am "splitting" the phrase, I am fine with it ! But hammering this as "wrong" is, in my view, out of place in an artistic discussion, whoever famous professor taught you about phrasing.

[essence]

Sory if I have been too persistent ! I had an organ teacher once who for the first 2 month complained about my playing of a single note.

I am a mediocre amateur pianist.

If I hadn't struggled myself with these issues for 50 years, and if it wasn't ballade #4, I would not have bothered.

What does bother me is that few others on this forum contributed and made a useful discussion. What is the point of the forum if it ends up as 2 person exchange?

I think a specific topic on Ballade #4 and different interpretations should be something which generates a wide interest and would be extremely useful.

The way Cherkassky holds on to the very first note is illuminating.

BTW, I have never said your playing is 'wrong'. Maybe you have had some teachers who used that unhelpful term?

Thank you for provoking me to study this piece again.