How Frédéric Chopin Played J.S.Bach

hello there and welcome to a new episode here in which I'm not sitting in front of my clavicle today but in front of my ear our 1866 piano and that has a reason and the reason is that this the topic of this video is about a 19th century edition of Buck Walton politically fear well-tempered clavier that was sold a few years ago and now you might say what's the thing about a 19th century edition that's being sold a few years ago well listen to this that copy of buck belonged to Pauline jazz Darin a totally unknown name to me and I guess also to you but Pauline was a student of Frederic Chopin so that copy belonged to her as a student of Chopin she on her turn by the way was a teacher of Cosima list and caused him a list you know that's the daughter of Liz she married first to Hansen below then she got a divorce and she married to Richard wagon so important enough that connection but the most important thing is about that addition that in that copy of the Bach work of Bach posturepedic Livia our annotations in the hand of Frederic Chopin and not just a few there are really extensive very detailed annotations in frédéric Chopin's hand written in pencil and why he has done that and what exactly has written that's really worth our time so stay here with me for a few minutes because I promise this will be an exciting episode first off if you wonder what the clavichord guy has to do with the music of friedrich Chopin you might be interested to know that a few years ago actually a few decades ago around the year 2000 I've played intensively this piano this Iranian is a beautiful piano and I've devoted much of my time back then to the music of Chopin I've played literally almost every solo work of Shaba unfortunately there was not such a thing as YouTube I do have many rehearsal recordings still and she also recorded a one CD recording at a time which I never released I was a little bit shy back then I'm still am but I guess really I am but I am just better in hiding that but I never released that CD because it had also it contained all so many elements related to temper research that I still do today so I think the releasing that CD at that time would be a big shock as it probably would be today there is on my channel I will link it here almost a full CD of that recording and so you can listen to that is only not included as the opening piece of the city which is the Opus 10 number one with a famous C major attitude offshore bear and I think still today that would be a shock to many people to listen to that in what I believe also is Porsha Banda metrical use of the metronome so but that's another topic maybe we will dive into that in the future but there is another reason also why super embark is important he should not forget that in the midst of the 19th century and actually we are talking now before that because Chappell obviously he died in 18-49 so he didn't reached in midst of the 19th century but it's not only at the beginning and in the first quarter 18 20 25 30 something like that we are in the midst of the big buck revival we should not forget that also in France this was a big thing so for Chopin playing bass was something that was really important and many of his students and you can read that for instance in this book I will link this in the description this is cheb am pianist and teacher seen by his pupils by idol dinger I have read this extensively this is really gold if you want to dig into your past music as are the letters of course this is really interesting to read and also very nice to read through you can reach it in the late hours on your sofa with a glass of wine but in that time Bach was a big deal and also to Chopin so we should not forget that abut revival as started as I see it with CPE Bach in the 18th century he advocated the works of his father in the time that nobody almost no small circus were interested but honor large scale of course there was a period of the gallant music then you he talked of Oracle elf Oracle really established a kind of statue for back with this buck biography they had connections worldwide gripping Carol Mendelsohn the Earl Oliver connected then you have journey a big name in the back Reebok revival now we come back to that in this episode related to shopper all of that of soft costs cumulated into the magnificent performance of the material as shown by Mendelssohn which we today see as the big moment of the buck revival but actually there is a combination of what was going on for more than five or six or seven decades so in the midst of all of that we have huge Japan not only as a composer but also as a brilliant teacher and performer and that's what we are looking for that's what interests us in this episode to see if we from these annotations can learn something not only on the way he might have performed back but what the overall attitude was around his and his students so this copy of Pauline is lazarenn has only a few preludes and fugues edited or annotated by shebang I do not have that copy I wish I had a budget to just buy every book that really would be interesting to have on my bookshelf but it's not really important and I tell you why if you look to the C major C sharp major Prelude which is the scan that's provided on internet and there are some others two things are really striking first of it's the level of detail in which super annotated that music now we can assume if you looked at that score if I would annotate that so detailed for my student that probably would be given a detailed insight in how I would like to have that piece performed so we can assume that if Japan would be invited tomorrow to play back rotten political I fear in ecology how that he the chance is really big that he would perform it according to that score but that's important to remember that's an important fact in although from the call addition there are only a few pages I think even a dozen pages with as you pass annotations it's really important to know that because it gives us a direction which otherwise we would be completely in the dock but the second thing is maybe even more important if you look to the metronome numbers and yes ship air was a big metronome guy.he metronome iced almost all of his solo music and actually almost all of his music he also annotated or noted down the metronome marks in which obviously he wanted his students to play the music the speeds but if you look at them and you are familiar with this addition which is this is an original 19th century edition it may be not the first edition but this is journey back well completely clavier then if you're familiar with this edition you will immediately see the correlation because the metronome marks are exactly those of journey and this is important and not only the metronome marks are exactly those of journey everything in that Edition everything that Jabba has annotated and the copy of his student comes from the journey back edition and with this element withstood we should stand still for a moment so two things are important to you to stand still for a moment first of would you ever have thought it possible that a great performer that Chopin doubtlessly was would have turned to a Viennese edition to fuel him with ideas on the performance of a park and he apparently canceled so to say is whole individual approach that's important to stand still for a moment because today we are in our musical world we are looking to performances from a way different perspective we expect if you listen to my performance of a back piece you expect me to be personal to be individual to have my own story connected to the music of Bach which is interesting enough and that's that's our time and that's fine but in that time apparently there was such a thing as being very individual in what they already concerned to be early music we should not forget we're talking not on the performance of Beethoven even was very contemporary music and that time still I even believe it was contemporary music but back they considered to be early music so there is your pear grabbed a very Viennese source he went back to Karl journey to give that information to a student and secondly this tells us something about the position Karl's journey had we today we look back we look very much down on Carl Cheney as a composer as a person who is actually we remember him often as the guy who wrote is annoying attitudes that we had to play faster faster and faster in our piano lessons but if you dive into the history you you will see that girl's journey was one of the big musicians of that time with very much respected he composed over a thousand opus numbers and not right not all of the music is on the same level although Franz Liszt would have said later that from the Belgian if he would have taken more time for composition he would have ended up being one of our big really big composers so he was a very talented guy also on the field of performance he was a great musician was one of Batum his best students we should not forget that and there you have Chopin because he traveled to Vienna he met Carl Chaney and there are some letters in which he actually looked down on Carl journey and actually one letter and that's taken today as a proof so to say that repair should didn't have to do anything with wit with Jerry but that's not the case we see now from this edition only how important as a source Carter journey was to actually complete the entire world so the big protection path I cannot underline it enough to Carl journey that's the composer that we are looking down to that's a performance that we even not considered to be a great performer that something we even not Center any more important in the box study and our historically informed performance practice and I come back to that because this is a really important point for Sherpa he was good enough to copy in detail with his own hand in pencil every new tension that Jan had given pianos pianissimo sporty fortissimo crescendo decrescendo everything at exactly same spot to be played back to the halfback played in exact the same way so that should trigger our minds and let me now come to what's interesting for us I believe already this knowledge and this inside this perspective looking back to that score with this perspective illumine is interesting enough to study the work and the the personality and the musician of Chopin I think that's an important statement already but there is something else you know on this channel I devote a lot of time to try to reconstruct original eighteenth-century turn people early 19th century Tempe metronome numbers are for me one of the most if not the most important historical musical facts they are for me way above anything that is written even see the e box book because metronome numbers are not to be manipulated there you have a discussion about that the metronomes were not digging in the right speed but that's all nonsense if you dive into that you will know that but those metronome numbers are not to be manipulated you can take this single bit you can take the double bit on that in a moment but journeys maternal numbers and our historically informed performance practice are never almost never considered an if they are mentioned they are mentioned in a way to prove that those metronome ease of dose those times are just indications of how idealistically fast that music should be played shall bear however and this is important Chopin took the time to copy those metronome numbers in this score and let stand still for with this effect for a moment because it is really important if people say that those early 19th century metronome numbers are so fast at noble he played in them or some even say that people back then were more much more talented and we are so genetically they must have been different but that's of course totally nonsense well then we must assume that Sherpa considered those tempie to be fine for him otherwise he wouldn't have copied them and he was not a person he was not a composer he was not a performer who was not aware about maternal numbers I've said before in this video he literally I think 80% if not 90% of his solo works are given to us with the metronome numbers maybe 80% a lot of them so he was very aware of the use of the metronome and if we can believe people like me collie who was one of his important students who made a complete edition of his works in his for world dairy preface he says Mikkeli that the metronome was never far away from his piano from bass piano so his students often have to play with the metronome so the conclusion only did if only one conclusion can be drawn is that those maternal numbers given by Chaney are considered to be very fine and beautiful to do to super now you can say that's fine what do we learn from that because it's not historic at all yes that's right so we must consider that Jenny lived in a time where reconstruction of the performance practice in the time of birth was maybe not on this first point of interest but if we look to what Jenny writes about them it's interesting enough to realize that journey was aware of an evolution in historical inform performance practice because he says well I'm giving you the speed indications first as I see the effect of those pieces the effect is the mood is the overall emotion that that piece had or should have so his tempo a connects tempo with the overall expression of the piece the very historic something we should talk more and more today because tempo movement is really different of everything you built up awesome musicians so is aware of that secondly he says I've given a lot of the fuchs the metronome numbers as I remember Beethoven has played them so important enough does it tell us something about back no but Beethoven was a musician of his time lives closer to back and if only it gives us the information of how Beethoven played those Fuchs and thirdly journey explicitly writes that he is aware of the fact that in Bach's time a legal Tempe were a little bit slower than in his time so how far can you go in really understanding that journey was aware of the evolution of performance practice now if he was right or not that something else but he was concerned about it now comes the point if we take those metronome numbers literal they are in the most cases of this Walton politically here and other bath works totally unplayable and if you would manage to do that some of them of course are it doesn't make any sense we will not dive into this metronome thing very extensively only because we could say a lot of things only on this Prelude and Fugue but it is interesting to see that Chopin took those metronome numbers seriously and now you can listen to people who defend single bit in a way that sometimes hard for me to understand because of practical this is about music you should play it and not talk too much about this and so many of those Tempe are simply impossible that tells us something at least without the theory think about that when looking back to Jan well that was everything for this episode I hope you liked that if this is your first time here on Atlantic so love to have you subscribe because I'm giving you a lot of my own performances but on Wednesdays we have always this kind of total videos on these topics on Tempel other topics performance practice and so on so we'd appreciate if you give this video a thumbs up and join the authentic community sound community by hitting that subscribe button and then we see each other very soon again bye

Channel: AuthenticSound

Views: 116,387

Keywords: Frédéric Chopin, J.S.Bach, J.S.Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier, Well-Tempered Klavier, Carnegie Hall, Chopin, Eigeldinger, Pauline Chazaren, Mattheuspassion directed by Mendelssohn, griepenkerl, c.P.E.Bach, Carl Czerny, metronome indications bach, metronome chopin, wim winters, authentic sound

Id: F2yenOB6_fc

Length: 17min 43sec (1063 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 20 2017