Acclaimed Chopin Project pianist Svetlana Smolina will play Chopin’s Twenty-four Preludes, Op. 28 as part of her performance tomorrow at 4:30PM (Friday, March 5th) at the Winter Garden main stage in New York’s World Financial Center. Ms Smolina is among the virtuosi performing in the 200 hour Wall Street marathon celebrating the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth.

Chopin once wrote, “When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher.”Upon further reflection, Chopin must have realized that this Waltz was an all-time keeper, a favorite of piano virtuosos and amateurs alike since Chopin’s own time. It was a notable favorite of Artur Rubinstein. In fact, the Chopin.Net site has a nice anecdote about Rubinstein:

When people asked him how he could continue to play the same waltz for over 75 years, he replied, “Because it’s not the same, and I don’t play it the same way.”

• Download sheetmusic for Waltz in C-sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2 by Fryderyk Chopin
• Download Easy to play sheetmusic for Waltz in C-sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2 by Fryderyk Chopin

Arthur Greene:

“Today’s entry takes us into far more familiar Chopin territory. The Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9 No. 2 comes from around 1830, -after Chopin had left Warsaw forever. But the version I’m playing here has a bit of a twist. There are some scores of Chopin’s works that he marked up for his piano students, and they’ve been a fascinating find for musicologists. You can see where he marked things on the scores, adding fingerings and other instructions for his students. And in some of them Chopin added extra notes – and even little cadenzas! So if you know this beloved Nocturne, listen extra closely, and you’ll hear some things that aren’t usually there.”

From Britton Recital Hall, listen to Arthur Greene perform Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat Op. 9 No. 2 (original cadenzas)

• Download sheetmusic for Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9, No. 2 by Fryderyk Chopin
• Download Easy to Play sheetmusic for Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9, No. 2 by Fryderyk Chopin

Hear pianist Olga Kleiankina play this Impromptu in A-flat, Op. 29, No. 1 before an appreciative Ann Arbor audience.

And read more about the Impromptus on Chopinmusic.net

• Listen to Impromptu in A-flat, Op. 29 No. 1 by Fryderyk Chopin
• Download sheetmusic for Impromptu in A-flat, Op. 29 No. 1 by Fryderyk Chopin

This rare bit of Chopiniana was supposedly written after violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini came through Warsaw in the summer of 1829, a concert we know that Chopin attended. A month later he graduated from the Higher School of Music in Warsaw, where a teacher wrote, “Chopin, Fryderyk: third-year student, amazing capabilities, musical genius.”

Hear pianist Dmitri Vorobiev play these unusual Variations in a Chopin Project concert performance.

• Listen to Variations in A Major, “Souvenir de Paganini” by Fryderyk Chopin
• Download sheetmusic for Variations in A Major, “Souvenir de Paganini” by Fryderyk Chopin

The world of music had never before known any etudes as original, as musical, or as difficult. — Frank Cooper

This is one of the best-known (and arguably, the most difficult!) of the set of twelve etudes Chopin dedicated to Franz Liszt. The Etudes were published in a single volume in 1833, when Chopin was 23, although four of them are supposed to have been completed as early as 1829.

“Etude” literally means “study” or “exercise,” which is especially apparent in this particular work, which is designed to strengthen the “weaker” (that is, the third, fourth, and fifth) fingers of the right hand. But Chopin doesn’t stop there: the thumb and index fingers have to play the accompanying chords to the dizzying melody going up and down the keyboard on those “weak” fingers.

Just to underscore the technical nature of this Etude, Chopin even takes a page from the J.S. Bach playbook and indicates the fingering – note by note — of the almost 800 notes in this piece!

Hear pianist Xiaofeng Wu perform Chopin’s tricky Etude in A minor, Op. 10, No.2 in concert.

Some other links to Chopin Etudes, courtesy of Wikipedia:

• The Ultimate Chopin Etudes Discography from Eternal Chopin Etudes Space
• Study Guide, Recordings and Sheet Music from Chopin Music
• Sheet music available in .pdf or LilyPond format, from Mutopia.

• Listen to Etude in A minor, Op. 10, No. 2 by Fryderyk Chopin
• Download sheetmusic for Etude in A minor, Op. 10, No. 2 by Fryderyk Chopin

This Waltz in F minor, in fact, steps right out of a Parisian drawing-room. It’s one of two works dedicated to Elise Gavard (she was also the dedicate of the Berceuse in D Flat major, Op. 57 – more on that in a later post). It was composed in 1842, but was not published until 1855, six years after Chopin’s death. Indeed there’s some scholarly speculation that Chopin didn’t really want it to circulate very much. The Chopin Music site calls it a work of beauty amidst lost longing:

This dance is a gloomy song of failed entreaty. Its melody glances slightly at that which it temporarily enjoyed. The central section is one of absolute beauty, characterizing its style almost perfectly.

Hear Soyoung Park perform Chopin’s Waltz in F minor, Op. 70, No. 2 at the Chopin Project Concert VIII.

• Listen to Waltz in F minor, Op. 70, No. 2 by Fryderyk Chopin
• Download sheetmusic for Waltz in F minor, Op. 70, No. 2 by Fryderyk Chopin

…..A rhythm of 6/4 suggests an underlying waltz, as does the set of chords that plays off each melody note. Further, the chords lie under portamento slurs which give them shape, gently tug at the second and third beats, and increase the inherent dance quality. However, a waltz in G minor is colored by the key and therefore imbued with a tender poignancy. One dances, but with a heavy heart….

Then there’s an entire dissertation by a Swedish graduate student. Here’s his abstract:

The purpose of this work is to make a general presentation of Chopin, the age in which he lived, his G minor Ballade and selected editions of the Ballade. I will also compare five recordings of the G minor Ballade, and make a presentation and a recording of my own interpretation of the G minor Ballade. This work discusses his life up to the time the Ballade was published, Chopin’s development as a composer, and the period in his life when the Ballade was composed. Background material on the history of the Ballade as a genre and its development is included to give the reader an enhanced contextual understanding. The issue as to whether Chopin had a literary model when composing the G minor Ballade and his relationship with the Polish writer Adam Mickiewicz is discussed. This work considers the issue of form in the G minor Ballade, Chopin’s personality, how Chopin played, his use ofthe term ‘tempo rubato’, and how he used improvisation and composition.

Make what you will of this interpretation of an Arturo Benedetti Michalangeli fansite:

Miracle seems really a shortfall, rather than a longfall, when it is applied with Michelangeli’s Chopin (especially the Ballade in G minor, op. 23; Deutsche Grammophon 413 449-2): water seem to be loosing ground against the lack of distance. With proper distance however, there is a possibility the water might fall with greater flow and maturity. Michelangeli drive for that aim is to have more miracle and less than a human spirit is ultimately tested against the harsh background where one finds a waterfall equipped with sophisticated break-system.

Chopin primarily conceived the Work to be played out amongst the adult fellowship society of his peers nonetheless amounting to no fewer than the very composer himself as the sole guest. Chopin somehow wanted the work to be played by grownups; yet he himself when he conceived all this was a child. His excess employment of piano’s sustaining pedal is no justification for the larger framework thereof. He might have been using the principle to get beyond the fantastic element in the piano: he incorporated it into the Work very stylishly that the importance of the pedal desists when it is fused into the work as a whole. Sophistication still is called for. It is up to the individual pianist to start where it gains ground and appears appropriate to begin constructing the superstructure.

Last word goes to Arthur Greene:

The G minor Ballade, if I play it correctly, should need no introduction.

Want more? Deeper into the Web we go. How about this “Interpretation of the Narrative Grammar of Chopin’s Ballade in G minor?”

• Listen to Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 by Fryderyk Chopin
• Download sheetmusic for Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 by Fryderyk Chopin

When in 1846 Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) completed the Barcarolle, the last work of its relatively large size to come from his pen, he was already laid low by the fatal illness that three years later would take his life. He must have had deep affection for the piece, for he included it on the program of a concert he gave in Paris, February 16, 1848, his last appearance in his loved adopted city. Reports of the event tell of this physically depleted man unable to play much above the level of pianissimo even in the Barcarolle’s most expansive sections, a depressing experience for his many friends in the audience.The Barcarolle is the single work of its type in his catalog, which is not surprising considering the limitations imposed by the necessity to maintain a “boat” accompaniment and to invent suitably artless – gondoliere – melodies. In light of these specific guidelines, Chopin has created a composition of remarkable continuity and diversity having, in this temperate context, unexpected dramatic intensity in a soaring climax. (Sudden storm on the Venice canal?) Read more of the notes here.

The Vancouver Chopin Society also has an interesting perspective of the performance challenges of this piece, along with some recording recommendations:

“…It has been the despair of many fine artists, being difficult to interpret successfully. It is easy to sound affected, as does [Claudio] Arrau, or nervous, as does [Vladimir] Horowitz, or too plain, as did [Walter] Gieseking. Chopin must have been its ideal interpreter… The Barcarolle displays Chopin’s ornamental genius in full bloom. Ravel wrote, “Chopin was not content merely to revolutionize piano technique. His figurations are inspired. Through his brilliant passages one perceives profound, enchanting harmonies. Always there is the hidden meaning which is translated into poetry of intense despair. . . . The Barcarolle is the synthesis of the expressive and sumptuous art of this great Slav.”

Hear Maxim Mogilevsky perform Chopin’s Barcarolle in F-sharp minor, Op. 60

Read the Wikipedia definition of Barcarolle
Find more recordings
More publishing information

• Listen to Barcarolle in F-sharp minor, Op. 60 by Fryderyk Chopin
• Download sheetmusic for Barcarolle in F-sharp minor, Op. 60 by Fryderyk Chopin

The Chopin Project began as an ambitious live-concert-and-symposium series at the University of Michigan’s acclaimed School of Music, Theatre & Dance devoted to exploring the entirety of Fryderyk Chopin’s works for solo piano: Through a series of nine concerts at Britton Recital Hall, students from the piano studio of renowned teacher and performer Arthur Greene presented a complete traversal of Chopin’s works: from his earliest surviving work, a polonaise written at age 7, through his last mazurka penned in 1849. A complete list of participants in the U of M Chopin Project can be found here.

The applause for the acclaimed concerts (check out the blog comments here) had barely died away when Arthur Greene and his top students went into the studio to capture their insightful Chopin interpretations for the Digital Age for Block M Records. For the first time ever, all 129 compositions – the complete solo piano works of Chopin – will be available for download via the iTunes music store, this site, and a number of other online destinations.

But we didn’t stop there. The Chopin Project is really just beginning. We want to share all the resources and the research that went into the recitals, pre-concert talks, and symposia, and add a whole lot more besides: Our goal to create a global online resource for all things connected to the unique, magical, and captivating world of Chopin and the piano. Research, commentary, program, notes, audio, video, even musical scores…we want the Chopin Project to be your “one-stop shop” for considering all Chopin things.

That means we need your help! Your ideas, suggestions and contributions will really make the Chopin Project site “sing.” So bookmark us and explore, discover, and savor the genius of Chopin’s timeless creations.

After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own. — Oscar Wilde

The Chopin Project is proudly presented by Frederick Slutsky Arts, exclusive representatives for pianist Arthur Greene and other acclaimed performing, visual, and creative artists.