The Chopin Project » Arthur Greene

Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9, No. 2 (w/additional cadenzas)

bkr — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 04:49:46 +0000

Listen to Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9, No. 2 by Fryderyk Chopin

“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)

Chopin’s Last Nocturne – Nocturne In C Minor, KK 1233-5 (1847):

bkr — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:53:40 +0000

Chopin Project Artistic Director Arthur Greene calls Chopin’s last nocturne a curious, but moving, work:

“It is rarely played. Its absolute simplicity of texture may lead performers to experiment with ornamentation, but I believe that it is an expression of Chopin’s new direction, in the difficult few years at the end of his life, towards a directness and purity of expression. The Polonaise-Fantasy has somewhat the same mood, although it is much more elaborate. The little nocturne is a tragic whisper.”

Chopin Biographer Arthur Hedley once wrote: “From the great Italian singers of the age [Chopin] learned the art of ’singing’ on the piano, and his nocturnes reveal the perfection of his cantabile style and delicate charm of ornamentation.”

Recent scholarship by some musicologists hear the song of a sorrowful Venetian gondolier (borrowed from Italian opera composer Giaocchino Rossini, whom Chopin greatly admired) in the undulating Nocturne in C minor, the 21st and final essay in the genre that Chopin perfected. It dates from 1847, just two years before Chopin’s death, but was not published until decades later.

Listen to Nocturne in C Minor, KK 1233-5 by Fryderyk Chopin
performed by Arthur Greene recorded live at the University of Michigan’s Britton Recital Hall
Download sheetmusic for Nocturne in C Minor, KK 1233-5 by Fryderyk Chopin

Etude in C-sharp Minor, Op. 25 No. 7 – Beyond Category

bkr — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 06:30:57 +0000

Listen to Etude in C-sharp Minor, Op. 25 No. 7 by Fryderyk Chopin

Smack-dab in the middle of Chopin’s Op. 25 Etudes lies this unique and memorable piece that is unlike any other Chopin creation. And one that has generated a considerable amount of ink over the decades.

Sometimes it’s called the “‘Cello Etude,” because the prominent melody is in the left hand, approximating the range of a cello. Others have called it “A Duet between a He and a She.” Or perhaps you prefer “Morbidly Elegaic?” Ballade-like? A Missing Nocturne?

Another school of thought says plainly: It’s an Etude. It’s supposed to help you with perfecting you piano technique. And the technique here is an exquisitely difficult phrasing and balance question – making the left hand carry the melody without being overpowered by the right — when the natural tendency is to go the other way.

Oh, and just to mess you up a little further, the left and right hand are playing quite independent musical lines that need to coincide at key moments.

So, for the final word, let’s transport you back to G.C. Ashton Jonson, author of the 1905 tome A Handbook to Chopin’s Works: (For the Use of Concert-Goers, Pianists, and Pianola Players):

Hear Chopin Project Artistic Director Arthur Greene perform Chopin’s unique Etude in C-sharp Minor, Op. 25, No. 7.

Read the Wikipedia entry here.

Read the Chopinmusic.net entry here.

Download sheetmusic for Etude in C-sharp minor, Op. 25 No. 7 by Fryderyk Chopin

Waltz in A-flat, Op. 42: The “Most Perfect Waltz”??

bkr — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:31:30 +0000

Hear Artistic Director Arthur Greene play this brilliantly conceived Waltz in A-flat (Op. 42) live in a Chopin Project performance.

Chopinmusic calls it “the most ambitious and substantial of all Chopin’s waltzes.”

The Vancouver Chopin Society goes even further, quoting David Dubal in suggesting that this “Grand Valse” is the essence of Chopin:

A case may be made for the Op. 42 as Chopin’s most perfect valse. After the first measures of trill, a call to the dance, there is a melody with a rare lilt composed in double time, with the triple time of the waltz in the left hand. Schumann remarked that “like his earlier waltzes it is a salon piece of the noblest kind.” The composition, Schumann feels, should be danced to only by “countesses at least.” This waltz is the most demanding technically of the series.

Chopin’s official title for the piece is the Grande Valse Nouvelle pour le piano, Op. 42. There’s a fascinating detail of its publication history available at Chopin First Editions Online.

Mazurka in C-sharp minor, Op. 6, No. 2

bkr — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:25:59 +0000

As Chopin Project Artistic Director Arthur Greene heads off to Novi Sad, Serbia, to judge and perform in the Isidor Bajic Memorial Competition, he leaves us a taste of his masterful Chopin interpretation with this performance of the Mazurka in C-sharp minor, Op. 6, No. 2.

Arthur Greene plays this Mazurka with its mysterious opening, “a song so sad, heartfelt, naive, diversified and caressing.”

Take a look at this fascinating University of Chicago site with digital images of Historic Scores of the Op. 6 Mazurkas, dating from 1832-1850.

Love the Chopin Mazurkas? Read a fuller description of them on the Pianosociety.com website…

Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 (1836)

bkr — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 06:14:23 +0000

In the previous post we discussed an all-time Chopin favorite, the Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9, No. 2. What then, is left to say about another Chopin classic – this Ballade in G minor?Plenty, it would appear. There’s an extremely technical description in the La Folia online music reveiew by Beth Levin:

…..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?”

Barcarolle in F-sharp minor, Op. 60

bkr — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:24:35 +0000

This is one of the last pieces that Chopin played in public. The excellent notes from the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s website set the stage:

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

Chopin’s First Piece

bkr — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:55:14 +0000

“The very first piece on the program is a piece that Chopin wrote when he was seven years old. It’s very typical of the music that was being written at that time in Warsaw…a little Polonaise…with even a little virtuosic flourish in it. But Chopin was too young to write the notes down on the page..his father wrote it for him. He had probably written some things before this, but this is the first surviving piece that we have.” — Arthur Greene.

Hear Arthur Greene perform the Polonaise in G minor – Chopin’s first piece

Publishing Information from Pianopedia

Download the score from the Werner Icking Archive

Watch “Charlie” (5 yrs 11 months) play it on YouTube

The Chopin Project – the Back Story

bkr — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 00:29:18 +0000

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.