Chopin: The Man and His Music, James Huneker [free e books to read online txt] 📗

The composer paints with psychologic truthfulness a fragment out of the life of a deeply clouded soul. He lets a broken heart, filled with grief, proclaim its sorrow in a language of pain which is incapable of being misunderstood. The heart has lost—not something, but everything. The tones, however, do not always bear the impress of a quiet, melancholy resignation.

More passionate impulses awaken, and the still plaint becomes a complaint against cruel fate. It seeks the conflict, and tries through force of will to burst the fetters of pain, or at least to alleviate it through absorption in a happy past.

But in vain! The heart has not lost something—it has lost everything. The musical poem divides into three, or if one views the little episode in B major as a special part, into four parts (strophes), of which the last is an elaborated repetition of the first with a brief closing part appended.

The whole piece is a song, or, better still, an aria, in which two principal voices are to be brought out; the upper one is in imitation of a human voice, while the lower one must bear the character throughout of an obligato violoncello. It is well known that Chopin was very fond of the violoncello and that in his piano compositions he imitated the style of passages peculiar to that instrument. The two voices correspond closely, supplementing and imitating each other reciprocally. Between the two a third element exists: an accompaniment of eighths in uniform succession without any significance beyond that of filling out the harmony. This third element is to be kept wholly subordinate. The little, one-voiced introduction in recitative style which precedes the aria reminds one vividly of the beginning of the Ballade in G

minor, op. 23.

 

The D flat study, No. 8, is called by Von Bulow “the most useful exercise in the whole range of etude literature. It might truly be called ‘l’indispensable du pianiste,’ if the term, through misuse, had not fallen into disrepute. As a remedy for stiff fingers and preparatory to performing in public, playing it six times through is recommended, even to the most expert pianist.” Only six times! The separate study of the left hand is recommended. Kullak finds this study “surprisingly euphonious, but devoid of depth of content.” It is an admirable study for the cultivation of double sixths. It contains a remarkable passage of consecutive fifths that set the theorists by the ears. Riemann manages to get some new editorial comment upon it.

 

The nimble study, No. 9, which bears the title of “The Butterfly,” is in G flat Von Bulow transposes it enharmonically to F sharp, avoiding numerous double flats. The change is not laudable. He holds anything but an elevated opinion of the piece, classing it with a composition of the Charles Mayer order. This is unjust; the study if not deep is graceful and certainly very effective. It has lately become the stamping ground for the display of piano athletics. Nearly all modern virtuosi pull to pieces the wings of this gay little butterfly. They smash it, they bang it, and, adding insult to cruelty, they finish it with three chords, mounting an octave each time, thus giving a conventional character to the close—the very thing the composer avoids. Much distorted phrasing is also indulged in. The Tellefsen’s edition and Klindworth’s give these differences: [Musical score excerpt]

 

Mikuli, Von Bulow and Kullak place the legato bow over the first three notes of the group. Riemann, of course, is different: [Musical score excerpt]

 

The metronomic markings are about the same in all editions.

 

Asiatic wildness, according to Von Bulow, pervades the B minor study, op. 25, No. 10, although Willeby claims it to be only a study in octaves “for the left hand”! Von Bulow furthermore compares it, because of its monophonic character, to the Chorus of Dervishes in Beethoven’s “Ruins of Athens.” Niecks says it is “a real pandemonium; for a while holier sounds intervene, but finally hell prevails.” The study is for Kullak “somewhat far fetched and forced in invention, and leaves one cold, although it plunges on wildly to the end.” Von Bulow has made the most complete edition. Klindworth strengthens the first and the seventh eighth notes of the fifth bar before the last by filling in the harmonics of the left hand. This etude is an important one, technically; because many pianists make little of it that does not abate its musical significance, and I am almost inclined to group it with the last two studies of this opus. The opening is portentous and soon becomes a driving whirlwind of tone. Chopin has never penned a lovelier melody than the one in B—the middle section of this etude—it is only to be compared to the one in the same key in the B minor Scherzo, while the return to the first subject is managed as consummately as in the E flat minor Scherzo, from op. 35. I confess to being stirred by this B minor study, with its tempo at a forced draught and with its precipitous close. There is a lushness about the octave melody; the tune may be a little overripe, but it is sweet, sensuous music, and about it hovers the hush of a rich evening in early autumn.

 

And now the “Winter Wind”—the study in A minor, op. 25, No. 11. Here even Von Bulow becomes enthusiastic:

 

“It must be mentioned as a particular merit of this, the longest and, in every respect, the grandest of Chopin’s studies, that, while producing the greatest fulness of sound imaginable, it keeps itself so entirely and utterly unorchestral, and represents piano music in the most accurate sense of the word. To Chopin is due the honor and credit of having set fast the boundary between piano and orchestral music, which through other composers of the romantic school, especially Robert Schumann, has been defaced and blotted out, to the prejudice and damage of both species.”

 

Kullak is equally as warm in his praise of it: One of the grandest and most ingenious of Chopin’s etudes, and a companion piece to op. 10, No. 12, which perhaps it even surpasses. It is a bravura study of the highest order; and is captivating through the boldness and originality of its passages, whose rising and falling waves, full of agitation, overflow the entire keyboard; captivating through its harmonic and modulatory shadings; and captivating, finally, through a wonderfully invented little theme which is drawn like a “red thread” through all the flashing and glittering waves of tone, and which, as it were, prevents them from scattering to all quarters of the heavens. This little theme, strictly speaking only a phrase of two measures, is, in a certain sense, the motto which serves as a superscription for the etude, appearing first one voiced, and immediately afterward four voiced. The slow time (Lento) shows the great importance which is to be attached to it. They who have followed thus far and agree with what has been said cannot be in doubt concerning the proper artistic delivery. To execute the passages quite in the rapid time prescribed one must possess a finished technique. Great facility, lightness of touch, equality, strength and endurance in the forte passages, together with the clearest distinctness in the piano and pianissimo—all of this must have been already achieved, for the interpreter must devote his whole attention to the poetic contents of the composition, especially to the delivery of the march-like rhythms, which possess a life of their own, appearing now calm and circumspect, and anon bold and challenging. The march-like element naturally requires strict playing in time.

 

This study is magnificent, and moreover it is music.

 

In bar fifteen Von Bulow makes B natural the second note of the last group, although all other editions, except Klindworth, use a B flat.

Von Bulow has common sense on his side. The B flat is a misprint. The same authority recommends slow staccato practice, with the lid of the piano closed. Then the hurly-burly of tone will not intoxicate the player and submerge his critical faculty.

 

Each editor has his notion of the phrasing of the initial sixteenths.

Thus Mikuli’s—which is normal:

 

[Musical score excerpt]

 

Klindworth fingers this passage more ingeniously, but phrases it about the same, omitting the sextolet mark. Kullak retains it. Von Bulow makes his phrase run in this fashion:

 

[Musical score excerpt]

 

As regards grouping, Riemann follows Von Bulow, but places his accents differently.

 

The canvas is Chopin’s largest—for the idea and its treatment are on a vastly grander scale than any contained in the two concertos. The latter are after all miniatures, precious ones if you will, joined and built with cunning artifice; in neither work is there the resistless overflow of this etude, which has been compared to the screaming of the winter blasts. Ah, how Chopin puts to flight those modern men who scheme out a big decorative pattern and then have nothing wherewith to fill it! He never relaxes his theme, and its fluctuating surprises are many. The end is notable for the fact that scales appear. Chopin very seldom uses scale figures in his studies. From Hummel to Thalberg and Herz the keyboard had glittered with spangled scales. Chopin must have been sick of them, as sick of them as of the left-hand melody with arpeggiated accompaniment in the right, a la Thalberg. Scales had been used too much, hence Chopin’s sparing employment of them. In the first C sharp minor study, op. 10, there is a run for the left hand in the coda. In the seventh study, same key, op. 25, there are more. The second study of op. 10, in A minor, is a chromatic scale study; but there are no other specimens of the form until the mighty run at the conclusion of this A minor study.

 

It takes prodigious power and endurance to play this work, prodigious power, passion and no little poetry. It is open air music, storm music, and at times moves in processional splendor. Small souled men, no matter how agile their fingers, should avoid it.

 

The prime technical difficulty is the management of the thumb. Kullak has made a variant at the end for concert performance. It is effective.

The average metronomic marking is sixty-nine to the half.

 

Kullak thinks the twelfth and last study of op. 25 in C minor “a grand, magnificent composition for practice in broken chord passages for both hands, which requires no comment.” I differ from this worthy teacher.

Rather is Niecks more to my taste: “No. 12, C minor, in which the emotions rise not less high than the waves of arpeggios which symbolize them.”

 

Von Bulow is didactic:

 

The requisite strength for this grandiose bravura study can only be attained by the utmost clearness, and thus only by a gradually increasing speed. It is therefore most desirable to practise it piano also by way of variety, for otherwise the strength of tone might easily degenerate into hardness, and in the poetic striving after a realistic portrayal of a storm on the piano the instrument, as well as the piece, would come to grief.

 

The pedal is needful to give the requisite effect, and must change with every new harmony; but it should only be used in the latter stages of study, when the difficulties are nearly mastered.

 

We have our preferences. Mine in op. 25 is the C minor study, which, like the prelude in D minor, is “full of the sound of great guns.”

Willeby thinks otherwise. On page 81 in his life of Chopin he has the courage to write: “Had Professor Niecks applied the term monotonous to No. 12 we should have been more ready to indorse his opinion, as, although great power is manifested, the very ‘sameness’