Chopin Tradition Recordings: 7 Pianists who studied with Chopin's Pupils
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- Опубліковано 14 лип 2024
- How did Frédéric Chopin play the piano? We can't know for sure, but fortunately we have a lot of information. Some of the elements in Chopin's piano playing are: Rubato, phrasing and legato highly influenced by 19th century Bel Canto (especially from opera singers singing Bellini); playing the right hand as like a vocalist and the left hand as accompaniment (basis of rubato in a nutshell is like this); full legato embedded on keyboard; dynamics were multi-scale, unique feathery pianissimo were most common but he also rarely used very very powerful fortissimo touches (depending on the concept of "zal", the feeling of rebellion was also included in some of his works); natural and colorful timbre; very lively sense of spontaneous (he always played his works differently); infrequent but very effective pedal use; touch control giving polyphonic line (one of his favorite composers was Bach); controlled but also rhythmically free and sophisticated (Polish rhythms are particularly effective); a very nuanced, refined and fluid approach, complexity and simplicity combined; ornament that does not disturb the structure of the work (may be called "Mozartian ornament"); he was an aristocrat so he did not like very exaggerated attitudes, of course by romantic era standards.
The emotion and passionate was intense but not identical (He said that his playing changes depending on his mood). Today, "sad" Chopin is common, but in reality Chopin's emotion was all kinds: Sometimes it sounded volcanic, sometimes joyful, sometimes sickly.
It contained many elements that seemed to contradict each other. That's why Chopin's piano playing is highly controversial. It was very difficult to imitate or imagine.
We can hear these in pianists indirectly related to Chopin. I think, these recordings can give an idea of how Chopin played.
00:00 Moriz Rosenthal - Sonata No. 3, Largo (incomplete take, 1939?)
Pupil of Karol Mikuli (Who had been Chopin's pupil and assistant) and Franz Liszt (Chopin's close friend)
04:00 Alexander Michalowski - Etude Op. 10, No 11 (R. 1912)
Pupil of Karol Mikuli and Princess Marcelina Czartoryska (Who had been Chopin's pupil). He also met with Liszt and some other Chopin students.
06:48 Vladimir de Pachmann - Barcarolle (abridged, R. 1907)
Pupil of Mme. Vera Kologrivoff Rubio (Who had been Chopin’s pupil and last assistant) and close friend of Liszt.
11:28 Alfred Cortot - Prelude Op. 28, No. 17, A-flat major (R. 1933)
Pupil of Émile Decombes (He was one of the last pupils of Frédéric Chopin) and he listened to George Mathias (one of Chopin's best pupils), he is one of Cortot's Chopin inspiration.
14:07 Raoul Koczalski - Fantaise-Impromptu in C-Sharp Major, Op. 66 (On Chopin's Pleyel, R. 1948)
Pupil of Karol Mikuli.
18:46 Raoul Pugno - Nocturne in F-Sharp Major, Op. 15 No. 2 (R. 1903)
Pupil of Georges Mathias.
22:13 Édouard Risler - Waltz No. 7 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2 (R. 1917)
Pupil of Émile Decombes.
A Proof that all technical advances in sound do not replace artistry and vision
landed here after the whole 18th Chopin competition, wich i enjoy with all my soul. but in almost all the young competitors i mess something, something beyond the technical aspect, wich was so high. something wich i can easily find in this upload. here i can feel more deep understanding of the climax, more human confidence and expression of all the emotional aspect. they were closer to the "real" one. i can feel it . thanks for the upload. very precious source, Paolo from Italy
You missed something
With this just spread love Paolo🌺
I totally agree with you!
Paolo, you are absolutely right. 🤝
The modern competitions are a horror, musically speaking. They seem to squeeze out all charm and spontaneity. As a presenter I once booked a tour that included the winner of a competition. After that, I swore never again. I did not want to support that ecosystem. Young performers shoot for the competitions because they are a gateway to gigs. But only those performers meeting the exacting standards of the competitions survive, not necessarily the most creative and musical. I do not believe they reveal the best pianists. Van Cliburn was not the best of HIS generation!
The rubato is much more individual to each pianist than with modern performances.
And thank God
Have you heard the playing of Lang Lang (Chopin waltz brilliant) and Tritonof (Chopin fantasise-impromptu) lately? It's full of idiosyncratic rubatos. It's on UA-cam. I recall having read that Chopin was very clear to his students to adhere strictly to the written music. During the Golden Age of Piano (1890-1930) pianists took liberties with Chopin's music for personal exploration and it sounded quite acceptably natural too. LL and Tritinof used excessive rubatos but transformed the music entirely into another dimension with their interpretation. Lastly, Chopin, upon hearing Liszt play his etudes, commented that he had never imagined that his music could be so beautifully rendered.
@@freeqwerqwer "Chopin was very clear to his students to adhere strictly to the written music", which he frequently altered in details like dynamics, phrasing and tempo! And those students for which we have recordings often varied from the written source in ways subtle and not so. An effective performance is one that tastefully moves an audience. Matters of taste are very subjective, or course, and change over time. The problem with a lot of classical music performances is the attempt to adhere to what the original composers presumably intended or the style and taste of the era. The genre has been institutionalized and demands interpretations sound similar and follow specific guidelines. It is tantamount to dictating what someone should think when looking at a painting or sculpture.
@@mikesmovingimages I agree
After all, the piano is played to produce music. And that is what we have here, *living* music. Thank you for this wonderful selection.
What an Ali Baba moment to find these. The list of superlatives could go on and on, but to pick a couple that all the musicians shared; the importance of touch and depth of fingering and...the wonderful beyond description freedom of pace/speed/movement. I can't help thinking that the uploader gets very little sleep with all his efforts for us. Beyond mere words.
Thank you so much! You definitely identified and described the similarities wonderfully, and I totally agree. The art of touch and finger technique were already Chopin's primary teachings to his pupils. And of course the freedom and spirit in the playing! Chopin really hated playing like a robot, he would tell his pupils: "Put your soul!"
Georges Mathias' description of the Chopin piano playing is beautiful: "Chopin the pianist? Only those who listened to him can rightly appreciate the fact that nothing has ever been heard approaching his playing. His playing was like his music. What virtuosity! what power-yes, power!-but this lasted only a few measures; and the exaltation! the inspiration! the whole man was vibrant! The piano itself seemed to be intensely alive! How could one fail to be thrilled by it! I repeat, the instrument one heard when Chopin played has never existed except under the hands of Chopin. He played as if he were composing…."
Ahh, this video didn't break my sleep but I didn't sleep for the video "51 pianists playing Chopin's mazurkas" and UA-cam removed it unfortunately :)
Piękno muzyki Fryderyka Chopina to fenomen graniczący z cudem ❤️
Mahler once remarked that the most important part of music can never be written. These wonderful recordings demonstrate how severely music has fallen off course since WW II, when the written notes were elevated to the position of final authority at the expense of the music itself.
Well said!! Nowadays, the fastest, most accurate, flawlwess pianist, is the one who wins hands down (pardon pun!) I was told that technique was the servant of musicality, NOT that a fast, flawless techinique was the be-all above everything else. The greatest pianists lived prior to the 2nd world war, with a few notable exceptions. They lived in an era when life was lived at a slower pace, unlike today. Therefore, they had time in their music-making to savour the beauties of the composition!!
@@grumpyoldpianistplus Totally agree. And it's madly ironic that many of those art-free technicians win their prices with the music of Chopin, a musician who despised soulless technical playing more than anything and who was a great individualist.
But times were terribly different then. Pre- WWII musicians were born before radio, when you had to play yourself or go somewhere if you wanted to listen to music, when people were not yet overloaded with the noise that electricity brought into our lifes through countless domestic appliances, cars, planes, your neighbours TV, a time when playing instruments was part of basic education and a time when there was so much competition for professional musicians that only the most poetic, skilled and artistic ones could earn a living with it. Because most listeners knew what proper playing should sound like.
Today, when most people have never heard a piano in person, never mind one well played, and know Mozart, Chopin and Beethoven only from occasional movie tracks and TV ads you have to be the noisiest, the weirdest, the fastest or almost naked to win. (I went a bit over the top, but I think my point gets through).
@@Seleuce At last, a listener after my own heart!
There aren't many in the population who have the ability to discern a truly great performance from a mediocre one. To a certain degree I blame 'Classical FM' who transmit quite good pianists, but rarely do I come across the really great performances, probably due to some technicalities of monetary accountability.
Many pop devotees blame 'classical' music as being elitist for the 'toffeee-nosed' upper-classes, little-realising that there is much more depth of feeling in the compositions, as opposed by the mostly shallowness of pop music. Little do they know what they are missing! Never mind, I suppose ignorance is bliss. Let's hope that the significance of 'good' music gets through to them one day!!
@@grumpyoldpianistplus Yes, you do have some points there. I'm afraid that listeners like you and me belong to a dieing breed. Subtlety and meaningful expressiveness has disappeared from almost every form of entertainment, be it music, fine arts, stage, even screen arts. Ugly realism in art started well before WWII, though.
My hope is that new generations will get tired of that flat, superficial, lightening fast world and the meaningless crap that they get fed by media daily and return to the depth that the music, literature and fine art of the old masters has to offer.
A fascinating historical collection.
Thanks!
I heard them all in my young years - like thirty years ago!!! - but I was much more inclined towards modern (and better recorded) performances. They were the years of Arrau, Michelangeli, Pollini, Ashkenazy - whom I still like - and the "objectivism" in piano interpretations. Listening today to the same stuff made a very profound effect on me. I do think there's something missing today, they all had a freedom in their way of playing which is very touching. I was particularly impressed by Rosenthal, who was a much more refined pianist than I thought - I considered himself just as an outstanding virtuoso but that's not the case. Thank you very much for this upload.
You explained it very well! It's nice to hear it again after all these years...Thank you too for your comment!
In nearly every recording I listen to, I seek the purity, the glee in Rosenthal's tone and variety of dynamics; sometimes seismic, and always luscious.
We feel the same. Rosenthal at intersection point of the three greatest pianists of the 19th century: Pupil of Liszt, close friend of Anton Rubistien and pupil of Chopin's assistant. This legacy must have come from them!
The variety of Rosenthal dynamics and his tone are absolutely phenomenal.
@@OzanFabienGuvener Horowitz was not very fond of Rosenthal but his brilliant insight emerges from Rosen’s playing.
@@ustadspencertracy7195 Yes, Horowitz criticized Rosenthal, but I still have a doubt. When Horowitz was at the beginning of his career, Rosenthal had heavily criticized him. This criticism was after Horowitz's most important America concert and was public. Horowitz's octave playing had become famous, as Rosenthal would say, "He was Octavian but not Cesear". So he just said that his octaves are good. Horowitz has not forgotten this. Perhaps this is the basis of Horowitz's criticism of Rosenthal.
@@OzanFabienGuvener Rosenthal was known for his sharp tongue and dry humor and Horowitz was quite emotional ( his small conflict with his first teacher Tarnowsky led him to avoid mentioning him along Blumenfeld) but I don’t think he would have criticized him that harshly even if Rosenthal had resented him.
Anatole kitain
raoul pugno plays the nocturne in double-beat. One of the few of the chopin early century tradition.
He does indeed play it at half the tempo of the metronome mark, but in his edition of the piece he does not cite “double beat” as the reason for doing so. Given that none of Chopin’s pupils or their students wrote about there being any discrepancy between Chopin’s way of using the metronome and the modern way, it seems highly improbable that Chopin used it any differently than we do.
Chopin brought people to tears, not to sleep.
Bella raccolta, suoni antichi come le registrazioni, ma interpretazioni delicate e sublimi!
Damnit the first phrase from Impromtu, is on a whole different level, like a ribbon unwinding. The downbeat of the phrase is earlier and falls in the correct place and for sure this is how it was meant to be phrased. Even Horowitz completely gets this wrong. It seems so obvious once you hear it correctly. It is almost as if every Chopin phrase is an image, and if you do not get the image right, the phrase and its meaning is lost entirely. One good example also is the stuttering at 15:00 at the bottom where an inversion occurs and the left hand melody very deliberately switches over to the dominant voice as opposed to the usual right. As well as the ending phrase which ends unpretentious, satisfied and conclusory is just perfect. Hearing these phrases played properly as they were meant to be changes the entire meaning of the song and is a much nicer song. Thank you for uploading these massive works of art. And the Pleyel definitely affects the meaning of the phrase, it simply cannot be replicated on a regular piano as not being written on one.
I completely agree with you. Thanks! Pleyel definitely had its advantages, Chopin had reasons why he was against other pianos, he said that other pianos were not as flexible in terms of sound production and phrasing, and he was right.
I sometimes wonder what Chopin would have been able to do with the newer types of pianos, had he lived another few decades. I suspect he would have taken advantage of the new type of sound and grand overtones that were coming about in the 1880s on the new Steinways once he had his hands on one of them. That likely also would have completely changed his style of composition.@@OzanFabienGuvener
raul’s scale are so fast that they sound like trills that incredible
Thank you so very much for this incredible selection of recordings that give us some insight on how Chopin might have sounded
depending on the day he was having
Chopin suffered from a lifelong tuberculosis (TB or PTB)
Tuberculosis is a bloody cough
Instead on focusing what he is suffering through, he focuses on what he can do
His passion for playing piano
He wrote lots of sheet music through the years
Moritz Rosenthal and Raoul Pugno play so naturally. Thanks for showing the deep sensitivity of M.Rosenthal.
Marvelous!
another sumptuous upload. actually I didn't ever listen to these particular pieces played by these pianists before ♥ so this is really something that I welcome with joy 🙏 also thank you for such a carefully written description
Most interesting upload - thanks!
Grazie per aver condiviso questa raccolta . Bellissima!! Interpretazioni veramente emozionanti. 😘
Grazie per il tuo commento:)
Beautiful! ❤
Amazing video! Thanks for sharing!
♥️👌🏻♥️
Wow that fantasie impromptu is so fast that that I can't hear if he's playing the right notes in the run downs (the ones chopin borrowed from Beethoven)
This means that double beat theory is absolutely false, that composer pianists before Chopin, Liszt, Schuman and, ton others are playing at half tempo. Here is the evidence. Thanks
Definitely! I will prepare a video with a similar concept for the students of Clara Schumann and Liszt. We can see the falsity of the theory in them too.
Absolutely. But what these recordings show is the flexibility in tempo taken throughout a piece. I think the delusion of Wim Winters and double beat fans stems from the idea they expect the metronome marking at the start to be the same throughout. The only piece where the written tempo is just baffling is the hammerklavier first movement, but I still believe that it was intentional, just maybe it does sound better a little slower.
ya the recording era is close enough to Chopin to literally have his pupils teaching who is recorded. I'm sure they wouldn't unanimously be desecrating his music
@James lol imagine queen of the night staccatos at half speed
If you notice, only inferior pianists who can't play cleanly a tempo, are those who peddle that preposterous theory. Further, as an additional side note, pianists 'back then' are unintuitively, much better than they are today.
A delight to listen to.
The Edouard Risler recording - is it secured that it is really played by Risler? It reminds me strongly of a Michalowski recording which I cannot find in this very moment.
4:00
wow the face looks so much like the statue
Hey, can you recommend some of the sources you used for this video, particularly on Cortot. I see you said he met other Chopin pupils and Mathias was an inspiration for him, but I can't seem to find it anywhere online. I'm super interested to see where you found it
I've read about this before in several sources. I can't remember the sources right now, but I'll look into it. I only remember one source at the moment: "Alfred Cortot: His Interpretive Art and Teachings" by Taylor, Karen M.
Cortot met Mathias while he was a student at the conservatory. There is also a section in the book:
"Decombes organized private class recitals to give his pupils incentive to perfect their pieces and valuable performance experience. Usually a professor from one of the advanced piano classes at the Conservatoire would be invited to attend and offer comments and criticism. According to Cortot, a frequent guest of honor at the recitals was Georges Mathias, 'an authentic student of Chopin,...which fostered in us the proud and naive illusion that under this double aegis [of Decombes and Mathias] we were carrying on the tradition of an incomparable pianistic style!'
But I read something more detailed about it from a different source. If I remember, I will write to you again.
They all share in very extragravant rubato.
It sounds like it is in today's norms, but it's not really an exaggerated rubato for the 19th century. For example, compare Louis Diemer's recording of the nocturne (Op. 27 No. 2) with Moriz Rosenthal's recording, and you can see the control in Rosenthal's rubato. Look at Josef Pembaur's Ballade 2 recording and Cortot/Koczalski recordings, the Chopin school is more controlled. Or compare Alfred Grünfeld's recordings of Chopin with the recordings of these names, the pianists associated with Chopin have a distinct rubato, but the left hand is more stable.
So far for Wim Winters' double beat metronome nonsense.
I wonder to what extent the genealogy of teachers and students is real. Charles Rosen asserts that there is no reason to expect the student to be anything like the teacher. He may be right in a sense but I'd like to think that the tacit knowledge that passes from teacher to student is very real. I think you have to be careful about what you can say based on this historical line of connection. But it's an interesting issue.
Rosen is somewhat right, but I think there is an important difference. Because there are directives from the composer. These pianists deliberately contacted Chopin's students and wanted to learn about the Chopin tradition. Pianists such as Cortot and Michalowski met and listened to many Chopin students in particular. Mikuli taught his students almost exclusively the Chopin tradition. For example, when Rosenthal played Chopin, he changed his style and played close to the Chopin tradition, he could not use the fortes he normally used, he played much more gently. So it's true that pianists generally don't want to play like their teacher; For example, Rosen idolizes Hofmann, not his teacher Rosenthal. But I think the situation is a little different for the students of composers like Chopin, Debussy, Liszt. They had great respect for the composer and in general they seem to have followed the composers' wishes.
@@OzanFabienGuvener Do you know who Leo Treitler is?
I tend to consider Plante what may have been the closest thing to Chopin’s pupil.
I did not include it in this list because I could not find its direct connection with Chopin concretely. There are things close, but I personally don't think it's the closest. Unfortunately Plante was very old on record and unfortunately had no direct contact with Chopin's students, but knew them. It's probably superstition that he's listening directly to Chopin. I've done serious research on this, none of the reliable sources confirm this. Plante doesn't say anything like that either. The source of this superstition is a documentary: "The Art of the Piano". For example, "The Cambridge Companion to Chopin", which is quite extensive examining pianists associated with Chopin, does not refer to Plante.
@@OzanFabienGuvener This makes me more excited since you said you were to include Art Tatum to your video on favorite pianists of Horowitz. What is the source for that? I know Previn’s narration but I couldn’t find any source.
@@ustadspencertracy7195 yt3.ggpht.com/ivvoLrUnA_6aRgWDaKw6MudtsRJwOZArLY6DEJezCq6hSrjywFn1pUk9mHw0KOfeMfk0p3uQIbj6gdk=s2048-nd-v1
This is great! Who is the columnist( or any other informaton)
@@ustadspencertracy7195 There are a few more testimonies. Henry Pleasants, for example. He told the story about Horowitz sneaking in to listen to the jazz pianist Art Tatum. Horowitz was terribly impressed with Tatum's technique and his easy, natural way of playing, and on one occasion couldn't understand how Tatum did what he did in "Tea for Two." So he introduced himself Tatum admitted that yeah, he had heard of Vladimir Horowitz. The two men had a pleasant talk, and then Horowitz asked Tatum how long it had taken him to learn "Tea for Two." Tatum looked at him as though he were crazy. "I just made it up," he said. Horowitz went home and worked up his own arrangement of "Tea for Two," which he played as a party piece.
But Horowitz's "admiration" for Tatum is often mythologized. It's clear that he likes Tatum, but he's not giving up the piano because of Tatum or things like that. These are untrue stories. If he was a really big fan, he would have mentioned it. But it seems clear that he likes Tatum as well. Only the rumors are exaggerated.
Would it be too much to ask to have the pianists identified?
How?
What do you mean? The pianists are identified…
@Ace Of Spades
None of them had recordings that “told” them how a piece “goes”. So much individualism and varied rubato. I hate todays pianists. Too clinical for me
Using AI, it would be possible to recover the best of these old recordings...
Chopin was not an aristocrat of any sort. He invented an aristocratic background to better ingratiate himself with the aristocracy he sought to teach.
Of course, Chopin is not of aristocratic origin. But he described himself as an aristocrat and played that way.
Chopin's father was a high school teacher and his pupils were the scions of aristocrats.
@bartwatts1921 I was gonna say the same thing. However, according to some sources his mother was living at the Skarbek’s estate and looking after their children bc she was some impoverished relation of theirs. And the Skarbeks were aristocrats.
Very interesting, but, for the most part, not compelling! Perhaps the recording time constraints forced them to play faster than they wanted, and avoid "unnecessarily" long fermatas (no fermatas at all in most of these recordings), but most of the performances lacked breadth and breath, which were such a compelling aspect of Bel Canto singing and probably part of their live performance.
It may seem strange to you but I think it's a matter of habit. Recordings on dates without recording time constraints have similar tempo selections (Post-1940 recordings of the likes of Cortot, Koczalski, Rosenthal) Or we can say the same for piano rolls (without time constraint). The same can be said for the students of Anton Rubinstein and Theodor Leschetizky (they heard Chopin). There are very sudden rises and slowdowns.There is an understanding of tempo close to the old bel canto artists (Adelina Patti, Marcella Sembrich, Luisa Tetrazzini etc.) Likewise, mazurka rhythms are very lively and wavy.
According to Liszt's students, Liszt was played faster in the modern era (Liszt often chose slow tempos). But there are indications that Chopin played excessively lively.
Of course, your view may be fundamentally correct, but the "time constraint" is not a correct argument. Thank you for sharing your opinion :)
Play faster than they wanted? Did you listen to Michalowski's Etude? I've never heard a slower performance. And a very good performance it is too.
Let him rest in peace.. deaf People schould nnot write