Chopin's Mazurkas

[Maciek]

I know that at least one other Gmger loves these works as passionately as I do. So I decided to start a thread to honour these small masterpieces. A thread where we could freely express our excitement about them. A thread not necessarily dedicated to recordings (though I suppose that'll be unavoidable ). Chopin's Mazurkas really are the pinnacle of the genre (even if Szymanowski and Maciejewski were both very close to reaching similar heights, I think Chopin's genius here is unsurpassed).

Luke, report for duty please. Unlike me, you usually have something interesting and substantial to say...

(Everyone else is welcome as well, OF COURSE!)

Maciek

[George]

Rubinstein in stereo, Ashkenazy on Decca or most of all:

Luisada on DG (if you can find it). He plays with a beautiful rubato that is difficult to come by these days. I know orbital will back me up on this one.   

[orbital]

I know orbital will back me up on this one.   

Definitely. I think the only reason he is not respected more in these works is because there is no hiss in his recordings 

Apart from him and Rubinstein I like Kapell's and Sofronitsky's interpretations the most.

As for the music itself, I agree that they are at the very top of Chopin's ouvre. This realization did not come easy to me, but as I listened, read and actually played (!) a few of them their genius became more and more apparent. Nowhere else in his ouput can we as objectively follow his progress as a composer. One thing I notice, I don't know if it's shared by anyone else, is how mazurkas transform from a pure Polish spirit to a Polish-French offspring. A very simple -but perhaps immature- example would be to just compare the very first Op6/1 to Op68/4.
Although I can't easily pick up favorites as op #'s there are a few that stand out perhaps a bit for me. If I have to names names  Opp17, 30, 33,50, 63 and the posthum 67 and 68.

[Drasko]

As for the music itself, I agree that they are at the very top of Chopin's ouvre.............

.........One thing I notice, I don't know if it's shared by anyone else, is how mazurkas transform from a pure Polish spirit to a Polish-French offspring.

Yes and yes it is 

[springrite]

I love the Chopin Mazurkas, BUT, on recording, there are only a few who plays them "right", meaning of course to my satisfaction. The key, it seems to me, if how to make the mazurka's qurkiness sound completely natural, like it is in the blood. There is no one who does this better than Friedman. (On the other hand, most pianists sound measured). Other good ones include Rubenstein, Josef Vila and Sofronitski.

[Maciek]

One thing I notice, I don't know if it's shared by anyone else, is how mazurkas transform from a pure Polish spirit to a Polish-French offspring. A very simple -but perhaps immature- example would be to just compare the very first Op6/1 to Op68/4.

I don't want to sound obsessed but while I can see why anyone would call the mazurkas "Polish" (the use of Polish folk material, Polish folk scales, the rhythm of Polish folk dances etc.) I don't understand what the French element would be here. Were there even any notable French piano composers at that time?

The one you're talking about (op. 68 no. 4, Chopin's very last piece and one he actually never finished - the two versions in existence are both reconstructions) is a classic kujawiak (Polish folk dance), chromatically extremely complex (very similar to the E Minor Prelude) - that always goes very well with the "spirit" of the kujawiak. It even includes a fully fledged Tristan chord (resolved in the same way as in Wagner), so maybe it's more of a Polish-German piece (though German avant la lettre)...? But where's the French element?

[Steve]

I stick with Rubinstein on these, of course, in stereo

[SimonGodders]

[val]

I prefer Rubinstein (RCA). But there are fascinating versions of some Mazurkas, above all in the recordings of Michelangeli and Horowitz.

[Maciek]

Oh man, I was really hoping we could avoid those best-recording discussions... There is already a Chopin Recordings thread that serves that purpose. Why don't you just say which mazurkas you like or don't and why exactly? Or even, explain what "Polishness" or "Frenchness" in music is...? I don't know, say something substantial about the composer and his music without going into the performances which are whole different subject altogether...

[lukeottevanger]

Luke, report for duty please. Unlike me, you usually have something interesting and substantial to say...

Hello

Yes, as a series, these gems are certainly my favourite Chopin - and don't think that means I don't love the rest wildly! My copy is scrawled all over with excited notes as I discover new nuances to these pieces. Though they are balder and less luxurious than mosto f the rest of his output, that is only because they are such concentrated music, stripped down of extraneous tinsel. If, to start with, I am to pick just one feature of them that always jumps out at me, it is that, from first to last, Chopin varies his repeats by altering the tinest details of articulation - an added tenuto here, a dot replaced by a rest there etc. etc. The result is that the music comes alive, as if it is being improvised on the spot. Most performers ignore these details, as far as I can hear, although they usually make up for it by adding their own interpretive twists to thing.

[lukeottevanger]

Years ago I wrote something long-winded about the Mazurkas, or some of them - IIRC it was in response to Contrapunctus, at that time in the middle of his Gouldian phase, and busy asserting wildly that Chopin was a 'fad' composer who knew nothing about counterpoint. That orginal thread is long gone, but Herman copied my post into the beginning of his 'Fighting over Chopin' thread on the old board. I can't really remember what I said now - I suppose I ought to re-read it - but it's there if anyone wants to have a laugh.

Edit - not quite: the third of the three posts of mine that Herman copied was directed at Contrapunctus; but the first two were written for the much-missed Sara (Smew) who was having difficulties with Chopin at the time.

[Drasko]

Years ago I wrote something long-winded about the Mazurkas, or some of them...............I can't really remember what I said now - I suppose I ought to re-read it - but it's there if anyone wants to have a laugh.

Why a laugh? That text on Mazurkas is fabulous. It's at the same time technical enough to give substantial insight and utterly readable to somebody who can't even read notes (like me). That is not an easy ballance to find.

[orbital]

I don't want to sound obsessed but while I can see why anyone would call the mazurkas "Polish" (the use of Polish folk material, Polish folk scales, the rhythm of Polish folk dances etc.) I don't understand what the French element would be here. Were there even any notable French piano composers at that time?

The one you're talking about (op. 68 no. 4, Chopin's very last piece and one he actually never finished - the two versions in existence are both reconstructions) is a classic kujawiak (Polish folk dance), chromatically extremely complex (very similar to the E Minor Prelude) - that always goes very well with the "spirit" of the kujawiak. It even includes a fully fledged Tristan chord (resolved in the same way as in Wagner), so maybe it's more of a Polish-German piece (though German avant la lettre)...? But where's the French element?

Dear Mr Osa you are going technical on me  I'm not equipped to answer you about the technical aspects, which of course would be a huge part of such a discussion if we can ever talk about one.

I don't mean to say that his music was influenced by the French composers of the time. As far as I know there are not many to even talk about. Perhaps what I mean is the increasing subtly of the dancing elements in the music giving way to more singing elements which later on became a staple of French music as we know it today.

If we take another comparison, perhaps the first one was two mazurkas at extremes; for example the op17/4 and the 68/4. Both slow, melancholic to a degree, but there still is a more clear rhytmic emphasis on the a minor compared to the  f minor one.

OF course I don;t mean to present it to accompany my theory  but this reminded me of a scene in that awful Chopin movie, where he was complaining that he was losing his Polish character and was depressed for it, and then suddenly he comes up sith this famous D major mazurka and starts dancing with his valet 

[sidoze]

I would guess that pianists cherish the Mazurkas (mazurki? ) more than listeners do. Partly 'cause that's the nature of the music: private, subtly detailed and complex, as Luke mentioned, in large part meant only for the pianist who's playing at the time. Partly 'cause most of the mazurki don't go anywhere at all and people usually like a story to latch onto. And partly 'cause they're the most sensitive and idiomatic pieces Chopin wrote, so unless a pianist loves the small details and staring into the void and has two separate, dancing feet, the listener isn't going to enjoy the music much. 'Cause as Herman used to say, they're just not as sexy as his other concert staples.

If we take another comparison, perhaps the first one was two mazurkas at extremes; for example the op17/4 and the 68/4. Both slow, melancholic to a degree, but there still is a more clear rhytmic emphasis on the a minor compared to the  f minor one.

With all due respect to MrOsa's wish to keep recordings separate, I think 68/4 is the most abused of all the mazurki--regularly lumbered through in jackboots--and that it swings better than perhaps any other, as shown by the great Polish pianist Maryla Jonas. French, bleh  Unless you have poetic license a la Andrzej Wasowski, the mazurki usually sound better as fairly sprightly dances, something that seems to be happening less and less as the mazurki, through contemporary pianists, are slowly achieving rigor mortis

op. 68/4 - Maryla Jonas rec. 1946

http://download.yousendit.com/01D126CE5098AF93

If anyone wishes to listen through the tape hiss they might hear a wonderful performance of 17/4 made in 1917 by Edouard Risler.

http://download.yousendit.com/737738C42F552C97

[George]

Thanks for that, Tony!

If I knew that all it took was a Mazurka thread to get you to return, I would have started one long ago! 

[SimonGodders]

If anyone wishes to listen through the tape hiss they might hear a wonderful performance of 17/4 made in 1917 by Edouard Risler.

Thanks for that, good to see you back

[lukeottevanger]

I would guess that pianists cherish the Mazurkas (mazurki? ) more than listeners do. ... Partly 'cause most of the mazurki don't go anywhere at all and people usually like a story to latch onto. ...

I know exactly what you mean - they don't, in general, have the obvious sweep of the Nocturnes or the Ballades, to name but two - but in reality this is less true of the Mazurkas than of, say, the Waltzes (to compare seemingly-like with like). What tends to happen is that Chopin takes each op as a series to be heard as a whole - almost like the four movements of a sonata. And very often the last, or the first, or both, tend to be longer, more developmental, with more dynamic climaxes and more of a 'story' indeed; often they have open endings or other such devices too. Those are the ones I think of as like mini tone poems. Very often even the shorter Mazurkas 'tell a story' too, sometimes explicitly echoing the choreography of the relationship between the male and female dancers.

If anyone wishes to listen through the tape hiss they might hear a wonderful performance of 17/4 made in 1917 by Edouard Risler.
http://download.yousendit.com/737738C42F552C97

Thank you very much for this - a beautiful performance of an extraordinary piece, not too languid as some performances are; still a dance in the outer sections Got any more like this?

[Maciek]

this reminded me of a scene in that awful Chopin movie, where he was complaining that he was losing his Polish character and was depressed for it, and then suddenly he comes up sith this famous D major mazurka and starts dancing with his valet 

That sounds horrid - I wonder if it's the same one I saw a few years ago, the new Polish production, one of the worst movies I've ever seen. We went together with my wife and couldn't help laughing almost all the way through (well, it was better than crying - which would have been the other obvious choice). The most pretentious, badly acted piece of junk about music that I'd ever seen... A disaster of a movie. I don't remember if it had a "dancing with the valet" scene - it seems I've repressed all memory of the details.

[Maciek]

With all due respect to MrOsa's wish to keep recordings separate

That's OK. What I wanted to avoid is comparing full sets and concentrating on comparing those recordings. Discussing the recordings of particular mazurkas is exactly the case of "unavoidable" I had in mind in my first post.