Why nobody writes music like Chopin anymore

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

But I think what Chopin does is something different to any of these, something to do with the rootedness of his music in improvisation, and the proximity of the finished music to these improvisations. Generally, the finer the piece, the more evident the improvisation is - the Preludes, Mazurkas and Nocturnes, for instance, being generally accepted as better or at least more typically Chopinesque works than the Rondos, Scherzi or Polonaises, fine though the latter are too. We see in the 'improvisatory' Chopin things we don't see in anyone else of the time - we see perverse and inexplicable inconsistencies in articulation and dynamics from phrase to phrase, for instance; tiny, almost invisible and inaudible things, which would go against the grain for Beethoven or even for someone whose wildness and wackiness is more blatant, like Schumann. In Chopin they are related to this ultra-sensitive seismographic writing I mentioned, and which I think is part of the new approach to piano writing which he created.

Yes, re-listening to Chopin inside my head, I can see what you mean, and yes, I agree. There is a special fleeting quality to his most characteristic music, the music being caught in flight (of improvisation as you say). Schumann comes close, though, but he has a more Teutonic solidity, where Chopin can have an almost spectral lightness. Some of his Nocturnes are like X-rays of a dream.

Oops - just saw your words 'elusive' and 'enigmatic'...

[lukeottevanger]

Yes, re-listening to Chopin inside my head, I can see what you mean, and yes, I agree. There is a special fleeting quality to his most characteristic music, the music being caught in flight (of improvisation as you say). Schumann comes close, though, but he has a more Teutonic solidity, where Chopin can have an almost spectral lightness. Some of his Nocturnes are like X-rays of a dream.

Yes, and what I find interesting is that it is this aspect of Chopin, not the stylistic similarity, that is so important in Scriabin. IOW, in early Scriabin we get the surface Chopin style, but not (so much) this special Chopin feeling; in later Scriabin the surface Chopin style itself is more-or-less expunged, but strangely enough the Chopin feeling - of improvisatory lightness and flight, as you describe it, and no terms fit late Scriabin better - is there much more strongly. I think this probably applies to Faure too. This is what I mean when I say that the importance of Chopin's new approach to the piano goes much deeper than mere matters of stylistic influence. It transcends even Chopin himself, maybe, becomes just simply one particular mode of piano-writing.

oops, i guess i wasnt too clear, i ment greater & more rounded than Chopin... though I would also put Faure on the same level of Brahms (though I like his music so much more than Brahms as well, he was a clever buggar)  I own and have heard lots of Chopin, all the main works (honest!), i like some stuff but it's not my bag really and i could easily live without, realize Faure was influenced by him to a degree but the essence etc  ..different.

Ah, OK, I get you now. I'm not going to rise  - Chopin is IMO a much greater composer than Faure (when playing his music at the piano I am constantly staggered to the extent that I have to stop and take stock of the inexhaustible hidden intricacies - this doesn't happen so much when I'm playing Faure, even though that too is mostly piano music of the highest order), but I suppose in some sense Faure is more rounded. Roundedness isn't everything, though - if one is going to be 'true to oneself', as you and I both agree is utterly necessary, then a certain lack of roundedness may often be the result, depending on one's own tendencies.

[Florestan]

Chopin can have an almost spectral lightness. Some of his Nocturnes are like X-rays of a dream.

Very poetic, Johan! And very true.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Yes, and what I find interesting is that it is this aspect of Chopin, not the stylistic similarity, that is so important in Scriabin. IOW, in early Scriabin we get the surface Chopin style, but not (so much) this special Chopin feeling; in later Scriabin the surface Chopin style itself is more-or-less expunged, but strangely enough the Chopin feeling - of improvisatory lightness and flight, as you describe it, and no terms fit late Scriabin better - is there much more strongly. I think this probably applies to Faure too. This is what I mean when I say that the importance of Chopin's new approach to the piano goes much deeper than mere matters of stylistic influence. It transcends even Chopin himself, maybe, becomes just simply one particular mode of piano-writing.

I love (late) Scriabin as much as Chopin, though the kind of pleasure he affords is different from Chopin's - Scriabin is sharper, more jagged, more apocalyptic, more overtly erotic, too.

I now know too that I have to listen to Fauré more than I have done so far.

[lukeottevanger]

I love (late) Scriabin as much as Chopin, though the kind of pleasure he affords is different from Chopin's - Scriabin is sharper, more jagged, more apocalyptic, more overtly erotic, too.

Very true. Scriabin's scores are peppered with the most extraordinary performance indications (often having to do with being winged, taking flight etc, FWIW, but almost always having to do with the spiritual struggle embodies in the score). But somehow his music almost always lives up to them. I'm reminded of Wilfrid Mellers talking about Edward MacDowell, a composer with a similar propensity for strewing extravagant Italian adjectives over his scores, but with in his case a great disjunction between the word and the music: as Mellers says about MacDowell's 'On an Old Pine Tree', you don't make a piece impressive by labeling it 'Impressivo'!  Mellers didn't have much time for Scriabin at all, but evidently he never doubted that the music is able to live up to its labeling in this respect at least.

[Florestan]

I now know too that I have to listen to Fauré more than I have done so far.

Yes, please do. His piano music is of extraordinary beauty.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I'm reminded of Wilfrid Mellers talking about Edward MacDowell, a composer with a similar propensity for strewing extravagant Italian adjectives over his scores, but with in his case a great disjunction between the word and the music: as Mellers says about MacDowell's 'On an Old Pine Tree', you don't make a piece impressive by labeling it 'Impressivo'!

Did MacDowell really do that?! 

(Why am I reminded of The Fast Show all of a sudden, in particular that mock-Spanish show with the weather girl crying 'Scorchio!'...)

[lukeottevanger]

Did MacDowell really do that?! 

It's quite a typical trait. It finds its equivalent in the notes themselves, sometimes, too.

(Why am I reminded of The Fast Show all of a sudden, in particular that mock-Spanish show with the weather girl crying 'Scorchio!'...)

[greg]

Very true. Scriabin's scores are peppered with the most extraordinary performance indications (often having to do with being winged, taking flight etc, FWIW, but almost always having to do with the spiritual struggle embodies in the score).

I have a feeling he'd quite get into lucid dreaming.....

[lukeottevanger]

Very possibly!

Prompted by this thread I played through the second and fourth sonatas this afternoon - what gorgeous works, especially the latter. It's a special treat to play them, which I why I only do so now and then. Scriabin's 'Chopin' period is pretty short; it's over before the second sonata, after which he sounds like Scriabin only (and even when he was in that period, his style is still distinctively his), but even so looking at the later music with this discussion in mind it's striking how much some of this music still looks like Chopin - the glorious slow movement of the third sonata, for instance, has textures precisely like those in Chopin's first Polonaise or, even more, in the slow C# minor etude.

[orbital]

Very possibly!

Prompted by this thread I played through the second and fourth sonatas this afternoon - what gorgeous works, especially the latter. It's a special treat to play them, which I why I only do so now and then. Scriabin's 'Chopin' period is pretty short; it's over before the second sonata,

Of course, I don't know the technicalities, but the second sonata is very reminiscent of Chopin to my ears. I'd draw the line with the 3rd instead.

[jochanaan]

Indeed, but i wouldn't call Chopin a radical. His genius was too great for that...

And I feel his genius was too great to be anything but radical.

[lukeottevanger]

and it's more adventurous than Chopin too IMO.....

That's not a picture of Chopin I reconise, and I suspect that though you may have heard quite a bit of Chopin, you may not have heard or paid enough attention to the pieces where he is at his most extraordinary. In his own way, without the brazenness of Berlioz or Liszt (to mention only contemporaries), Chopin is as adventurous as either, sometimes a great deal more so. Those aren't merely pretty words - they can easily be supported by recourse to the music, where one frequently finds astonishing things years ahead of their time. There are harmonically extraordinary things in Chopin; there are audacious formal ideas (a piece without end, anyone?  ); there is the wholly new conception of melody as an evolving, never-the-same-twice feature.... Trust me, Chopin is as adventurous as they come, within his field.

the piano music of Faure is a lot harder than it sounds, there are no immense technical challenges in terms of great feats of virtuosity, but there are great textural challenges...the writing is dense, but yet requires clarity, it's typically French... it doesnt rely on effects, it doesnt yell out.....instead, it's very delicate, subtle, elusive, restrained...

Faure's last 3 Nocturnes in particular are just breath-taking, profound & moving...deep deep music.

Luke, have a listen to Faure's 13th Nocturne, it's one of my desert island picks, written at the very end of his life and it never fails to reduce me to tears. Or the very profound later songs especially La Chanson D'Eve; Le Jardin Clos, music so eloquently married to words & poetry. 

You don't need to sell Faure to me, don't worry! I've accompanied fine singers in many of these songs; I've played all this piano music myself, many times over (in fact in the last weeks I've been playing through all the Nocturnes, Preludes and Impromptus repeatedly, and loving every second of it). And I agree with every word you've said. That list of adjectives  - delicate, subtle, elusive, restrained - is spot on and the sentence it comes from:

there are no immense technical challenges in terms of great feats of virtuosity, but there are great textural challenges...the writing is dense, but yet requires clarity, it's typically French... it doesnt rely on effects, it doesnt yell out.....instead, it's very delicate, subtle, elusive, restrained...

is also bang on the money. The thing is, though, it also describes perfectly everything that I think is important about Chopin, too. Yes, Chopin can be virtuosic, of course, but that's not really where the interest in him lies* - his poetry is as elusive and restrained as anything in Faure, and if you think he's being obvious then you're probably missing the point. For me, Chopin isn't primarily the Etudes, the Sonatas, the Scherzi, Waltzes or Polonaises, though there is much wondrous stuff there. The essential Chopin is in the Preludes, [some of] the Nocturnes and the Mazurkas. This is music of the most astonishing, never-ending subtlety that one could talk about it for days without beginning to run dry.

I have a piano pupil, an 11 year old Japanese prodigy. Her party pieces are Chopin - Fantasie-Impropmtu, some of the Etudes, all played absolutely flawlessly and at dazzling speed    (<---front row of audience last time out). I told her to go and play the Mazurkas for a week - those seemingly easy little dances - using my annotated copy. She came back dazzled and enthralled - she couldn't believe how much there was in that music below the surface, even though there are so few notes compared to her spectaculars. Then I played through one of the simplest-looking Mazurkas, a plain-as-you-like white note number....and we spent an hour examining the extreme subtletly of Chopin's harmony and tonal planning in that piece alone. Trust me - Chopin has an enormous amount to give, but it's worth going to the less showy parts of his oeuvre first.

*except in the question of 'the poetry of virtuosity', which is an interesting one in itself. Comparing Liszt, Chopin and Alkan in this respect is instructive....

[mn dave]

yea OK, this is largely personal preference now.....i agree, some of the nocturnes, preludes...are nice but by & large his music really doesnt do much for me im afraid, i hear it but.....Faure is for my tastes, is so much better, trying to sum it up with words is tough i suppose; so best just stop trying ...

My personal experience has been that you either "get" Chopin or you don't. I didn't get him for a long time but one day he just clicked and now I love it all.

But of course that's just me. YMMV.

[bwv 1080]

That's not a picture of Chopin I reconise, and I suspect that though you may have heard quite a bit of Chopin, you may not have heard or paid enough attention to the pieces where he is at his most extraordinary. In his own way, without the brazenness of Berlioz or Liszt (to mention only contemporaries), Chopin is as adventurous as either, sometimes a great deal more so. Those aren't merely pretty words - they can easily be supported by recourse to the music, where one frequently finds astonishing things years ahead of their time. There are harmonically extraordinary things in Chopin; there are audacious formal ideas (a piece without end, anyone?  ); there is the wholly new conception of melody as an evolving, never-the-same-twice feature.... Trust me, Chopin is as adventurous as they come, within his field.

Yep

To paraphrase John Sampson in the larger Chopin pieces (Ballades, 2-3 Sonatas, Polonaise Fantasy, etc) you have apotheosis, not development.  He succeeded where his contemporaries all more or less failed in creating successful large forms that were not an akward rehash of Beethoven (paraphrasing Rosen there)

[Josquin des Prez]

I get it, I just dont care for it.

Then you still don't get it. 

[lukeottevanger]

yea OK, this is largely personal preference now.....i agree, some of the nocturnes, preludes...are nice but by & large his music really doesnt do much for me im afraid, i hear it but.....Faure is for my tastes, is so much better, trying to sum it up with words is tough i suppose; so best just stop trying ...

Well, agreed - and notice that I haven't tried to convert you or say that your tastes are 'wrong' (whatever that might mean). And I respect the fact that you haven't tried anything of the sort either. But Chopin is unequivocally an incredible and ultra-important figure and it's worth spending a little time thinking about why so many people feel this so deeply. So your last line - 'trying to sum it up with words is tough i suppose; so best just stop trying' - no, I can't agree! It's tough, yes, but it's the kind of discussion that makes a place like this interesting. Far more rewarding to engage with these issues than to back off from them. As for me, I've had Chopin, Faure and Scriabin on the brain and under the fingers all day, and that's made my day better by far! 

It's also interesting, for me, to see someone who loves Faure avidly so but is so cold on Chopin. Because they are in many ways such similar composers, with the same concerns for fluidity, detail, line, beauty, complex thought and subtle experiment that I find it hard to imagine loving one but not the other. So listening to your thoughts has been fascinating. I'm convinced that what you love in Faure you could find in Chopin if you listened for it, but that's another matter, and I don't want to preach at you.

FWIW part of what informs my posts on this thread is that I know the works of these composers as a performer as well as (or more than) as a listener. I find one always appreciates music more when one has come to grips with it physically and has immersed oneself in its notes. As a course of action for anyone who isn't too keen on Chopin but admits that they probably don't quite get 'where he comes from' I always recommend starting with the Mazurkas - and it's always worked until now! But even better is to try to play them. There are few greater pleasures at the piano than to sit down with that volume for an hour or two, IMO....

[karlhenning]

It's not my thing, that's all.

Can't argue with that, and spoken like a gentleman.

[Josquin des Prez]

I already knew and realized most of the stuff being said here, but it still doesnt change the fact that i have heard quite a lot of his music and prefer other stuff to it by miles and miles. It's not my thing, that's all.

No such thing. Genius doesn't bend to personal taste. Either you see it, or you don't, even if it's "not your thing".

[Josquin des Prez]

*except in the question of 'the poetry of virtuosity', which is an interesting one in itself. Comparing Liszt, Chopin and Alkan in this respect is instructive....

Chopin was the only poet among these.