Frédéric Chopin
The Etudes
History. Performance Practice. Interpretation
Translated from the German by Matthias Müller
In remembrance of Jan Ekier (1913-2014)
SDP 124
ISBN 978-3-7957-8549-9
© 2015 Schott Music GmbH & Co. KG, Mainz
All rights reserved
www.schott-music.com
www.schott-buch.de
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Cover: Stefan Pegatzky
Contents
Preface
1 The piano etude in Chopin’s time
2 Pianist and pedagogue
3 Chopin’s instrument
4 Are there models for Chopin’s Etudes?
5 Notation and performance practice
6 Style and interpretation
7 The editions
8 Discography
9 Notes
Appendix: piano action
Bibliography
Index of Persons
Index of Etudes
Curriculum Vitae
Preface
Alfred Cortot [on the Chopin etudes]:
‘Bold undertakings to which the musician without virtuosity is just as unable to find access as the virtuoso without musicality.’
Von Lewinski, II, p. 1.
The first thing a book about Chopin’s Etudes brings to mind would be something in the way of a piano methodology; a personal, methodic approach to the (technical) challenges of these works. This is however not the primary focus of my book. Instead it deals with another, no less intriguing aspect: the Etudes in a historical perspective. While there are a number of publications that concern themselves with specific methods of technically coming to grips with the Etudes1, these masterpieces have in the course of the history of piano playing rarely been examined from a historical perspective. However, the growing interest for historical performance practice need not limit itself to pre-Romantic music; it certainly makes sense to apply this approach also to the Chopin Etudes that have been of key importance for the development of piano playing.
Chopin began work on his Etudes Op. 10 while still in Poland when he was not yet twenty, followed these up in Paris with the twelve Etudes Op. 25, finally writing three smaller Etudes a few years later.
When his Op. 10 was published in 1833 it caused a veritable sensation among his contemporaries, and together with his Op. 25 which was published in 1837 it was regarded as the summit of the pianistic parnassus. This is still the case today. Essential for acquiring a virtuoso piano technique, Chopin’s Etudes stand alone in that here technique is wedded in an unparalleled way to a wealth of musical ideas.
This book sheds light on a variety of aspects that are connected to historical performance practice: keys, manners of playing, tempo / character and metronome indications, pedaling and variants are put into perspective with regard to Chopin’s piano writing and the instruments he used. Attention is also given to a number of Urtext and historical editions as well as to the way the musical image of a work has changed over time. The book concludes with an overview of the many recordings of these Etudes that have been made over the years and an appendix presenting the different systems of piano action in the instruments used in Chopin’s time and after.
This is also the place to thank those who have helped me in writing this book. First and foremost my heartfelt thanks go to the eminent Polish pianist and scholar Jan Ekier with whom I had the privilege of studying in Warsaw in the 1960s and who shared his great love for and knowledge of Chopin’s works with me, which meant a great deal to me. Moreover, Ekier encouraged me in many conversations to write this book. Sadly, in August 2014, a few weeks before his 101 birthday, he passed away.
Also important was the exchange of ideas with the Swiss Chopin expert Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, who graciously gave me permission to quote comments of Chopin’s pupils that he collected in his book Chopin: pianist and teacher as seen by his pupils.2
After my book was published in 1996 in Dutch by ‘de Toorts’ in Haarlem, my friend and colleague the German pianist Detlef Kraus, who suddenly passed away in 2008, offered to translate it into German. This resulted in a revised edition published by Schott in 2009, and here I am very grateful to Paul Badura-Skoda, pianist and editor of the Wiener Urtext edition of the Chopin etudes, for letting me avail myself of his critical eye.
And now this English version has given me the opportunity to make some further amendments and include additional material, in particular in chapters 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8.
My special thanks go to translator and musician Matthias Müller for undertaking the task of creating the English text for this ebook which led to an intensive and inspiring collaboration.3
In addition I would like to thank the Bibliothèque National in Paris for the permission to reproduce a number of facsimiles, and to Hanna Wróblewska-Straus, the former curator of the Chopin Institute ‘Towarzystwo im. Fryderyka Chopina’ (TiFC) in Warsaw, who made it possible for me to study Chopin’s original manuscripts and provided photographic material. I also owe thanks to the ‘Österreichische Nationalbibliothek’ in Vienna for furnishing me with an important facsimile, as well as to the publishers Henle, Wiener Urtext, Breitkopf & Härtel and Schott for their kind permission to reproduce examples taken from their editions.
Finally, I hope this book will shed some light on the musical contents and background of Chopin’s Etudes and contribute to arriving at inspired interpretations of these masterpieces.
Jan Marisse Huizing, The Hague, Autumn 2015.
A portrait of Chopin in a rare lithograph. Drawing by Cäcilie Brandt after a portrait by Vigneron (lithograph, by A. Kneisel, Leipzig; private collection). The portrait was made in 1833, the year the Etudes Op. 10 were published.
1 The piano etude in Chopin’s time
Robert Schumann [on Chopin’s Etudes Op. 25.]
‘But wherefore the descriptive words! They are all models of bold, indwelling, creative force, truly poetic creations. […]’
(Neue Zeitschift für Musik, 22.12.1837). (Huneker, p. 99.)
When Chopin composed his Etudes Op. 10 – around 1830 – tutors specially written for the piano were being published only for a couple of decades. Most of the material published in this field until around 1800 usually concerned keyboard instruments in general: harpsichord, organ and clavichord, even though the authors sometimes revealed a preference for a particular instrument.4 Interest for these older keyboard instruments gradually diminished, particularly in Germany, due to the emergence of the more recent ‘fortepiano’, invented 1698 by Florentin Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731)5, until finally keyboard music was exclusively written for this instrument, besides the organ.6 One of the most important methods available at the end of the 18th century was the Klavierschule (1789) by Daniel Gottlob Türk (1756-1813). It was conceived for performers on the clavichord – listing its required qualities and special features of touch – as well as the harpsichord, organ and the fortepiano. It dealt with general music theory, performance practice and the correct application of embellishments. Technical matters were rarely addressed. In this, piano tutors very much reflected the way how music was typically understood at the time: as a unity of technical and musical content. The same also applies to the music of this period written for teaching purposes. It was part of a long tradition which included, in the field of keyboard music, Bach’s Inventions and Scarlatti’s sonatas – he called them Essercizi – as perhaps the most outstanding works of their kind.
During the Baroque period, but also for a great part of the ‘style galant’ and the early classical period, the different strength of the fingers was particularly emphasized. In that time there was talk of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ fingers that should be used in the service of a specific articulation to be derived from the musical text. ‘Good’ fingers for the ‘good’ notes, as they were called, which were somewhat emphasized and could be held even a little longer than notated, while ‘bad’ fingers took care of the lighter notes, to be played somewhat shorter. For the harpsichord and the organ this was an absolute necessity: considering the limited possibilities to differentiate the dynamics within a specific passage this way of playing helped to enrich musical expression.7 By contrast, on the new instrument, the fortepiano, which became very popular around the time of the Viennese classical period, it was not only possible to play in a nuanced way within extended passages but also within one chord. In addition, crescendo and diminuendo became important new means of expression.
These new developments were thus directly connected with a stylistic change. The transition from articulation to phrasing, differentiations within the dynamics and greater equalness in passage work were all means of expression in a new musical concept. Passage work, which in the Baroque period was frequently used in toccatas and preludes for instance, now served primarily to create connections between individual themes, as they appeared in the new forms of the time, for instance in the sonata and rondo form. In passage work, the necessary modulations could take place or a particular key could be reinforced for a longer period without the need for a new theme to appear.8 Passage work connected the themes in a ‘natural’ way to a musical whole.9
In the light of this development technical problems naturally came to be related to the weakness of particular fingers. It was considered necessary to work on the strengths of the fingers in order to implement the new possibilities of expression in the piano music of the time.
The many Etudes by composers such as Czerny, Hummel, Cramer and Clementi that were composed in this time reflected the difficulties that appeared in the new compositions. The specific technical problems were extracted from them to be studied separately and became a preparation for what was to be expected in the ‘real’ compositions.
We find this principle in numerous methods that were written by eminent piano pedagogues, for instance in the first method written specifically for the fortepiano by the frenchman Louis Adam (1758-1848).
His Méthode de piano, published in 1804, is the first to treat technique completely independently from the music and deals primarily with the execution of scales and triads. Only at the end do we find a few works by some major composers, for instance the first movement of Mozart’s A minor sonata K. 310, and of course also a few works by himself that serve to apply the newly acquired technique. This approach, which leaves very little room for the treatment of musical issues, is characteristic for all early 19th century piano methods.
A different approach consisted in finding in the compositions themselves a form in which the new technical possibilities could be applied.
A suitable model for this was the prelude, understood not only as a quasi improvised ‘overture’, but as an independent work with a technical and musical substance of its own. The preludes from Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier were still known to some extent – and moreover written in all 24 keys. Would it not be possible also to deal with piano technique in all keys?
The connection between preludes and exercises was already made. In his Preludes and Exercises in all major and minor keys, composed in 1811, Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) prefixed each exercise with a short prelude. In 1819 the Vingt Exercises et Préludes by the Polish composer Maria Szymanowska (1790-1831) were published; and Václav Vilém (Wilhelm) Würfel (1790-1832), professor at the Warsaw conservatory, with whom the twelve year old Chopin took his first organ lessons, wrote in 1831 his Zbiór exercycyi w ksztalcie preludyów ze wszystlich tonów maior i minor.10 Chopin must have been aware early on of the idea of combining preludes and exercises in all keys in a special way.
While in preludes the musical content became ever more important, as Chopin’s later masterfully showed in his Op. 28, exercises were developed into the form of the etude, where technique was the first goal. Also here, all 24 keys were used, for instance the 24 Etudes Op. 20 by the German composer Joseph Christoph Kessler (1800-1872), written in 1825 and published by Haslinger in Vienna.11 For decades they enjoyed great popularity and received much praise from eminent musicians such as Moscheles, Kalkbrenner and Liszt.
Chopin was well acquainted with Kessler, 11 years his senior, who had settled in Warsaw in 1829 and gave popular musical soirees that also Chopin enjoyed visiting. We can assume that Chopin then already got to know these Etudes to which Kessler owed a significant part of his fame in the course of his life. August Göllerich (1859-1923), Liszt’s piano pupil and secretary in Weimar, many years later, from 1884 to 1886, kept a journal during that time in which he recorded Liszt’s remarks about how much he and Chopin had valued Kessler’s etudes12:
‘We both loved Kessler’s etudes, they are even today very recommendable.’
(Göllerich, p. 17.)
Special piano pieces aimed at mastering piano technique met a growing demand – which a number of composers could satisfy, but which particularly Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny (1791-1857) had a knack for. Writing practical, pleasing pieces in which the focus on the actual goal of the exercise was not distracted by too much musical depth was uniquely suited to his masterful pedagogical talent. Others followed in his wake, for instance Cramer and Clementi, whose Etudes however demanded more expressivity. The difference in musical texture between Czerny and Hummel on the one hand – both belonging to the Viennese school – and Clementi on the other, who belonged to the so-called ‘English’ school, can certainly be explained by the different kind of instruments they had at their disposal. The action of the Viennese pianos, known as Prellmechanik, enabled a lighter touch, giving them a bright, balanced and clear tone characterized by a certain elegance, while Cramer and Clementi in London wrote for instruments whose somewhat less tight damper system and heavier action produced a rounder, more sonorous and fuller tone (see Chapter 3).
However, not only technique was disconnected from musical content; even the way musicians practiced in those days shows that they were no longer concerned with a musical-technical unity but rather with separate parts. A separation between music and technique that frequently was carried to extremes. Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1785-1849) remarked with a certain pride that he was able to read while practising. With this he was referring to Voltaire who dictated his works to his secretary from his bed and to Raphael who had someone read to him while painting. Of the great pianist Clara Schumann (1819-1896) we know that she read her mail during her daily technique practice.
Even Liszt – after hearing Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840) on 9 March 1831 in Paris – resorted to studying exclusively technique. On May 2nd 1832 he wrote to Pierre Wolff (junior) in Geneva:
‘[…] I practice four to five hours of exercises (3rds, 6ths, 8ths, tremolos, repetition of notes, cadences, etc., etc.). Ah! provided I don’t go mad, you will find an artist in me! Yes, an artist such as you desire, such as is required nowadays!’
La Mara, Vol. I, p. 8.
To achieve more rapid progress one could even employ mechanical aids – this too a sign of the times. Industrialization was at the centre of public interest and why could the machine that had already brought relief in so many other areas of life not also be used for mastering pianistic problems more quickly?
The chiroplast, invented in 1814 by Johann Bernard Logier (1777-1846), was such a much used aid. Already in 1822 a chiroplast school had established itself in Germany where children received piano lessons with the help of this apparatus.13 The chiroplast consisted of a rail mounted above the keyboard so that the hands could only move horizontally. To train the precision of the touch there were ‘finger holders’ in which one inserted the fingers to bring them into the ‘correct’ position above the keys.
Dactylion by Henri Herz
Friedrich Kalkbrenner’s guide-mains. In the illustration a screw is visible on the side of the piano with which the rail on which the lower arm rested could be adjusted to a higher or lower position.
Another aid was the dactylion by Henri Herz (1806-1888). It comprised ten strings hanging above the keys, with a spring on top of it and rings on the bottom ends in which the fingers were inserted. After striking the key, the finger was pulled up again by the simultaneously tightened spring. It is well known that Robert Schumann (1810-1856) ruined his right hand with a similar device. However, it is not altogether surprising that he used this aid to attempt to achieve the independence of his fourth finger. There was the general belief that problems of technique could be resolved by mechanical means. In the case of Schumann this had disastrous consequences, but from our perspective not entirely regrettable since he subsequently concentrated more on composing.
The guide-mains invented by Kalkbrenner was a simpler version of Logier’s chiroplast. It consisted of a rail mounted in front of the keyboard on which the lower arm rested so the fingers only could move without the participation of the arms. Kalkbrenner himself was very enthusiastic about his invention and hoped that from then on he would no longer have to worry about technique. Now he could devote himself entirely to his favorite pursuit, which was reading. In the preface to his Méthode (1830) he writes:
‘After a few days I understood all the advantages that this new working method [the guide-mains] gave me; my hand-position could no longer be incorrect, I had nothing more to occupy me, playing only five-finger exercises. Soon I decided to try reading while feeding my fingers their daily nourishment. For the first few hours it seemed difficult, by the next day I was already accustomed to it. Since then I have always read while practising.’
Kalkbrenner, p. 4 (Eigeldinger, p. 96.)
Business thrived to such a degree that Kalkbrenner set up a factory together with Logier that manufactured the chiroplast and the guide-mains. This provided him with a handsome extra income in addition to that from his teaching. Even Liszt had shares in this factory – he even let one of his pupils practise with the guide-mains.14 The separation of technique and musical content was an ineluctable precondition for making it into the realm of the virtuosos.
Impressing with technique for technique’s sake became a goal in itself. This was additionally stimulated by the emergence of public concerts where the audience could, for an entry fee, admire the brilliant tour de force of the virtuoso. They performed for a new audience that with the rise of the bourgeoisie made its entry into the concert hall.
This new social class had barely got to know the new instrument, the fortepiano, and already everybody from a respectable family had to play it. Particularly young ladies sat at the instrument, mostly in the form of a square piano, affordable and not too big, for which one could find a space in every living room. It also provided the ideal setting for the cosy four-hands playing, an intimate occupation that blossomed immensely. Even the composers profited, since, concurrently with this social development, there was a growing demand for compositions of a lighter genre. Amateur music making was on the increase.
The demand for piano lessons soared, almost beyond measure. Henri Herz – the inventor of the dactylion – could notify an American pianist who applied for lessons with him that the only time for a lesson in his overflowing agenda was at five o’clock – in the morning, of course! 15 Chopin was spared all of this, even if barely ... When he arived in Paris in 1831 he visited Friedrich Kalkbrenner whose piano playing impressed him greatly. He expressed his admiration in a letter to his friend Titus Woyciechowski (1808-1879):
‘If Paganini is perfection itself, Kalkbrenner is his equal but in a quite different field. It is impossible to describe his calm, his enchanting touch, his incomparable evenness and the mastery which he reveals in every note – he is a giant who tramples underfoot the Herzes, Czernys and of course me!’
Chopin, 12.12.1831 (Sydow/Hedley, p. 98.)
After hearing Chopin play, this celebrated pianist and teacher offered to give him three years of tuition with the prospect of an international career. Chopin’s family immediately turned to Elsner for advice, Chopin’s composition professor at the Warsaw conservatory, who responded promptly. Chopin’s sister Louise wrote to her brother about this:
‘As soon as he heard your letter he expressed dissatisfaction with Kalkbrenner’s proposition, crying, ‘Ah, jealousy already! Three years!’ […] We, judging in the simplicity of our hearts, could never have believed that Kalkbrenner was anything but a completely honourable man. But Elsner does not quite believe it and observed today: ‘They’ve recognised genius in Fryderyk and are already scared that he will outstrip them, so they want to keep their hands on him for three years in order to hold back something of that which Nature herself might push forward. […] ‘All imitation is as nothing compared with originality; once you imitate you will cease to be original. Although you may still be young your ideas may be superior to those of more experienced writers: [Louise:] You have inborn genius, and your compositions are fresher and better: you have the style of playing of Field, although you took lessons from Zywny – so what does it all prove?’
Chopin, 27.11.1831 (Sydow/Hedley pp. 95–96.)
Chopin took Elsner’s advice to heart and followed his own path – no dactylions, chiroplasts, guide-mains and no teachers who put their personal interests before their artistic integrity, getting the chance to prevent the genius from Poland from becoming one of the greatest pianists and composers of the 19th century.
2 Pianist and pedagogue
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy [letter 6.10.1835]
‘[…] His playing has enchanted me anew […] There is something entirely his own in his piano playing, and at the same time so masterly that he may truly be called a perfect virtuoso.’
(Eigeldinger. p. 268.)
In the light of the developments described in the previous chapter it comes as no surprise that the Etudes Op. 10 published in 1833 were a true sensation. They were believed to be unplayable. Ludwig Rellstab (1799-1860), famous and notorious critic, wrote:
‘Let us, however, be remitted from furnishing a special review of the 12 new apostles that Mr Chopin has sent into the world with the above 12 pieces and content ourselves with the surely not useless remark that those who have distorted fingers may put them right by practising these studies; but those who have not, should not play them, at least, not without having Messrs von Gräfe or Dieffenbach [Berlin surgeons famous around 1830] at hand.’
Eigeldinger, p. 144.
Rellstab’s observations are admittedly very drastic, but the Etudes’ difficulties that were certainly unusual for the time must indeed have seemed absurd to many. In contrast to the technical demands of Beethoven’s sonatas that served as a benchmark for numerous Czerny, Clementi and Cramer etudes, Chopin’s Op. 10 required a completely different, hitherto unknown piano technique. That he was aware of this we learn from a letter to Woyciechowski where he writes:
‘I have written a big Technical Exercise [Exercise en forme] in my own special manner. I’ll show it to you when we meet.’
Chopin, 20.10.1829 (Sydow/Hedley p. 35.)
It was immediately clear that his Etudes were something extraordinary, even though only a few people were capable of playing them. Among the pianists there was however one who was up to any pianistic challenge: Liszt, to whom they were dedicated, played them brilliantly. Chopin writes about this to Ferdinand Hiller (1811-1885) in 1833:
‘I am writing without knowing what my pen is scribbling, because at this moment Liszt is playing my studies, and putting honest thoughts out of my head: I should like to rob him of the way to play my own studies.’
Chopin, 20.6.1833 (Sydow/Hedley p. 117.)
Others, such as the highly regarded Ignaz Moscheles, (1794-1870), needed more time to warm to Chopin’s new manner. In 1833, shortly after Op. 10 was published, Moscheles wrote:
‘I gladly pass some of my leisure hours of an evening in cultivating an acquaintance with Chopin’s Studies and his other compositions. I am charmed with their originality, and the national coloring of his subjects. My thoughts, however, and through them my fingers, stumble at certain hard, inartistic, and to me inconceivable modulations. On the whole I find his music often too sweet, not manly enough, and hardly the work of a profound musician.’16
Moscheles, Vol. I, p. 295.
Even in 1838 he still wrote:
‘I play all the new works of the four modern heroes, Thalberg, Chopin, Henselt and Liszt, and find that their chief effects lie in passages requiring a large grasp and stretch of finger, such as the peculiar build of their hands enables them to execute; I grasp less, but then I am not of a grasping school. With all my admiration for Beethoven I cannot forget Mozart, Cramer and Hummel.’
Moscheles, Vol. II, p. 43.
But then – in 1839, after hearing Chopin himself – he was convinced:
‘His appearance is completely identified with his music – they are both delicate and sentimental. He played to me in compliance with my request, and I now for the first time understand his music, and all the raptures of the lady world become intelligible. The ad libitum playing, which in the hands of other interpreters of his music degenerates into a constant uncertainty of rhythm, is with him an element of exquisite originality; the hard inartistic modulations, so like those of a dilettante