My copy is the Mikuli edition, which is basically entirely different dynamics-wise: crescendo through 33, descresc through 34, piano at 35 then crescendo through the bar; finally, decrescendi in the second half of the next three bars.  I'm not sure I like the idea of that swell through the mini-"chorale" in 35-36; seems to me it should be more withdrawn throughout. Anyway.

I do love the 1-1-1-1-1 fingering in the right hand mm. 37-8; since that's in both Mikuli and Paderewski, can we assume that it's echt Chopin?

You mean your "starter for Op. 10", do yo not?!

"Counterpoint...seen to precede harmony"? I don't really buy into that in this context, although the contrapuntal urge is admittedly never far beneath the surface in some of Chopin's finest work. It's intersting that you invoke Berlioz, since that reminds me of a report I read of an interview with Boulez some years ago in which he spoke of the harmonic strengths of Chopin against the harmonic weakness of Berlioz, alongside the orchestral weakness of Chopin against the orchestral strengths of Berlioz. I'm not sure that I'm with him about Berlioz's harmonic weakness, but what struck me was Boulez's appreciation of Chopin's harmonic developments which, even in the early days, seem to me to be of very considerable sginificance and the full significance of which, even today, seems in some circles to be somewhat under-appreciated.

That said, Chopin's best work is shot through with examples not unakin to the one you cite from what is perhaps the least often performed of his three Impromptus. Some of the sinuous movement in Op. 10 No. 5 is perhaps a rather different kind of example (how on earth did a mere teenager conceive and bring off those Op. 10 Études?!), the gorgeous Barcarolle has it in spades, there is the most remarkable contrapuntal passage towards the end of the B major nocturne, Op. 61 No. 1, there are similar instances in some of the mazurkas and this chromatic contrapuntal persuasion is in evidence as early as the Scherzo from the Piano Trio (see bars 13-16) which dates from even earlier than that first devastating set of Études.

You write most appositely of
"the Bachian contrapuntal sophistication of Chopin's music (so often lost when played in an overly melody-dominated way), but also the vocal (rather than orchestral) quality of his piano writing"'; these two things go very much hand in hand, it seems to me and, whilst I disagree with the way in which you express yourself in the use of the phrase "overly melody-dominated way" (of playing), I do know (I think!) where you are coming from here - you are, I believe, thinking of what I call the overly obsessive "right-hand-fifth-finger" approach to some of Chopin, of which even the late Shura Cherkassky could be guilty from time to time (I well recall his otherwise fascinating account of the four Ballades as the first half of a recital he gave some 20+ years ago in Cheltenham in which this persuasion tended to threaten to obscure certain important detail, despite how beautifully it was done).

Returning to harmony in Chopin, of many so many fascinating examples I could cite, I am minded right now to think about that passage in the F minor Ballade in the section beginning in A flat major where, on the second quaver of bar 128, he implies an example of quartal harmony surely not to be seen again much before the opening measures of Schönberg's Op. 9 First Chamber Symphony...

Thanks for raising this topic - and now I'd better shut up about Chopin, otherwise no one else will get a word in edgeways!...

Best,

Alistair

I half suspected as much. Now, whilst I would be most wary of questioning Rosen, what strikes me is how far towards maturity Chopin was even at the time of his earliest published works (rather as is the case with Medtner) and his harmonic grasp and contrapuntal felicities were accordingly both very much in evidence even before those ground-breaking études of Op. 10.

It gives me the very same - and there are many so many other instances of it in his work.

This is a real problem, for I also believe that Chopin's Études were not merely peaks in the history of pianism but also provided incentives to instrument designers to improve pianos to the point where that very kind of across-the-keyboard evenness was felt to be desirable in order to help the pianist bring the best out of music that, when it wants to, flings itself right across the entire range and sometimes demands similar subtleties of inflection and nuance at its extremes. I'm not arguing with what you write here, but I do think that, perversely, some of Chopin's work was in part (albeit also indirectly) responsible for the very developments that led to the kinds of piano that had become more the norm in the years immediately following the deaths of Liszt and Alkan. Would Chopin have regretted this aspect of his pioneering spirit and/or seen it as some kind of misappropriation of what he was about and what he wanted? who can say with certainty? Chopin was not alone in this, of course - Alkan's and Liszt's demands on player and instrument were likewise inevitably to lead in similar directions - but I rather think that Chopin, along with Beethoven in his final piano works, spearheaded this to some degree.

Best,

Alistair

Perhaps you're right after all - and, as a pianist (which I'm not), you ought to know better than I; it's just the way that certain aspects of some of Chopin's music struck me. You are right, of course, that Chopin generally prized Pleyels over Érards, but I cannot help but remain fascinated (and that's all I'll ever be able to be, of course!) by the prospect of observing Chopin's reactions to, say, the Steinways of the 1890s, the Mason & Hamlins of the 1920s and 1930s and the best of modern Bösendorfers in the context that many pianists were still determined to play Chopin's music on them (of these, Bösendorfer was the only manufacturer that made instruments in Chopin's own lifetime, although Chopin would almost certainly not have known them, as the firm was still very much in its infancy at the time Chopin died). If indeed we are left with a problem here, I think that it may be one of perceptual conflict between, on the one hand, whether Chopin, for all his vision, could not necessarily envisage the future of piano design and manufacture and its significance for the future of his own music (including whether his development of piano writing would have had an indirect part to play therein) and, on the other hand, whether our current view of Chopin's music and its performance might have become unduly coloured by our long-standing familiarity with pianos that he never lived to encounter...

Best,

Alistair

I'm quite fond of a compilation of (all too) familiar pieces played by Janusz Olejniczak on the Opus 111 label, and also Patrick Cohen's complete Mazurkas on Glossa, actually now I look at the shelves that's all the Chopin I have on CD, and, given my not-very-high level of interest in and knowledge of this music I dare say these choices will be found by the experts to be sadly wanting in taste. Still, there it is.

Every language has different melodic ways of speaking. Ian was talking about particular intonation in Chopin Impromtu op. 51.
In Polish and Russian intonation is very important because the order of words in question and statement is the same. The difference is only intonation. They rely a lot on intonation for expression of many things. One can do it in English to (by emphisising different words in a sentence the meaning is changed). That goes for the particular section in question. I am just making it clearer (I think) that everything can be played in many different ways).
I think Polish and Russians have a way with rubato which is a key thing for Chopin.
It is interesting to talk about rubato. Who wrote that he was listening to Chopin teaching a piece in 3/4 time and conducted it in 4/4. And they had an artument with Chopin.
Freedom is all important in playing Chopin.
Different composers have different rubato. Schumann's rubato was for specific place (short ) expressed in rit sign.
I think it is his German way of thinking (more structured and less free). Sometimes I am listening to pianists playing Schumann and thinking that they have wrong rubato.

Not having my scanner with me where I am (out of the country), and so unable to copy the passage in question and post it here, I would direct people to http://www.imslp.org/wiki/Ballade_No.4_%28Chopin%2C_Frederic%29 to see the passage Alistair is referring to. Open the PDF file, go to page 6, look at the first bar of the fourth system. Incredible stuff.

(for those looking at this thread, do also look at the Scriabin thread in the 20th century sub-board of the Music Appreciation section - various stuff about Chopin is included there)