Some points in Mr. Iron's last two messages call for immediate response.
1) Chopin's intentions!
Yes we do gather that he had a lot of cross-rhythms going - he loved that sort of thing as will be evident from this Study too (
rapidshare or
sendspace - threes against fours and coincidentally in the same key). But the only hints about Chopin's intentions we see in our score (apart from "play one note after the other") are
a) the marking
molto legato (which seems to call for a lack of emphasis) and
b) Schumann's quoted description of Chopin's own playing of this Study: "How charming, how dreamy it was! Soft as the song of a sleeping child."
Arthur Friedheim in his notes to our edition maintains that "extreme smoothness and evenness are requisite in this Etude." He adds that Liszt hardly used the pedal but held down the lowest left-hand bass note in each hand until the next change and that "Chopin unquestionably performed the piece in the same manner." Mr. Friedheim then is worried about the left hand whereas it is the right hand which concerns Mr. Iron!
2) The outcome (as usual) is that the RH is tossed off as though it is in 6/4 (seemingly to match the perceived rhythm of the LH), and in consequence the dissonant returning notes seem thereby always to fall on the beat instead of off it.
That is not the case in the crackpot version we presented earlier to-day. Each right-hand note is given
exactly the same duration and attack as every other right-hand note. There is
no emphasis on either the first note of the triplets, or on the notes corresponding to whatever the left-hand is doing. Any
perceived emphasis arises solely from the relationship of the notes to one another.
It may help if we explain the circumstances of its production: the performance was put together twenty-three years ago, on a small specialized and primitive Japanese contraption for sequencing, at a time when MIDI sequencers were not yet readily available on the tiny P.C.s - lacking hard drives - of the day. (We intend next month to do Scryabine's sonatas properly in a much more modern way.)
We do accept however that Chopin
had a reason for writing the right-hand triplets. We suppose that with
cross-rhythms and triplets left right and centre he was attempting as he often did elsewhere to remove or at least
confuse any sense of a regular beat, whether four to a bar or six to a bar! This is our main point of difference from Mr. Iron is it not?
3)The time-signature is Cut-C
If "Cut-C" means a C with a vertical line through it that is not the case in our Schirmer edition which has an uncut C! Perhaps some kind Member can clear this point up, and also say whether the "
molto legato" is original.
4)The subtlety is that this cross-rhythm is different from the cross-rhythm used in the RH. But how many performances attempt to clarify and present this subtlety - not many.
We do not see the necessity of clarifying and presenting these aspects of the work which should - along with many other things - be as evident as everything else if the notes are played "straight."
5) As a follow-on to my last post, compare these electronic versions of Mr Grew's Chopin Study.
The time has come for us to make a confession: We are not musical at all, and lack all discrimination! We have listened carefully to those four passages which the Member has evidently spent much time and trouble preparing, and we are - honestly - unable to hear any significant difference between example 1 and example 4!!!! Perhaps though we are listening out for the wrong things and other Members will be luckier.
