Editor's note: Today is the birthday of pianist Chopin. Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1810, Chopin studied piano with his mother at the age of 4 and by the age of 7 had already shown his skills, often appearing at parties and salons with friends and family. With his musical talent, Chopin began to explore his own path on the keyboard, and by the age of 20 he had become a mature player, touring all over Europe.
After the polish uprising of 1830, Chopin went into exile and settled in Paris, teaching and composing piano. Shortly after leaving Warsaw, he wrote to his mentor Joseph Elsner that he had no intention of becoming famous on touring, but rather wanted to "create a new world for himself" as a pianist. Today, this ambitious goal seems predictable. In the following two years, Chopin's career in Paris made great progress, and he composed a series of masterpieces, including "Two Nocturnes" (op.15), "Twelve Etudes" (op.10), "B Minor Harmonics" (op.20), "Narrative In G Minor" (op.23), as well as a number of mazouga and round dances. These works show that Chopin has moved away from the early "flamboyant style" and began to form his views on the originality of music.
In his recently published authoritative biography, Chopin: Life and Times, writer Alan Walker interprets Chopin and his music through his decade-long research and extensive first-hand accounts. Writing about this critical period when Chopin opened up the "New World" in Paris, Walker placed Chopin in particular in the complex context of the Parisian music scene of the time— a city that had attracted composers and pianists by the time of Chopin's arrival, who competed with each other with their endless "stunts" in stark contrast to Chopin's delicate and emotional performances.
In Walker's view, this actually reflects Chopin's very different concept of playing technique from other pianists. In Chopin's Overview of Piano Technique, he clearly expounded his understanding of the fingering, syllables, timbre, etc. in piano performance, and questioned the "finger average" school advocated by Cherny and his supporters at that time. In Chopin's view, the player's finger structure is different, and the charm of touching the keyboard is also different, and it should not be generalized. The reason why the top pianists can play meticulous music is that they know how to use the different characteristics of each finger, which also makes Chopin transcend the limitations of the times and become the "Raphael of the piano world" in Heine's mouth.
Chopin: Life and Times
[English] Alan Walker by Hu Yundi, translated
| Social Science Literature Publishing House 2021-11 Chopin and the Keyboard: Raphael of the Piano World
Text | Translated by Alan Walker | Hu Yundi
Chopin had only been in Paris for less than two years, and people compared him to the outstanding pianists of his time. At this time, he was only 23 years old, basically self-taught, but he created a series of works that occupy an important place in the history of music. We can pause for a moment at this critical time and do some discussion of what he calls the "new world" he has opened up for himself.
By the time Chopin arrived in the French capital, the city had attracted composers and pianists, all of whom were striving to attain supremacy in the piano world. These include Alcon, Dreyschock, Herz, Hünten, Kalkbrena, Liszt, Picsis, Osborne, Sovinsky, Stamaty, Talberg, Zimmermann, etc. They either live in Paris or make a great appearance in Paris. Due to the excessive pursuit of superb playing skills, these pianists are now jokingly called the "Trapeze School" by some insiders.
Here one can hear Kalkbreiner's pearl-like passages, Dreishawk's powerful octaves, and the wonderful effect of Talberg playing like three hands. The trend, dubbed the "stunt theater" by the Revue et Gazette musicale (Music Review and Gazette), was at its peak at this time. Shortly after arriving in Paris, Chopin commented on his environment, and he has always insisted on this view: "I really don't know where there are more pianists than in Paris, and can you find so many idiots and performers elsewhere?" Is there any difference between the two? ”
Polish composer and pianist Friedrich François Chopin (1810-1849). Image source: Visual China 01 "Raphael of the Piano World"
Heinrich Heine likens the Parisians to "swarming locusts to wipe Paris dry". When Heine looked sharply at what he saw as the "musical circus," he couldn't help but pick up a pen and write a series of Musikalische Berichte aus Paris (Music Reports from Paris) to attack these vanity and arrogance. He uses irony as a sword and sarcasm as a stick. Heine commented on Dryshawk's noisy performance: "He made a hellish noise, and people heard not Dreishauk's playing alone, but three times sixty pianists. To avoid the reader not reading his pun, Heine also gave a fatal blow, further saying: "Since the southwest wind blew on the night of the concert, you could hear him playing in Augsburg." Let Franz Liszt go to hell. Kalkbreiner was passed by by a few words: "He is like a candy that has fallen into the mud." There's nothing wrong with it, but no one will pay any attention to it. ”
As for Pixis' playing, Heine commented that his beautiful melodies were so simple, especially sought after by canary dealers, who could go back and teach their feathered friends in cages to please customers. Henry Hertz, like Kalkbrener and Picsis, is classified as a "musical mummy".
Heine has publicly criticized numerous pianists and artists, but one has become a rare exception. Chopin has always been Heine's most admired pianist. Chopin's delicate and delicate playing, as well as the ever-changing timbres he presents on the keyboard, were favored by the German poet. Hence Heine praised Chopin as the "Raphael of the piano world".
His performance overshadowed all pianists, and also made people forget their technique, immersed in the sweet abyss brought by music, immersed in the joy and sorrow brought about by his exquisite and profound works. Chopin was a great and gracious poet, with a sweet voice that only Mozart, Beethoven or Rossini could match.
The biggest difference between Chopin and the acrobatics was that he had no intention of using the technique itself as the purpose of playing, and this strength was due to the fact that he did not receive any orthodox piano training. He does not belong to any school and does not follow any doctrine. His understanding of piano playing was explored by himself. While his contemporaries fought each other like gladiators on the stage of the concert hall, Chopin became a gem in his own right, creating a series of pioneering works that were written specifically for the piano and have since become timeless classics.
02 Give your fingers a different personality
Chopin's unfinished Overview of Piano Technique embodies some of the basic ideas he made in piano playing. Chopin believed that the ideal position when playing was when the five fingers landed on the five notes of E, F#, G#, A#, and B. This position is perfectly in line with the natural posture of the hand, making the player feel most comfortable. Heinrich Negoz (teacher of Richter, Gillers, etc.) considers this to be undoubtedly the most ideal hand shape for an introduction to piano. He had praised this hand shape, and also for Chopin. His comments are three points in the wood.
On the keyboard, there is no more natural hand shape than it... Through this simple exercise, beginners will be able to immediately develop a good feeling for the piano, and will feel that the piano and keyboard are not a strange, terrible, even hostile machine, but a familiar, friendly creature, if you treat it gently and generously, it is also willing to be friends with you, it longs for the closeness of human hands, just like a flower longs for the stop of a bee, and is willing to give all its nectar.
There is a deeper meaning behind the poetic expression "longing for the closeness of human hands". For the first time in piano history, the comfort of the hand was the focus of attention. Generally speaking, beginners first practice the awkward C major scale, not because of anything else, but simply because the scale does not have any lifting signs. Beginning in C major is a common tradition in the teaching of sight singing ear training, both in vocal and instrumental music. By focusing on the natural shape of the hand on the keyboard, Chopin freed himself from the fixed patterns and discomforts of C major. Such an idea also helps us understand why he created a large number of works with many lifting and lowering signs. The comfort of the hand "falling" on the keyboard has always been his focus, and of course this is not his only concern.
Chopin's left hand; a marble hand mold made by Auguste Clésinger (1849). Image from Chopin: Life and Times
Chopin made this point in his Overview of Piano Technique:
For the person who invented the piano keyboard, we can't praise his talent too much, the keyboard and the shape of the hand are too suitable. Is there a more elaborate design than a higher key (black key)? These keys are designed for long fingers and become the perfect pivot point. Often, people who know nothing about piano playing suggest without thinking that the keyboard should be designed to be flat. However, without the fulcrum, the hand loses stability, which in turn makes it extremely difficult to move the thumb when playing the ascending and lowering scales.
In piano pedagogy, no one has ever given a finger a different "personality". Chopin pointed out that the touches of each finger have their own unique charm. At first glance this statement seems naïve, because it is equivalent to turning the performer into a painter and turning the finger into an oil painting brush. But for Chopin, the ten fingers are like a rich color palette, allowing him to deduce a variety of colors. Poet Theophil Théophile Gautier once said that when Chopin's fingers touched the keys, "the keys were like being touched by the wings of an angel" – a very intriguing statement.
03 Fingering is at the heart of everything
When Chopin's fingers touch the keys of the piano, "what it is like, many people have spent a lot of ink to describe this scene."
At that time, the style of Sturm und Drang was popular in the piano world, turning the pianist into a playing machine. Chopin's treatment of color, detail and broken sentences sets him apart from everyone else. It was Chopin's quiet, soft voice that attracted and conquered everyone, and it seemed to say something, appearing to be independent in the hustle and bustle of the world. While contemporaries were tapping on keyboards to create a sound that lacked content, Chopin caressed the keys to tell his feelings.
Chopin probably wrote An Overview of Piano Techniques with this in mind: "We make music with sound, just as we make language with words." Because the singer's singing echoed in his head, Chopin's playing also had "breathing points", just as the singer would take a breath in some place and then start singing the next sentence.
Image source: Figureworm
In Chopin's day, the "finger average" school dominated the piano world, which advocated training ten fingers equally powerfully. As a result, the market is flooded with such etudes to help piano learners achieve "democracy on the fingers." Cherny was a recognized authority on this school, and his etudes seemed to break a man's hand and remained a nightmare for piano learners around the world. His most famous student, Franz Liszt, seems to have proved that Cherny's training method is the key to brilliance. Many pianists, such as Cramer, Clementi, Stamaty, Stephen Heller, etc., have similar pursuits and have created their own etudes. But these pedagogies have been plagued by a key question, namely how to separate the 4 and 3 fingers, that is, what Chopin calls "conjoined babies".
In fact, there are many performers who have buried their great futures by pursuing this too much. The list goes on and on, but the most famous victim was Robert Schumann. In 1829, shortly before Chopin met him, Schumann invented a "finger execution device". He fastens his ring finger to a lever that can be moved alone while the other fingers are bound. In the end, Schumann was partially paralyzed in his right hand and had to give up his playing career.
Chopin, on the other hand, had a different view of the issue. Instead of separating these "conjoined babies", why not just let the two stay together? In short, he chose to follow the laws of nature rather than confront them. He was concerned with another, but somewhat, related issue. Why do top piano masters make pianos produce such colorful and nuanced sounds? Chopin believed that the answer lay in the different colors and characteristics of each finger. Years later, the next generation of music educators, including Matthay, Leschetizky, Breithaupt, and others, began to study the problem of timbre and came to their own conclusions. But no one would deny Chopin's central idea that the finger itself determines the quality of the sound it emits. Although Chopin played at a relatively small volume, he was able to play a kaleidoscope of timbres on the piano, and few pianists could match him in this respect. After all, it is because of this that Heine called Chopin the "Raphael of the piano world".
One of Chopin's characteristics is that his playing is round and light, and he pays attention to this when teaching. He often had students massage, flex their palms and fingers before formally playing the piano, reducing the stiffness of their hands to stay relaxed and comfortable when the keys were dropped. Keeping his fingers soft and flexible is his aim. Adolf Gutmann once made an interesting comment when he said that Chopin's fingerings were carefully designed to achieve this goal. Indeed, fingering is at the heart of everything that drives everything. Nix said Chopin's fingering was "subversive," and that was true. For all students practicing Chopin's music, Chopin's fingering paves a smooth path that must be explored if one wants to explore more deeply the special connection between Chopin and the keys.
Excerpts from chopin: Life and Times are excerpts from the original text, with subtitles written by the editors and published with the permission of the publisher.