I was wondering if anyone have analyzed chopin's works and post it here. I really like his style especially the etudes and ballades:thumb:. Thanks for the help! :lol:

Hmm.. I like his Preludes and Mazurkas =D

It's neat hearing justa few minute songs. It's kinda like modern music, a main melody, a refrain (melody) and a part thats very different from the two. Kind of like a Scherzo.

and that paragraph above was explaining about the Mazurkas.

the preludes i like. it can picture a scene in your head from an anime or manga scene. ones i refer from the preludes are:

Prelude No. 4
Prelude No. 6
Prelude No. 7
Prelude No. 12
Prelude No. 15
Prelude No. 16
Prelude No. 20
Prelude No. 24

those are my favorites. some might seem familiar

hmmm... i see. What about the impromtus, ballades, and waltz? are they somewhat alike with the preludes? i never heard his preludes before. and when i try to listen, i get bored because i like the more faster ones.

See, the ones I chose are more faster, a few are slower, but beautiful.
Well, if you want to listen to his Preludes, get this CD. Great Pianist, you might of heard of him.

CD:

Evgeny Kissin:

24 Preludes, Op. 24
Sonata No. 2, Op. 35 - Bb Minor
"Heroric" Polonaise, Op. 53 - Ab Major

Get that CD. Or download it somehow. Kissin has the best touch on Chopin that I've heard so far. He also make the Polonaise, flawless..

Yep. I googled him, and heard the streams. Hes a great pianist but the streaming was in bad quality.

Say, if you know this piece by Chopin, please tell me. thanks :) . Another great pianist, Li Yundi(a lot of face expression :lol: )

http://www.vimeo.com/clip=9591

Edit: i was trying the Polonaise but my left hand got sore badly in the middle of the piece@_@ XD

Wouldn't this be better suited in the Music Disscussion forums?

Say, if you know this piece by Chopin, please tell me. thanks :) . Another great pianist, Li Yundi(a lot of face expression :lol: )

http://www.vimeo.com/clip=9591


Grande Polonaise Brilliante, op. 22, arranged for solo piano, I think.

Wouldn't this be better suited in the Music Disscussion forums?

Yup . .

Anyways, long ago I read an article once, and I'm a bit shaky on the details, but from what I remember: Chopin never wanted to publish his Fantasie Impromptu, but after he died, his publisher went ahead and did it (and now the world thanks him for doing it =P). However, scholars wondered why Chopin didn't like this piece. Eventually, someone performed Schenkerian analysis on it (google it xD), and discovered that it was somewhat similar to one of Beethoven's sonatas. It turns out that Chopin was quite fond of this sonata, and used to study it often and also made his students practice it. He went so far as to base his Fantasie Impromptu on it (probably as an exercise in composition). However, because he had so much respect for Beethoven, he didn't think it would be right if he published it. That's how the story goes!

Nice info!

If anyone wanna know Schenkerian analysis, here you go(googled it lol)

Quote:Schenkerian analysis is an approach to musical analysis devised by Heinrich Schenker. It generates all tonal music from a simple progression based on the tonic triad which in its simplest form is:

Image:Schenkerian Ursatz 321IVI.png

This prototypical counterpoint, which Schenker called the Ursatz (see satz), consists of a melodic prototype (the "Urlinie") and a harmonic prototype (the "Bassbrechung"). The Urlinie is "a stepwise descent from one of the triad notes to the tonic (hence, 3-2-1, 5-4-3-2-1, 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1)" (Middleton 1990, p.193). The bass arpeggiation is a two-stage progression: first moving from I to V and then from V back to I. Schenker came to understand every tonal work to be an embellishment of an Ursatz, giving precision to the claim that a tonal work unfolds in a particular triad or key.

Schenker defined tonal music as that of the masterpieces of the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras. According to Allen Forte, "Schenker's major concept is not that of the Ursatz, as it is sometimes maintained, but that of structural levels, a far more inclusive idea." Schenker called these levels Schichten. He called only the Ursatz background or Hintergrund and he called the foreground Vordergrund.

Schenker used traditional musical notation with modified implications, and his own symbols, on graphs or graphic analyses. Forte groups Schenker's graphs into "rhythmic" and "structural" types. In rhythmic reduction, often called metric reduction, the original note durations and their meanings are kept, while in structural analysis longer rhythmic values indicate greater structural importance or level. In Free Composition half notes, sometimes whole notes, are used for the fundamental line also accompanied by careted scale degree and its supporting bass. Quarter notes indicate middleground, linear progressions and their supporting bass lines, and eighth notes usually indicate embellishments or leading tone motion to the tonic. Beams and slurs connect and group together parts of the same structural level. Other symbols include those for interruptions and omissions.

While contemporary authors such as Forte and Beach present Schenker's analysis as a process of reducing a composition to an Ursatz, Schenker himself saw analysis as generating from the premise of an Ursatz


Diminution

Other important concepts include diminution. In Schenkerian theory a diminution, or "division", rather than a diminishing is an expansion, "the process by which an interval formed by notes of longer value is expressed in notes of smaller value." Those notes of smaller value represent the notes of longer value, and thus the latter need not be present. A diminution may be classified as a passing note (P), neighboring note (N, upper or lower, complete or incomplete, direct or indirect), consonant skip (CS), arpeggiation (Arp). These are all also terms for nonchord tones, but Schenkerian analysis differentiates levels not expressed by the terms chordal and nonchordal tones. Diminutions may also be prefixes or suffixes. (Forte and Gilbert 1982)

"The function of a note is determined by its harmonic and contrapuntal setting." Thus whether a note is part of or a diminution is determined by its context. For example, if two adjacent notes alternate, the one which is 'unsupported' by the harmony is a neighboring note. (Forte and Gilbert 1982)

Schenkerian analysis uses its own form of notations, or creates successive notations of musical works. The first step is often a rhythmic reduction, removing some or all diminutions. Then the time signature and barlines are removed, with stems and slurs added. Slurs indicate dependency upon stemmed notes. (Forte and Gilbert 1982)

Legacy and responses

Fred Maus (2004, p.162) compares Schenker's "creation of an elaborate tonal theory in response to post-tonal music" with "sexologist's back-formation of the concept of heterosexuality as a complement to their new concept of homosexuality." Finding similarities, "to some extent" including the "conceptualization of the normative or unmarked category" following "awareness of an alternative." Though Schenker considered nontonal or atonal music unnatural, unlike the sexologists who focused more on minoritized categories, he focused on elaborating his theory of tonal music.

Milton Babbitt admired Schenker's work and his own work may be seen as part response, revision, and alternative to Schenker's. For example, he suggests that the properties described as natural phenomenon by Schenker be considered axioms and he also formulated a system to compose twelve-tone music that was "equally intricate and fruitful." Allen Forte also responded to Schenker by providing an alternative system applicable to the analysis of nontonal nontwelve tone music. (ibid, p.162-163)

Thanks to en.wikipedia.org (the free encyclopedia) :)

edit: thanks stefan!:lol:

@Al - See what did I tell you on how Chopin and Beethoven have a unique/similar style for compositions. And yes that is correct, he didn't want it printed because of that reason.

Also, that guy has a good touch, but it's hard watch someone play Chopin, and having the sound and the video off just the slightest bit, funny looking too.

Another great CD is this:

CD:

Chopin: Mazurkas - Vladimir Ashkenazy

He does a great job on them, plays all of the mazurkas that were written/published by Chopy himself :heh: .

And you thought that guy had a weird look on his face when he played, LOL, try watching Lang Lang. He does very odd facial expressions. I know because, he played with the New York Phil. on the second opening night. He played the great Piano Concerto No. 1 by Chopin. He was great, but you can't doubt him for his "ego" expressions. He was good, so he has a fact to back him up :heh: .

but i think you cant help to do facial expression on chopin's work because you have to concentrate on the piece(very hard, btw) That can be a good thread lol.

true, but like i said, he played the concerto well. except his tchaikovsky piano concerto sucked.. wasn't very connected, and an odd expression of playing..

Style
Often Chopin is played in the late Romantic style, with an excess of rubatos and exaggerated dynamics. Although Chopin lived in the 1800s, he was educated in the tradition of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart and Clementi; he even used Clementi's piano method with his own students. One of his students, Friederike Muller, wrote the following in her diary about Chopin's playing style:

"His playing was always noble and beautiful; his tones sang, whether in full forte or softest piano. He took infinite pains to teach his pupils this legato, cantabile style of playing. His most severe criticism was "He—or she—does not know how to join two notes together." He also demanded the strictest adherence to rhythm. He hated all lingering and dragging, misplaced rubatos, as well as exaggerated ritardandos ... and it is precisely in this respect that people make such terrible errors in playing his works."
Many people still play Chopin in a romantic style, and often with a pleasing result. However, it is good to be aware of what Chopin had in mind when he was composing.