Frederic Chopin and the Art of the Piano

A JOURNEY THROUGH CHOPIN'S TWENTY-SEVEN ÉTUDES, THE FOUNDATION OF VIRTUOSO PIANO TECHNIQUE, REVEALING HOW THE HAND ACTUALLY WORKS, IN THE CONTEXT OF THE HISTORY OF THE PIANO AND THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT IN MUSIC

© ALAN KOGOSOWSKI 2009 GENIUS OF THE PIANO - ÉTUDE!

Chopin's Etudes were composed at a crucial moment in the development of the modern era. The series was begun when the composer was nineteen, a student in one of the far reaches of the old Napoleonic Empire, a country under the domination of Russia. Soon he would travel to Vienna, which for fifty years had been the centre of the music world, there to continue his work while meeting some of the participants who remained from a great era which had just passed.

In the midst of revolution, he would continue his journey and settle finally in Paris, just at the moment the city of light suddenly became the world centre for the passionate young Romantic generation of artists, writers, composers and musicians. Chopin was to be the jewel in the crown of this generation.

Continuing steadily throughout this journey was the creation of the Etudes, culminating in 1837, at which point Chopin became linked with one of the famous writers of the age in a liaison which captured the imagination of the whole world. Part 1 of Genius of the Piano traces all the influences which surrounded Chopin during the significant historical period in which he composed his Etudes, an epoch of unparalleled vibrancy in European cultural history.

When the lives of great artists are approached biographically, the reader is occasionally left wondering why a particular artist's personal story is worth telling more than that of someone else. The essential ingredient - the talent, the genius, the contribution to civilization - is often treated as a separate subject from the artist's life story. Genius of the Piano examines the biography of Frederic Chopin from the inside out - from the motivations and resulting creations of the composer - biography emerging naturally from an exploration of the artist's inner life, which, after all, is the true life of an artist.

As the story and nature of Chopin himself is revealed through an exploration of his Etudes, the many interesting personalities both intimately and tangentially involved with the story come alive through an appreciation of their creations. Liszt, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Berlioz; Paganini, Bellini, Rossini and Meyerbeer; Balzac, Sand, Hugo, Heine and Delacroix; and of course Bach, Mozart and Beethoven; great pianists and singers, as well as relevant political figures, emerge vividly through their works, their talents and abilities, their individual personalities thus revealed and illuminated.

Chopin and Liszt. Chopin and George Sand. Iconic relationships. Names which are inextricably linked in the collective imagination of our culture. Without disturbing the aura which surrounds these celebrated relationships, Genius of the Piano looks at the facts and uncovers the truth behind the legend. What did Liszt actually learn from Frederic Chopin? How strong was the bond between Chopin and George Sand? The truth is no less glamorous than the myth, but it's of course more complicated, more human and rather more interesting.

In that momentous year of 1831, Robert Schumann, like Chopin only twenty-one years old at the time, not yet having heard of this new composer, wrote a delighted and imaginative newspaper article - the first of hundreds of perspicacious reviews, of virtually all the composers and performers of the era - which began with the words "Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!" Although he was very perceptive, acquiring his enthusiastic impression of Chopin simply from looking at a printed score by an unknown composer, Schumann was only saying what the whole world would very soon discover, and what it has thought ever since with undiminished certainty.

We take this as our starting point - the year in which Chopin had just completed his first two Etudes, landmarks in the history of piano playing, though both together require no more than four minutes to play. Chopin had just departed from his home and family with those two Etudes in his luggage, carefully copied out by his elder sister Louise and dated November 2nd, 1830 - the single most significant date in the composer's life, for on that day, Frederic Chopin set off from Warsaw to conquer the world, not realizing that he would never again see his beloved homeland.

Epilogue to Part 1: Chopin's Inheritors - the Great Pianists

Without Frederic Chopin there would have been no 'pianism' - i.e. refined and virtuosic piano playing - as we know it. The art of piano playing was created virtually from whole cloth by Chopin during his early twenties. For a pianist the works of Chopin are as the plays of Shakespeare are to an actor. Indispensable, informing everything else we do, and self-contained as an oeuvre, sufficient as a body of work on its own to occupy an entire performing career if a pianist so chooses. He is the only such composer for the piano, and one of only three or four such composers at all.

None of the great pianists of the modern era would have been possible without Frederic Chopin. None of their expertise, none of their craft, none of their aura, none of their 'sound'. Even Liszt, who created the image we have of a concert pianist, and who was the first pianist to give concerts entirely by himself: Liszt, who established the concept of the artist musician as hero performer, and who taught and inspired generations of great pianists - would not have developed as a pianist in the way he did without his friend Frederic Chopin.

All of the great pianists, even if they were, or are, primarily specialists in the music of Bach or Mozart, Beethoven or Brahms, Liszt or Rachmaninoff, have played Chopin as an integral part of their repertoire. Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, Paderewski, Rachmaninoff, Lhévinne, Horowitz and Artur Rubinstein, Richter, Backhaus, Lipatti. The most original and inspired master of the piano, as well as one of the truly immortal composers, Chopin's influence is as fresh and strong today as it was when he first amazed the world back in 1831. His music is as powerful as ever, because of the timelessness of what it tells us about ourselves and about our world.

Read more about the book GENIUS OF THE PIANO ÉTUDE! FREDERIC CHOPIN AND THE ART OF THE PIANO:

Part 2: Mastering the Études ...