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 2005 GENIUS OF THE PIANO - ÉTUDE!

CHOPIN'S ÉTUDES AND THE ART OF THE PIANO

Excerpt #3: The Pianist's Art

Without Frederic Chopin there would have been no 'pianism' - which is to say, refined and virtuosic piano playing - as we know it. The art of piano playing was created virtually from whole cloth by Chopin in his early twenties. Genius of the Piano shows how he did this and in what circumstances it happened.

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. 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.

In that momentous year of 1831, which we will examine in depth, 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 very readable and 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 undiminishing 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 and beautifully 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.

Read the next excerpt from the book GENIUS OF THE PIANO ÉTUDE! FREDERIC CHOPIN AND THE ART OF THE PIANO:

Excerpt #4: The Imagery ...