My Chopin - Frantisek Rauch
To write about Chopin means writing about my favourite piano composer. Chopin’s music is loved in the same intensity by laymen, amateurs and professional musicians. The sweet sound of his name is symbiotic with that of the piano. He found his richness of colours and sound according to the laws of nature and discovered the “soul” of the piano as his predecessor Bach had discovered the “soul” of the organ.
Chopin’s soul in a continually tense and dissatisfied state, almost a directly fateful condition of the Polish nation, nourished with his own personal suffering, created music that was brilliantly supported by the fingers. This soul, that created ingenious music full of insatiable inventiveness, continually produced new sounds and forms from the keyboard and was at one with his piano.
It was as it the piano had begun to sing through Chopin’s music. It was able to convey all the emotions that moved the entire human race, happiness or melancholy. It was as if the piano had suddenly grown wings and an unforeseen power. The piano was elevated to the position of a messenger of the boldest ideas and lost its fear of many obstacles: “the unbelievable became reality”.
Ideally, only someone of the artistry of Arthur Rubinstein or Vladimir Horowitz should write of “his” Chopin … and when I am confronted with such a task I do so with solemn respect. Respect for the ingenuity of Chopin’s work. Even an expert cannot help but be amazed by his tremendous originality and the music that he offers in such sublime perfection. Every single note seems to have been thought out and illuminated from all angles.
Furthermore there is Chopin’s incredible synthesis of national sound with the abstract perfection of his piano style. How did Chopin manage it that quite frequently even earth-bound music (Mazurkas and Polonaises) resounds in such noble and balanced piano tone…..? Arthur Rubinstein once commented – quite rightly – that Chopin never wrote a single vulgar note!
The perfection of Chopin’s music takes one’s breath away and makes one feel insignificantly small. What does it mean, for example, to play through the whole of Chopin’s works and be captivated by his countless ideas? An ideal interpretation of all his works would mean a lifetime of tireless hard work and a total understanding of one’s personality.
However, the technical demands – in the widest sense of the word – are quite staggering: the requirement of beauty of tone (a resolute fortissimo – definitely, but not coarse: a delicate pianissimo; but not sentimental); the logic of musical thought, clean use of the pedal intensify the demands…
At the same time, contrary to his predecessors Chopin presents us with passionate, dramatic and technical difficulties of certain works. (The B flat minor sonata, for example of which Naumov said, that to perform the work is so difficult the hardly anyone can play it accurately) – the rhythmic and harmonic refinement of the mazurkas, the ingenious creative spirit of the etudes displaying new flamboyance.
We’ have all gone through a period of enslavement with the accent on virtuosic brilliance or tempestuous drama in Chopin s music…However, if one really wishes to do his music justice, a synthesis of all these demands must be aimed at, a sort of bird’s-eye view that allows one to discover hidden sources rather than get too excited over details. Of course this is only possible through strong will – power and deep searching and sometimes means fighting one’s way along a wandering path …only then can one speak of “his” Chopin. It is quite permissible to play Chopin’s music with a transparent purity of tone and without the application of sentimentality. However, the interpreter must rely upon his complete creative invention and enthusiasm, even at the risk of making a “false step”. I myself have been listening to Chopin’s music since my childhood because my mother played the piano. Her two older brothers and sister also. Quite naturally, Chopin’s music – mainly his waltzes and mazurkas – was an integral part of their repertoire. I still remember that even then Chopin symbolised something unbelievably beautiful, delicate and elegant: his music enabled me to release my feelings and set my fantasy in motion. I was allowed to turn the pages as my mother played and the memory still remains quite clear. When I went to my first piano teacher around the age of ten, I myself played these waltzes and mazurkas alongside the works of Mozart and Mendelssohn.
In about 1923 in Pilsen, where I was born, an exciting musical event took place. The great pianist Emil Mikelka came to the city. He introduced himself to his audience with the piano works of Smetana, which were available then. He also played Chopin, whom he loved. Alongside other performances by Emil Sauer, Moritz Rosenthal, the young llona Stepankova-Kurzova and later Rudolf Firkusky, I was able tn hear almost the entire Chopin piano repertoire.
Even today, I can still hear Emil Mikelka’s interpretation of the etudes and “his” B minor sonata. I became a student of Mikelka and it was not long before I played my” first Chonin in public: the Variations brillantes op. 12.
Shortly afterwards, Mikelka allowed me to start practising the Ballade no. 1. in g minor op. 23. On a summer morning -I believe it was a Sunday – in the foyer of the Town Nall I shall never forget how with a pencil he wrote the fingering in the version by Raoul Pugne (Universal Editron). lt was a glorious day and my teacher was elegantly dressed, wearing a bow-tie. Also, when I was a student in the masterclass given by Prof. Karl Hoffmeister at the Prague Conservatory, some of the first compositions I was given to play were Chopin’s Impromptu in F sharp minor and the Berceuse in D flat major. Here, my beloved Chopin caused me my first disappointment. I played the cantilena-like melody and figurations constantly unevenly and my professor remained qui- te unshaken: all the time he would say “it doesn’t matter!”. To console me he let me study Liszt’s Sonata in B minor in which “equality” is not of prime importance and where, on the contrary, the “passion”, the power of the huge gradation – quite simply the resolute way of playing – was missing.
I experienced this period of becoming acquainted with Chopin’s music as if in a dream. in a continually elevated state, in short in a kind of “captivation of the soul’. Later on the spirit of this passionate enchantment for Chopin’s music began to assuage gradually. Fed by the works of Beethoven, Brahms, Novak and Prokoviev, it was necessary to start looking at Chopin s works rationally.
Because I had been an admirer of Prokofiev since my early days as a composer it was quite logical that my “cult-worship of Chopin’s work, was replaced by the less sentimental cult-worship of Prokofiev. However life continues, problems arise, increase and change. When years later you pick up Chopin’s music and examine it carefully then a miracle occurs. All of a sudden, one sees Chopin’s works comptetely differently.
Passages that were paid little attention suddenly take on a new meaning. We see numerous parallels with the works of Bach, Mozart and Debussy – suddenly under this aspect Chopin is an immensely rational composer who shrewdly anticipates a hundred years hence. We can observe the hidden polyphony, the bold modulation which in the latter works with their chromaticism borders on the limits of our understanding. Many of our later Chopin “favourites” suddenly seem to have been long anticipated by the composer and overshadowed by the richness of his amazing ideas. What demanding work and tension drove Chopin’s pen as he wrote such a work as the IVth Ballade? What a creative fight it must have been to control ideas mounting within him that were waiting to rise to the surface like the lava of a volcano, never leaving the composer in peace? Here, Chopin’s works led directly to a modern means of expression. His last compositions, the IVth Baltade, IVth Scherzo, tht Fantasy Polonaise; the B minor sonata and the last opus numbers of the mazurkas, can only really be understood ih the 20 Century. Just like Beethoven’s late quartets and Sonatas.
What a miracle, what a contradiction! Many excellent musicians consider Chopin to be merely a “small” composer of nocturnes, etudes and dance pieces. All at once we are confronted with the surprise image of a musical titan with a well kept and continually developed plan that gradually becomes more complicated and leads us on a path to the 20th century. An interesting comparison to Schumann presents itself. Schumann like Chopin dazzled us – through the innovation of his music, with the enchanting metamorphosis of his “Jean-Paulien” ideas- but after an equally inspired song period and an amazing chamber music period a gradual stagnation and academic element of classical notions creeps into his compositions. He prepares the way for Brahms whom he greets with conviction, but Schumann himself “drowns” so to speak in this retardation. Schumann was, of course, very sick at this time in his life. Chopin’s genius was far too great that any such thing could have hindered him. On the other hand it is understandable that such an intelligent authority as Prof. Hoffmeister has some reservations about the form of the IVth Ballade and the IVth Scherzo and to this effect considers them failed works. What he seems to have overlooked in the 1920’s is that Chopin here was at least fifty years ahead of his time and had created a form that was solely dictated by the poetical content of the work! How could one avoid Beethoven or for that matter Janacek? However, the wheels of time had to travel an unbelievably long way, to show us “Chopin’s mountain” in its deserved beauty and greatness and had to cross many “small mountains” to make the way free. After his death Chopin was paid the highest possible tributes. He is not only recognised but also loved and deeply respected. This position of high esteem is held not only in Poland, which in his singular way he made famous, but literally everywhere in the world where the piano is played. The often cited quotation by Ivaszkievicz concerning Chopin’s music – “a rainbow embracing the nations of the world” – is quite true.
The Czechs have “their” Chopin as well. The composer and pianist Bedrich Smetana had Chopin’s works in his repertoire which he would frequently play on his concert tours and with which he celebrated his greatest successes. This fact was also confirmed by Hans von Bulow. Smetana purposely placed Chopin’s “Nocturne” on his last concert programme. We have had a number of great Chopin interpreters of which I wish to mention at least Ilona Stepanova-Kurzova, Emil Mikelka and Rudolf Firkusny as being representative. Many other pianists keep up the Chopin cult. We successfully send competitors to the Chopin competition in Warsaw. The Chopin Society in Marienbad has an annual Chopin Festival in which an incredible number of excellent pianists from Poland and the rest of the world appears. Within the framework of the festival a national competition for young pianists is held as well as a course for interpretation.
The annual wreath-laying ceremony at the Chopin monument in the middle of the beautiful spa gardens in Marienbad and the festive fanfares from the balcony of the casino after the final concert provide an appropriate setting for the yearly Chopin festival.
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