Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Struggling with interpretation of Chopin Nocturne

I'm learning Chopin's posthumous nocturne in C# minor (this one) right now, and I'm not sure how to interpret the piece.

I've had a few ideas — a love affair gone wrong, a soldier fighting in a war, a suicidal person who finally finds peace — but I'm having trouble fitting these ideas into the music, in some places. For example, the coda is very turbulent, before, at the last moment, turning peaceful, and it's hard to imagine what the music might be depicting here.

I'd be interested in ideas on mental imagery for this composition.

Many composers wrote music intended to convey or depict a specific story or event, but Chopin did not. This was just a sketch by Chopin that wasn't intended to be published. (And even though "Nocturne" suggests something nocturnal, Chopin didn't give it that title!)

Is it necessary to have mental images or associations to interpret the music?

if you can't think of a story that's really solid in your mind, it's best not to force one. Interpret it the way you feel the music. that's what's most important.

hmm its hard to say. He wrote this when he was 20 and supposidy dedicated it to his older sister.I don't believe that he had yet started his rocky relationship with George Sand yet so I am doubting that is about a love affair gone wrong, but who knows there could of been others before her lol. Personally it makes me feel that it could be a reflection on a memory, or a longing for something. I am not sure if it is suppose to evoke a mental image or just simply evoke feelings.

PianoBot -

Please read the following......

"Program music or programme music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative. The narrative itself might be offered to the audience in the form of program notes, inviting imaginative correlations with the music. The paradigmatic example is Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, which relates a drug-induced series of morbid fantasies concerning the unrequited love of a sensitive poet involving murder, execution, and the torments of heck. The genre culminates in the symphonic works of Richard Strauss that include narrations of the adventures of Don Quijote, Till Eulenspiegel, the composer's domestic life, and an interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy of the Superman. Following Strauss, the genre declined and new works with explicitly narrative content are rare. Nevertheless the genre continues to exert an influence on film music, especially where this draws upon the techniques of late romantic music.

Absolute music, in contrast, is intended to be appreciated without any particular reference to the outside world. The term is almost exclusively applied to works in the European classical music tradition, particularly those from the Romantic music period of the 19th century, during which the concept was popular, but pieces which fit the description have long been a part of music. The term is usually reserved for purely instrumental works (pieces without singers and lyrics), and not used, for example for Opera or Lieder."

The Nocturne you are learning is an example of "absolute music." Follow the score and let the music speak for itself.

If absolute music is music without a pictoral, literary or dramatic program can't the song still be about something? like whatever came from within the composer while they were composing. Not with the intent of creating a specific image but with the intent of creating a feeling. Say it was influenced or written by a soldier at war (i'm not talking about the Chopin piece ), it could portray the fearfull and maybe sad feelings of a soldier at war without actually being about "a soldier at war". Sorry this has become a side question, slightly off topic of the origional post.

In what way would imagining some sort of story help? I honestly do not get this.

Thanks for the replies.


Interesting question. I guess that I sometimes like to think of an image/feeling/emotion when playing or listening to music. For example, while listening to Ballade No. 2, I imagine something like the following:

At the beginning of the piece, a child is happily playing with his toys. All is fine in the world. But, one day, this childish, naïve peace is destroyed by some tragedy of adulthood. At the end of the piece, the adult is desperately trying to relive his childhood joy, but he can't, as things are different now. In the coda, the adult simply gives up. The ending of this piece is very tragic for me.

As for the nocturne I'm learning, I am struggling, as mentioned, to imagine a feeling for all of it, but when performing some sections — for example, the very end of the piece — I imagine (and try to convey) a feeling of relief. The turmoil is finally over.

If this approach works for you - that's fine.

Of course.

Yes it may, though the difference is that the composer of absolute music does not concretely lay out what the music is supposed to depict, and leaves the interpretation to the listener. Program music's meaning is fixed to the composer's intent, but absolute music may mean something different to everyone. I believe Brahms said the music is either good enough to not need a program, or fails to live up to it.

cool thanks, thats what I thought. I have a history exam coming up, so this topic ended up helping me. It is an easy definition to understand but I always have a way of doubting my own knowledge so it was nice to get a respons that helped me confirm what I knew. You explained it alot better than I asked it lol.

I'm not sure I understand some of the replies to this thread. Are some people suggesting that this Chopin nocturne may be simply a nice sound, and not something which elicits feelings in the listener? It seems to me that this composition is the perfect example of music being emotional.

Maybe I have misinterpreted the replies.

It is hard to imagine that many composers, Chopin among them, were totally divorced from any emotional feeling when they were composing music. Music, for most of them, was a way of expressing themselves. What people are saying, I believe - and I totally concur - is much absolute music was not written to elicit a particular feeling or to provoke a specific emotional response. That doesn't mean, however, that no emotional response is an appropriate reaction to such music. Let the music "speak" to you on a personal level; let it evoke in you whatever it naturally evokes.

On the other hand, for me and for others, trying to fit a "story" or a specific context to a piece of essentially absolute music inhibits the appreciation of the music and, in some instances, even trivializes the work.

Regards,

I put stories to "absolute" music all the time. And I know for a fact composers did the same. Brahms definitely had stories in mind when composing, as did Rachmaninoff, and both wrote mostly "absolute" music.

For me, the only difference between absolute and program music is who supplies the story. In program music, the composer supplied it. In absolute music, the performer gets to.

I rarely have a story or image in my mind when playing absolute music... but I quite often have feelings or emotions running through a piece. But I don't use these to find a way to interpret a piece - in my experience these feelings/emotions come to mind and influence the way I play a piece - but I don't consciously try to work them in.

What I'm trying to say in a roundabout way - the feelings and/or images come after the interpretation for me - and then influence my playing - but there is no way I could come up with an image or story, or an emotion - and then try to play *to* that story or emotion.

Or not. If it works for a performer/listener to supply a story to 'absolute' music, that's fine (obviously!). The idea is frankly foreign to me, though, and sometimes I would prefer not to know about what other people are thinking.

An example for me is those imaginative titles that some folks have applied to Chopin's etudes: torrent, waterfall, sunshine, cartwheel, horseman, etc. Much like a visual image that I wouldn't want to be stuck in my mind, they make me a little bit squeamish.

But hey, that's just my take on it. Whatever works!

Do you think this is a good thing for pianists in general to do? Does it have some specific advantages or disadvantages?(I'm talking about for other pianists...for you, it is clearly the right thing).

PianoBot -

"Program music or programme music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative" (i.e., the composer intended it to tell a specific story).

"Absolute music, in contrast, is intended to be appreciated without any particular reference to the outside world" (i.e., the composer didn't set out to tell a specific story). This doesn't mean, however, that the composer wasn't trying to convey a certain emotion - or range of emotions - through the piece. Lots of things go into that - key signature (major or minor), tempo, melody, formal structure, texture, contrasting sections, etc. etc.

Again, if you personally feel the need to make up a narrative story that will help you better interpret the Nocturne, go for it. Some folks do that. But other folks (myself included) choose to interpret and be emotionally engaged in the music without the need for a narrative. They let the music speak for itself.

Hope this helps.

It's not for everyone, and I don't do it for everything. But I do find it a helpful interpretive aid sometimes. I find that having some kind of concrete story, scene or character in mind helps clarify exactly what I'm trying to capture. I think performances tend to fall flat when people go for vague feelings.

I don't believe works of art "speak for themselves." Consider theater. It's as if all an actor had to do was enunciate clearly in order for Hamlet to come through. But you have to do more than just enunciate clearly. Actors spend an enormous amount of time forming very specific detailed ideas about the characters they play, even though those details are never revealed to the audience. Likewise, I think musicians are best prepared when they've formed very specific details about their interpretations - not just how the phrase is to be played, but why. The whole concept of sonata form is narrative: something in the exposition becomes transformed, resolved in the recapitulation.

This brings us back to the idea of vague feelings. Beethoven's 5th isn't tragic because it's generally tragic. It's tragic because of the narrative - two themes, balanced in the beginning, both minor in the end. The oboe cadenza invites comparison to opera, which in turn is anything but abstract.

For a good read, check out Leonard Ratner's "Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style"

He makes a very compelling case that 18th and 19th century audiences couldn't help but form programmatic connections with absolute music. When someone from that time period hear the brass chorale in Brahms's 1st Symphony, they couldn't help but be reminded of a grand church organ. When you hear the finale of the Brahms Horn trio, you can't help but conjure images of galloping horses on the hunt. (By contrast, many modern audiences do not associate horns with hunting. But Brahms surely did, and so did everyone in his audience.) Haydn's 2/4 sonata finales are contredanses, conjuring up images of folksy dances. (An image lost on far too many competition performers, who treat Haydn finales as NASCAR races.) Bach's English suite preludes conjure up images of concerti grossi, which pits a small instrumental group against a large instrumental group, inviting a number of comparisons - a polite conversation? an argument? a series of vignettes? Sure, it could be different for different people, and it need not always be made explicit, but it's there nonetheless.

Sorry...enough rambling for now. I'm sure I've contradicted myself and said something stupid, but that's pretty much the raw stream-of-consciousness version of my thoughts on the subject. I hope somebody finds it interesting.