Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner How good do you think Chopin's technique was?

Not necessarily. Have you read the chapter on Chopin in Harold Schonberg's 'The Great Pianists'? There is quite a bit of information about Chopin's piano playing from his contemporaries.

Chopin may not have had the dashing power and charisma of Liszt -though I think their respective egos were fairly well matched- but there seems to be a sense that Chopin was a far more subtlety sensitive pianist than Liszt.

For all that, at the time Liszt confronted Thalberg there is every indication that if Thalberg could play his operatic fantasies as well as his horribly difficult scores suggest -and there is much evidence to say he did- then Thalberg was also at that time Liszt's equal.

I only bring this up because my local classical radio station played Thalberg's fantasie on Rossini's La donna del lago Wednesday morning. The recording was incredible, I was in the car at the time, but later when I went to IMSLP to check the score, I couldn't believe how nasty the technical demands were.

There isn't any question that Chopin possessed an incredibly strong technique. Did he arrive at said technique in the same manner Liszt, and his "school" did? No. Chopin, was concerned, first and foremost, with sound production and the music, while Liszt believed in pounding out exercises until you no longer could. Was the technique of their day the likes of that which we witness from the technical wizards of our day? Absolutely not. Look no further than the difference in pianos then and now. Chopin, would struggle mightily on a modern day grand and Liszt, would have difficulty as well, though he would more easily adapt. Present day conservatories are full of students with technique that would blow Chopin, and Liszt, both away and leave them wide-eyed.

+1

here is an example of a superb athlete... perhaps a bit too sexy for PW. She is warming up, she is happy, she knows she is going to win this race and just takes off like a rocket. I cry when I see her because i used to be a superb athlete and mourn the loss of my tone and strength.

I can imagine Chopin being blown away by the strength and ease that Lizst was able to play his compositions (especially the etudes). I certainly am jealous of Lizst's aptitude. Even tho Chopin's techniques are not all that 'hard', if he wanted to create an exercise that taught one how to fling up and down the keyboard with ease, he could and just did.

the beauty of Chopin's techniques taught in the etudes is that they teach the fingers how to travel with ease, how to acquire the skills to semiquaver in thirds or sixths for instance.. to stretch octaves into glorious glissandos of sound. One could read analyses (is that the proper plural?) of semiquavering 3rds and the how to books, but one would simply be better off playing the 3rds etude repeatedly (it's hard).

There are some interesting organ (pipe organ) techniques that emerge in Lizst's compositions.... they make playing his music easy. I don't know that it is easy to spot these techniques from the scores. but Franz was an incredibly able keyboardist.. he used his thumb wisely. I don't know too much about Lizst editions, but his transcriptions of other people's pieces are brilliant. It is not easy to create a continuity of melody or legato to put it simply, without some convolutions of the fingers.

just rambling i guess. I don't know that i contributed much to this discussion.

I'm not sure about blowing Liszt away, but certainly a step in the right direction. The young pianists coming out today are just amazing. The ease with which they navigate the keyboard is astounding, and in due time, I'm sure they will develop a musicality that appeals to each new generation.

Case in point: I just listened to Yuja Wang the other day. First time I ever heard her play. Found her playing Rach 3 on Youtube. Phenomenal technique. But left me down right at the end. Something about the way she interpreted the big finale, cutting notes short and lengthening other odd ones, really broke up the drama in the lines. But right up to that point, it was quite well done.

So, as I said, case in point: her technicality was nearly flawless. Her interpretation was not quite to my liking there at the end, but it was a wonderful performance nonetheless.

What I was describing as "stuff and nonsense" is the argument that simply because Chopin was a great composer, he must therefore have been a great pianist. I also wrote in the same post that *evidence* of his possible greatness as a pianist would be important to me, but that I rejected as false the syllogistic conclusion that Chopin must be a great pianist because he was a great composer for the piano. The major premise fails: It is not true that everyone who writes beautifully for an instrument plays it beautifully.

You, on the other hand, have actually brought evidence to the discussion, and it's very helpful to the question. Thanks.

I would submit to this discussion that all evidence of this period, for which we have no remaining records other than written, is entirely circumstantial at best.

Now, I do not want to preclude the possibility of examining "expert opinion", of which certainly the words of other renowned professionals of the day should constitute, but namely the position that we can compare the words of the 19th century to the pianists of the 20th and 21st centuries (or the surrounding cultures that produced them).

Not to pick nits, but the words of other expert pianists of the time is "testimonial" rather than "circumstantial" evidence. In customary evidence evaluations (e.g., a trial) testimonial evidence is given considerable weight, subject to concerns about expertise, relevance, and veracity.

But your general point is valid: No one here heard Chopin play, and we have no recordings. Testimonial evidence from the best players of the day is probably the best direct evidence we'll ever get.

Hence my second paragraph, which I admit could have been written in a fashion that was a little easier to understand. But I think we're on the same page.

The Pleyels and Erards of Chopin's day (many of which are preserved and fully restored today, and played by non-period instrument specialists) feel and sound different to today's concert grands: they have lighter keyweight, shallower key travel and poorer damping and poorer sustain which makes passagework and glissandi - and rapid thirds etc - easier (I could play octave glissandi on them, which I can't on a modern grand), and bel canto melodies sound different: notes blend into each other because of the 'inefficient' damping, but the notes themselves decay faster.

One can almost imagine how Chopin would cultivate his renowned beauty of sound on these pianos. However, he probably never had the kind of power that Liszt had to do his heavier works full justice - the contemporary reports often commented on how softly he played (and he sometimes only played the slow and soft sections of some of his own music like the Ballades), while Chopin himself envied Liszt's playing of some of his music.

It's true that some composer-pianists of the 19th century, like Brahms, played 'like composers', but many composers wrote (and still write) music that they themselves weren't good enought to play even if they were quite proficient. In our own time, Thomas Adès can easily play all his own piano music, but Carl Vine can't.

I just can't follow people who think they, or any other contempories could equal Chopin's or Liszt's technique, it's blasphemy, or is it just the ignoble who think they own the world, to even doubt Chopin's ability to play his own etudes, the arrogance to compare that to Brahms not being able to executie his violinconcerto, of course he couldn't, it's like doubting Shakespeare ever existed, I can think of even worse denials, but, there are (written) examples, Schumann wrote about it, Chopin wrote about it, and the geniuses that made us happy with those masterpieces must have played them themselves, one cannot just invent only on paper that what changes the world, am I being overzealous? YES, sorry...

I can't even imagine why it's so important...what difference does it make?

At any rate, the point that some of us are trying to make is NOT whether Chopin could or couldn't play his etudes, but the simple rational fact that the existence of a piece of music doesn't automatically mean the composer can perform it. It just doesn't. And therefore, the existence of Chopin's etudes doesn't automatically mean that he could play them. I think the chances are probably close to 100% that he could, at least when he wrote them, but so what? They have been, and continue to be, incredibly valuable to legions of pianists and listeners and composers, regardless of what one knows about Chopin's playing, or thinks they know.

I don't think you are. For me -at least- it is well established that Chopin could play any of his piano works.

If he left no recordings, I don't think that is important. Elsner (his one time teacher), and Mendelssohn and Schumann (no fools there) all praised his playing.

Moscheles was reportedly mystified by Chopin's compositions until he heard Chopin play.

Then of course you get Hallé -who knew Chopin personally- and his remark 'but with such wonderful nuances'.

Case closed.

I was with you till that last thing.

Me too.

You're not being overzealous, dolce. I'm with you. There is no doubt that Chopin could play his own works and I said so earlier in another post. I'm not sure anyone is doubting that he was able to (of course there will always be some idiot that wants to be noticed). But in regard to your first sentence, "I just can't follow people who think they, or any other contempories could equal Chopin's or Liszt's technique...", I disagree, unless of course I'm misunderstanding you in overall context. Liszt and Chopin's technique wouldn't stand up to today's instruments and conservatory kids (and many before conservatory age) now possess technique that would run circles around not only Liszt and Chopin, but anyone they'd have been familiar with. This is not a knock against Franz, or Fred, nor is it blasphemy... it's just a simple fact.

On what evidence are you basing this? Especially in the case of Liszt-- given access to a modern piano and some time to adapt, I'd bet he would be there and with a musicality these "conservatory kids" couldn't touch.

Absolutely. Rather silly to ask.



Probably not, because today's instruments are not comparable to the instruments he used to play.

I agree that given time Liszt, would adapt (were he to come back during his prime). I'm not saying all conservatory kids, but a LOT of them (more than ever before) possess technique the likes of which simply wasn't to be found during Liszt's time. No one mentioned musicality (which SHOULD be included)...the question was about technique.

I once possessed a fine 1848 Broadwood grand of the model played by Chopin in London that same year. Its key-resistance was comparable to that of a modern grand, but (like most pianos manufactured before that date) its key-depth was very considerably shallower. It had the typical "English" action (patented by Broadwood decades earlier) which, for all its astonishing simplicity, I found well adequate for playing the fast repeated-note "frissu" passage in Liszt's 13th Rhapsody and other such passages. Chopin's own (and favourite make of) piano was a Pleyel, with an action essentially of the "English" type.

The "Viennese" action, familiar to Mozart, Beethoven, Hummel, Czerny and others (and much liked by Schumann and Brahms), had less key-resistance, but its capacity for repetition fell far short of the "English" type, largely due to its being mounted on the key rather than the piano-frame. (It would be interesting to know the tempo at which Czerny himself could actually manage his numerous repeated-note exercises on such actions!)

The "state-of-the-art" action in Chopin's day was the double-escapement type, patented by Erard in 1821, from which the modern grand-piano action evolved. Favoured by Liszt, Alkan and others, it was invented specifically with the aim of maximizing the capacity for fast repetition.

(For further info on the history of piano-actions, I'd heartily recommend the "Pianoforte" entry in New Grove.)

As regards whether Chopin would have been able to play his Etudes on a modern grand, I've no doubt whatsoever that he would have, after a certain degree of acclimatization. Although his playing was founded on the light, small-muscle powered finger-touch that served ideally for the harpsichord and early pianos, the same applied for other leading pianists of that period (and would continue to be the accepted norm until the 1860s) who successfully managed to adjust this touch to the increasingly heavy and deep piano-actions that appeared over the course of their lifetimes. (NB: the notion that this touch-form was no longer applicable for playing these newer piano-actions was perpetrated by German piano-teachers, initially Lebert and Stark, and subsequently others like Deppe and Breithaupt - not by the virtuosi! In Russia and France, technical training remained based upon small-muscle powered finger-touch (cf videos of Horowitz & Cortot, for example), and, thanks to the work of Ortmann and Schultz in the 1920s and 30s, its well-suitedness to the modern piano has been re-discovered more generally. That re-discovery, I'm quite convinced, accounts more than any other factor for the astonishing number of pyro-technicians around today.)