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I had to give poor Keats some company so here's- - - - - Oscar!

Oscar Wilde Animation

Cheers for Oscar! It's the same voice who did John Keats LOL. Frycek was it you who made the witty post about an Oscar Wilde character who didn't feel worthy of his teapot? That made me laugh that did! It was on the are you worthy of your piano or something like that.

Yes, I was but I got it a bit wrong, though I swear someone in one of Wilde's plays uttered that line, or perhaps it was just a movie adaption which took some liberties.

Here is the origin of the expression, a cartoon by George DuMaurier (Daphne's father). Is it my imagination or does the Aesthetic Bridegroom look a bit like Wilde?


Oscar himself definitely did make a remark about wondering if he could "live up to his blue china" which was apparently rather fine for his lodgings, when he was a young bachelor.

And then poor Oscar had the awful wallpaper that he was forced to live down to in the end....

I'm told that Kathleen has been trying to post but unable, so I hope we can remedy that and get her back among us.

Elene

Ah the blue willow ware china- that was fine china indeed! I do have a thing for teapots, which given that I hate tea and only drink coffee is rather odd....

This is heartening, though perhaps a tiny bit disturbing as well:

Yundi and China's Piano Fever

Those 40 million Chinese kids who are learning to play the piano are hearing Chopin quite a bit, no doubt. And I do like Yundi very much as a player of Chopin. (He handles Liszt quite convincingly as well. Of course he does other things, but I've heard him play those two the most.)
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I'm again chewing over the meaning of Chopin's impossible tempo indication of ♪=100 for 10/3, which was his own and not an addition by an inattentive editor. Ekier and the National Edition team made a stab at explaining some of the odd tempi by positing that we don't know if the metronome marking might apply to the beginning of the piece, the overall average tempo, or what. That's a useful point, but it doesn't really explain this ♪=100, which is completely outside any reasonable range of speed for the piece (except perhaps for the agitated section of tritones on the 3rd page, but that is not marked as going much faster than the rest).

It's so far outside reason that my teacher was wondering if perhaps there might have been something wrong with Chopin's metronome! I doubt that's the explanation either. He would surely have noticed!

Chopin was so typically careful about what he wrote that we can't just imagine that he made a mistake, either-- and he would have had to fail to correct the error on repeated proofs and editions.

I just can't come up with any explanation. It's almost as if Chopin had slipped into some alternate timestream for a little while. But then his metronome would have been running at the same relative rate, wouldn't it....

My teacher was doing what I've always done with this question, putting it aside as unsolvable, and started to feel that I was getting a bit unbalanced today in refusing to let it go. But somehow, surely, there must be a way to make sense of it.

Elene

Chopin speaks several times here. The YouTube video recently posted by Frycek must have been taken from there too.

Regarding the tempo of 10/3, Angela Lear told me that Chopin didn't add metronome markings to the etudes, that they were added later by editors, and sent me this to prove her point:

[img:center] [/img]

The National Edition editors, as I think I mentioned, stated that Chopin did write the metronome markings himself, and as far as I can remember, that's what I had been told in the past.

So I'm all the more confused, but at least I don't have to try to figure out why Chopin would have written that ♪=100 anymore.

Note the "Vivace ma non troppo" that Chopin later changed to "Lento ma non troppo."

Elene

Dear Elene,

Chopin was definitely responsible for the metronome marks in op. 10. In some instances, he added them when correcting the printed proofs.

Jeff Kallberg

Jeff, I was hoping you'd weigh in. That's what I thought you said in the past.

Sigh. Still no idea what Our Friend may have meant, then.

Elene

I tend to believe he really meant it - though I've never heard any professional pianist play it at the metronome mark that he wrote. It becomes a different piece, but one that still moves me.

A similar case is the Db Nocturne, op. 27 no. 2, which I'd also love to hear played up to the tempo Chopin notated.

Jeff Kallberg

So I have been working on the Cantabile for about a month now, amongst a bunch of other pieces and I am getting closer (it sounds musical at points) but still a ways away from being able to perform it. Seems so much more difficult than the other pieces which are in the ABSRM 1 and 2 range. I realize it is a simple piece, but I am a beginner and have learned quite a bit from it, and it's so nice to play. How long is a reasonable time to learn a piece that is clearly a bit of a stretch?

I'm impressed that you're playing this piece at all as a beginner, johnnysd. I don't know how to answer the question of a "reasonable time" to learn it. Most people would need a number of months, if not a year or two, to get to a level of skill where this piece would be normal repertoire for them (it is easy as Chopin goes but that doesn't mean it's easy). But if you are concentrating persistently on it and putting in a lot of time and effort things may be very different. I've been amazed at what some people around here have been able to learn as beginners.

Speaking of reasonable or unreasonable times: I tried playing the first section of 10/3 at ♪=100. About halfway down the page, my mother emerged from her room with a "WTF?" expression on her face. I explained what I was doing and why. "I. Don't. Like. It." she said, very firmly. Like, Do NOT do this. Ever. She's never reacted to my practicing remotely like that before, and the poor lady is subjected to listening to me day in and day out.

I have to agree with her.

Elene

Dear Elene,

Mother knows best!

Still, if she happens to be out of earshot some day, you might give it another chance. At en = 100, the "ma non troppo" emerges rather better. And we also get a sense that Chopin intended something more brisk by the vacillation around "Vivace" and "Lento" (the latter implying something faster in the 1830s than it does now). Finally, the faster tempo gives the student a bit more of a challenge (so it might make sense in the context of an "Etude").

For real fun, have a go at it with the tempo marking on the English first edition, where Wessel left the flag off the eighth note, rendering the tempo qn = 100. No wonder the English had trouble making sense of Chopin.

Jeff Kallberg

Jeff, it's just as well that that wouldn't be physically possible for me!

Elene

My teacher informed me that Ignaz Friedman's edition of Op. 10 (probably of a lot else as well) is available at IMSLP here.

There are some interesting thoughts on pedaling, not necessarily what one might expect.

Elene

Re Op.10-3, this is what the Paderewski edition says:
The M1 indicates the tempo as vivace, the M2 as vivace ma non troppo. Obviously later on Chopin prescribed once again a slowing down of the movement, for in the F.E. and G.E. there is the indication lento ma non troppo. The metronome indication is given in the G.E. as half note = 100 and in the F.E. and Mikuli's edition as an eighth note = 100, which is still too quick. In the M1 and M2 no metronome speed is given.

M1: Chopin's autograph copy belonging to Cortot
M2: Manuscript preserved in the Polish National Museum in Warsaw
F.E.: Original French edition
G.E.: Original German edition

HALF NOTE=100????

Elene

I wondered too... Maybe it was a misprint in the G.E.? It must be... It sounds absurd. I just checked Chopin's First Editions Online and the G.E. is not available (it is greyed out). The English Edition is available and has a quarter note = 100. Three different versions for the French, the German and the English first editions?

johnny, I am a beginner too. I've been learning Nocturne Op9 No1 which I initially thought was well out of my reach. It certainly took some time behind the keys to get comfortable with the first section (what I've learnt so far). Maybe in a couple of years I would have been able to learn the same section far quicker, so some people here say that beginners should not attempt difficult pieces for that reason of using their time more wisely.

If I enjoy playing it, then I play it. I don't mind how long it takes. I found I have to start spending time on other new songs to keep my interest going though, as I don't think I'll be able to dedicate all my time to this one Nocturne till it's finished. I would get bored and frustrated, I think it's working well for me to keep things fresh. By the end of the year I hope to have learnt the rest of the Nocturne but I haven't put a deadline on it.