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I hadn't considered the second possibility you raised, it makes sense (pretty macabre though!). Thanks for the replies.

Our edwardianpiano has posted some interesting Chopin-on-antique instruments videos. I hadn't realized how much more of these 19th-century piano performances were around these days.

Here is a real gem:
Janina Fialkowska plays and explains an 1848 Pleyel

And this is fun-- a music box plays 10/3, though only the A section:
Chopin on a Victorian Music Box

Elene

Hi folks. I'd like a look at the autograph of op 10 no 5. It's listed here http://en.chopin.nifc.pl/chopin/manuscripts/detail/page/3/id/4 Anyone got a copy? or how do I get it from The Fryderyk Chopin Institute? Thanks.

Looks like you can order it from NIFC here:

http://sklep.nifc.pl/index.php?produkt=5_27


A bit pricey but apparently available.

Thanks for bringing this up-- I didn't realize they had manuscript facsimiles. I own the National Edition volume of the Etudes but no manuscript copies.

Elene

Thanks. Hopefully they're in stock as Amazon are out! 68 Euros - I'll have to think about it. I found some Korean channel on youtube that displays it but the detail is lacking. http://www.yourepeat.com/g/%E8%87%AA%E7%AD%86%E8%AD%9C/

An aspect of Polish musical culture we may not have experienced....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHmwVfy3X1E&feature=youtu.be

(OK, the song's from Ukraine and the Ukrainian woman is a man, but it's in Polish here.)

Elene

Here is an interesting article on Chopin as a teacher. My apologies if this has been shared before.

http://www.forte-piano-pianissimo.com/Chopin-the-Teacher.html

quoted from the above page

Those of us who try Pleyels of the period find the actions pretty horrendously heavy but as this well known quote makes quite clear it was not the case. At some point - I would hazard in the 1840s - Pleyel went for volume over touch. Chopin would have not been amused. He did, in fact, send a piano back to Pleyel in this period and also suggested Fontana secretly go to Erard. Erard on the other hand went the other way. According to Moscheles Erard delivered a piano to himself (1850) with not only the perfect sound but also perfect light touch (but maybe deeper key dip?). Previously he found Erard's heavier touch not to his liking.

Hmm. My only, and very brief, experience with a Pleyel of the period was an 1840 spinet at Nohant, and I only had a couple of minutes with it. It was extremely light. It's so hard to know what the "average" instruments were like at the time because of course any that have been put back in playing condition have had many parts replaced, technicians can adjust actions quite a bit, etc. etc. It's an endlessly fascinating subject.

Our friend edwardianpiano brought the following performance to my attention on her blog:

G minor Ballade in a non-modern temperament

It's a lovely performance however you hear it. However, I couldn't hear much difference between this and a rendition in current equal temperament. (Which is not entirely equal, at any rate, since tuners commonly stretch and compress some intervals to get the sound they want.) Neither could my husband, who's a woodwind player.

I was inspired to read more about historical tunings after hearing this, since I'd been under the impression that by Chopin's time tuning was pretty much like ours. Apparently that is not correct-- though it can't have been tremendously different, either. Does anyone have details?

Elene

Thanks, that's important knowledge. The Pleyel he was displeased with and sent back was for Nohant. Could that be the replacement? Had Chopin used that particular one?

The person who was guiding the tour at Nohant made it clear that Chopin had never actually used that piano, that it had been acquired later (whether during Mme Sand's lifetime or not, I don't know). It may or may not have been representative of instruments he would have used, but at any rate it was consistent with descriptions of instruments of the period, in terms of the shallow action and narrow keys.

(I was trying to play the beginning of the F minor etude from the "Trois Nouvelles Etudes" and kept ending up with an E on the bottom because I overreached! Quite embarrassing. I managed to complain in French that the keys were so narrow, and was told that everyone said that, which made me feel better.)

Elene

Here is something that makes the matter of historical tunings much clearer, with a number of Chopin examples included.

Goresko and historical temperaments

Edwardianpiano pointed out to me that it's not so much that one hears these different temperaments as in or out of tune, as it is a feeling. Goresko shows specifically how one gets effects of expansiveness, contraction, brightness, darkness, etc.

Elene

I was just looking at the article above posted by noobpianist90. It is a useful summary. I'm sorry (though not surprised) to see that someone who teaches at the university level is slipshod about details such as name spellings and dates, but in the main the article is solid. More importantly, the quote about the pedal supposedly written to Delfina Potocka comes from the fake Czernicka letters.

Elene

His death-day today.

You may have noticed news stories telling us that recently Chopin's heart was removed from its niche in the church and visually examined by some medical folk. They claimed that they saw tubercular nodules and that this proved that Chopin did die of TB.

The funny thing is that the doctor(s) who did his autopsy wrote that they were not seeing consumption. Since TB was an extremely common disease at the time, one would expect that doctors of the time were familiar with its appearance. The pictures I've seen of tubercular nodules on internal organs look pretty dramatic-- it's hard to imagine that a doctor in 1849 would not see them.

So I find the news stories unconvincing and rather confusing. I would like to know exactly and precisely what the current researchers saw. I would particularly like to see pictures, but those have not been supplied.

Elene

Moi aussi!

I purchased this book today

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/05...ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

is it a good book? anyone owns it?

It's the best!

I hope you enjoy "Chopin: Pianist and Teacher," Batuhan. It's a must for anyone who is seriously studying Chopin, I think. Maybe not something to read straight through, because there is so very much information in it, but a great book to keep nearby for reference.

Elene

Day of the Dead.
Dzien dobry, Fryderyk.

Garrick Ohlsson: Why Chopin?

I'm not sure how I came across this Ohlsson video. It's so much fun-- he's like a big kid, bubbling over with enthusiasm. His musical insights are very useful. Among other things he does an extensive exposition of the 27/2 nocturne, then eventually gets around to playing the whole thing.

He makes the point that the 1848 Pleyel he had played is not like what it was in its own time, so that we still don't know exactly how such an instrument sounded or felt to Chopin when it was new. (Sadly.) He also points out that in 1848, Chopin wanted an 1848 instrument, the latest technology-- not something 150 years old.

Elene