Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Perhaps Chopin wasn't 'capable' of liking Rosalyn Tureck...

The closest I ever came to throwing a shoe through the TV screen:

It was 1979-1980 and I was watching a lot of PBS. I was, for example, an early fan of Siskel and Ebert's innovative movie review show, which was originally on PBS and was just then becoming very popular. I also watched the full series of "I, Claudius" on Masterpiece Theatre that year. And I even indulged in the guilty-pleasure of watching a weekly disco dance tutorial show that fed into that goofy craze of the late seventies (I forget the name of that show).

But one particular PBS TV show episode from that time sticks in my mind, in an infamous sort of way. I don't recall if it was a part of a regular weekly show or a one-shot thing, but it featured Rosalyn Tureck giving a lecture/demonstration about her favorite subject -- the music of J. S. Bach. For some reason, Ms. Tureck felt the need to take a cheap shot at Chopin in order to elevate her beloved Bach.

It seems like everything is on the internet these days -- and sure enough, after quite a bit of web searching, I found not just the ghastly Tureck quote that I was searching for, but a video clip on YouTube from that part of the actual TV show. So here it is, for your viewing pleasure (or perhaps displeasure):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Gqbb_idx8

(reference especially 3:40 to 5:20 in that video)

While it's one thing for her to say that Chopin wrote music that depended on piano sonority (which is a backhanded way of saying that he knew the instrument well and capitalized on it's possibilities), it's an impossibly big step, and false logic, to go from there to claim knowledge of what Chopin was or was not "capable" of as a composer. The audacity of that just floored me...particularly coming from someone of Tureck's stature. It's along the same lines as Schnabel calling Chopin a "salon composer" (related in Abram Chasins' "Speaking of Pianists" book). I guess Chopin makes a big target or something.

Anyway, my TV set -- a Quasar "Works in a Drawer" [TM] great big bulky floor-standing wood console model -- narrowly survived the "shoe danger" event and went on to serve me for several more years...

She is quite a character lol.

The obvious way of proving her wrong is by finding a Chopin piece that is abstract in the way she likes. I would bet some of the etudes would be good candidates for sounding nice on a synthesizer.

FWIW, I used to think that Chopin's music only sounded good on the piano, but I've since heard some lovely arrangements of his nocturnes for choir and orchestra (from Japan).

Yeesh, now I won't be able to get the awful sound of that Polymoog out of my head!

Yeah, pretty specious comments, also her "hearing" later composers in the WTC.

Musicians and composers are often highly opinionated, and sometimes make extreme comments, but we rarely hear them unless we go looking for them. She had no good reason to demean Chopin. Sure he sounds terrible on that synth, but the Bach doesn't sound that much better.

I regret watching that - I admire her playing, but now it is going to take some time to forget how insufferable she is.

Sam

Gasp! Choke!

If that bothers you, be glad you missed the Rachmaninoff controversy in Grove's Music in the 1950s, and those who asserted that Tchaikovsky was not a composer at all.

Seconded!! I found an arrangement of the Op. 10 No. 3 etude for piano, choir, and soloist, and it made me want to smash my computer and speakers. I couldn't really imagine Chopin's music played for anything else except the medium he wrote it for.

While we are talking about bad arrangements of good music, the choral Lux Aeterna setting of Elgar's Nimrod from Enigma Variations is also trash.

Garrick Ohlsson responds....
https://youtu.be/zI1XWrPNaAM?t=1011

Regarding the Schnabel comment - didn't Chopin himself describe himself as a salon composer? I have some vague memory of that, although I don't know the exact quote or context.

But, at any rate, many composers' status in the world of classical music fluctuates quite a bit over time, and I get the impression that the relatively high esteem that Chopin's music receives from many musicians and music lovers today wasn't always so common. Even today, I would think that many musicians who aren't absorbed in piano playing might have rather a different perspective on his music than pianists do, and maybe some don't have quite the level of admiration for it that you see here in the Pianist Corner.

Yes, that version is quite bad... But I did once hear a version of the same etude for piano, orchestra and soloist, and it was actually quite beautiful.

Anyway, you can't go very wrong when arranging Chopin's melodies for the human voice. In the end, Chopin himself told pianists to listen to singers. Bel canto is what his style of music is all about.

As for the worst arrangement I have yet come to hear: https://youtu.be/6d7K6JRHFr8

Arranging Liszt's enormous b minor sonata for solo violin is like having a sign on your back that says "Hit me, i'm stupid!"

Funny, but I was recently listening to a recording of one of David Dubal's old radio programs -- an interview with the aforementioned Abram Chasins -- where one of Dubal's questions asked why it was that Chopin's music has always been played by "every generation"...seemingly immune to the "who's in, who's out" pattern. So maybe Chopin is an exception to that rule? And maybe Tureck had a bit of jealousy for that status on behalf of her favored composer? Link to the program here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7iIJTiZS9w

(go to 42:38)

Don't take anything like that as the end of the world.
Many who don't know enough but like to be heard.
Is it so new?

Chopin said List was a very good pianist but lousy composer.
Chopin saw cows in the field and said, "You see they have more intelligence than the English", which you know it's not true, but why did he say it?

So are you so heart broken still?

Actually, Chopin's melodies do not work well for the voice, because most of them cover a four octave range, which no singer has.

Thanks very much for the lecture!

Hamelin's fourth etude arranged for four saxophones works well (I like saxophones and their rep, I know, I know...)

I saw a performance on YouTube, but now I can't find it...

All I remember is that when I was a student, a short biography in one of my music books described Chopin as the "Poet of the Piano". That has always worked well enough for me even though my special interest is Baroque music.

The clip of Tureck is insufferable. I also "suffer from a British accent" which gets stronger in direct proportion to my irritation. And that garners a lot of teasing from friends and students. But I try to stem it and add some humor to dilute the stiffness. She comes across as priggish and stilted, devoid of warmth or charm. I think her demeanor sinks her before she steps into the boat. Better she just stick to Bach and the piano and avoid lecturing and the Polymoog. And she really offends me with her final attempt at physics and spirituality ... I cringe. ( A very British cringe )

You folks miss her point. She's just trying to claim you can play Bach on the piano - still a contentious issue.

Who says you can't?

I guess I wouldn't go quite that far (he did manage to write some nice ballet suites) but...never mind

Ms Tureck wasn't that convincing to me after demonstrating with that...thing...