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Perhaps one of the principal reasons why Chopin and a lot of other composers are played at a fraction of the speed that they were conceived at.
Which other Chopin pieces are usually played much slower than the composer's indication? The only other one I know if is the Etude in E flat minor.
Most of the great pianists could play the D flat Nocturne significantly faster than they do if perhaps not quite as fast as on the posted recording. I think they choose not to do so even though most would be familiar with Chopin's tempo marking because they don't think it sounds good at that speed.
If you look at Chopin's first editions, and browse through some of the earlier works, that usually had the metronome, you can find some examples.
My point was that unless there are many pieces where pianists usually play much more slowly than Chopin's metronome marking, the situation with the D flat Nocturne is essentially a one off. Do you know of any other examples?
If the great ,with possible a few exceptions, basically all choose to play it much slower than Chopin's indication despite undoubtedly know what he marked, doesn't that mean something?
I think that fashion and tastes have changed, as have pianos.
As mentioned on this thread, the bigger, more sustained and brighter, bolder sound of the modern concert grand does not translate well to the original tempo and pedal markings of the Piano Shaped Objects that Chopin used to compose on.
Beethoven was the fastest pianist of his time. Anton Rubinstein was still fast, but slower than Beethoven. Josef Hoffman, slower than Rubinstein, but still fast. Then you hit modern pianists and boom! We're slowpokes in comparison to everyone else!
So bravo for sticking with Chopin's tempo. That must have been really hard.
Pianist-in-training. Also an 19 year old who hasn't grown up at heart.
Fanboy of Edward MacDowell. His Piano Concerto No. 2 in D minor really needs some revival, IMHO.
[quote=acortot]Perhaps one of the principal reasons why Chopin and a lot of other composers are played at a fraction of the speed that they were conceived at.
Which other Chopin pieces are usually played much slower than the composer's indication? The only other one I know if is the Etude in E flat minor.
[quote=acortot]Perhaps one of the principal reasons why Chopin and a lot of other composers are played at a fraction of the speed that they were conceived at.
Which other Chopin pieces are usually played much slower than the composer's indication? The only other one I know if is the Etude in E flat minor.
Etude in E major, op. 10 no. 3.
Jeff Kallberg
Hi, I wanted to avoid getting into it, but the best thing to do is to check the pieces you are already interested in or play on the Chopin first edition or the Chopin Variorum site.
[quote=acortot]Perhaps one of the principal reasons why Chopin and a lot of other composers are played at a fraction of the speed that they were conceived at.
Which other Chopin pieces are usually played much slower than the composer's indication? The only other one I know if is the Etude in E flat minor.
Etude in E major, op. 10 no. 3.
Jeff Kallberg
I looked through the Chopin Nocturnes up to Op. 27, No. 2 which all have Chopin's metronome indications in the (Urtext) score. Without exception, they are all played more slowly - by most professional pianists (current and recent) - than Chopin's marking.
I looked through the Chopin Nocturnes up to Op. 27, No. 2 which all have Chopin's metronome indications in the (Urtext) score. Without exception, they are all played more slowly - by most professional pianists (current and recent) - than Chopin's marking.
... I have told a story about when I heard LL played this at Carnegie Hall quite a long time ago but I will repeat it because it's so funny. On the last line of the piece with the ascending sixths in the RH, LL started leaning further and further back with his eyes closed until he was almost at an angle of 45 degrees beyond vertical. Then, he paused in that position with his eyes closed at the end of the piece for so long I really wanted to yell "Wake up!" but did not have the nerve to do it.
My understanding is that although the video is billed as the debut concert recording, it's actually re-recorded right after the concert on the same stage, or a mixture of the live and the re-recorded footage (even for each piece played).
In the late 80's, when the HIP movement was taking off, conductor Roger Norrington recorded a series of performances of Beethoven's symphonies using Beethoven's original tempo markings. None was more controversial than his performance of the 9th, which clocked in at 62 minutes, when the average performance is 69:30.
If he did it as comparatively fast vs. standard speed as the pianist in the video the Beethoven would be about 46 minutes.
I just did a comparison for someone else, and actually, there are movements in this which are even more accelerated than this. For example, consider Movement No. 3. Movement No. III Adagio molto e cantabile is the slow movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
For a traditional performance, we take Bohm's 1981 Vienna Philharmonic recording. The 3rd movement is from 32:06 to 50:20 - a duration of 18 mins 14 secs:
Now compare this to Norrington's 1987 HIP recording using Beethoven's own metronome markings. The 3rd movement is from 28:28 to 39:31 - a duration of 11 mins 3 secs:
In this example here is a huge difference between the composer Beethoven's original metronome marks and the modern performance practice. BTW, Beethoven's own original metronome has been found, tested, and has been found accurate. Modern tastes appear to have changed from Beethoven's time.
What other tastes for performance practice have changed for other pieces? Does anyone have an example of another piece where the current taste is for a vastly different performance than that of the original composer?
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Stating the obvious, tastes can only change if performers have the artistic license to use interpretations that are not aligned with the prevailing taste and fashion at the time of the performance. No doubt those who did so were at times critiqued by their less open-minded contemporaries until the different interpretation became the accepted fashion.
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