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Chopin: The Poet of the Piano
Jixin Zhou
Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin(1810 – 1849) is a Polish composer. As one of the
most famous representatives of the Romantic period, he combined a gift for melody,
an adventurous harmonic sense, an intuitive and inventive understanding of formal
design and fantastic piano techniques in composing a large body of piano music.
Chopin was one of the leading 19th century composers who began a career as a
pianist. He abandoned concert life early, but his music represents the spirit of the
Romantic piano tradition and embodies more fully than any other composers with
the expressive and technical characteristics of his instruments. (Arthur Hedley and
Maurice J.E. Brown) People often referred to him as “the poet of the piano” and he is
also considered one of the most famous composers of the Romantic Period.
(Biography) The wonder of Chopin's music is the way he conjured new sounds from
the piano. His pieces explore the full expressive range of the instrument, and he had
the ability to create a kind of musical poetry. (Composers) Romanticism actually has
very little to do with the popular thought of as “romantic”. Though love may
sometimes be the theme of Romantic art, it is rather an international artistic and
philosophical movement that redefines the foundational ways in which Western
people thought about themselves and the whole world. (Introduction to
Romanticism) What makes Chopin a romantic composer? What are some of the
characteristics of Romantic music? How do his works demonstrate Romanticism?
Classicism is conservatism in creativity with emphasis on balance, control,
proportion, symmetry and retrains. On the other hand, Romanticism is a more
radical kind of expression as it tries to find the new, the curious, and the
adventurous, which Chopin exemplifies perfectly. (M.Tevfik Dorak) Romantic Music
breaks barriers of limitation and Chopin was one to abandon the concrete forms of
earlier music. Even though Mozart and Beethoven varied from the usual forms,
Romantic composers, including Chopin, almost ignored them. (Arthur Hedley and
Maurice J.E. Brown) Since the beginning of his composition, Chopin tried to avoid
the rules and boundaries from the Classic Period and he broke the limitations and
composed in various formats and styles. As a pianist he was almost self-taught,
which may account for his lack of slavish reverence for tradition in his approach of
the piano; his inventiveness and creativity were never inhibited by pedantry.
(Arthur Hedley and Maurice J.E. Brown)
The ballades Chopin composed are the best examples of this approach. Music up
till this point was not based on literature nor had thematic material that depicted a
story. The use of program music to paint pictures, tell a story, mimic poetry signified
the cross form Classical to Romantic. Some of Chopin’s ballades helped to lift this
movement. The program music to describe characters and tell stories allowed music
to express a deeper level of emotion the audience could understand. Chopin’s
Mazurka Themes are from the polish dance, and the nocturnes are a clear example
of programmatic material too. (Arthur Hedley and Maurice J.E. Brown)
As Chopin grew up, he got exhausted about the resources of his native city
Warsaw, so he decided to go to Vienna. The public was impressed by his brilliant
performances of classical music, and even more by his improvisation on a Polish
folksong, an exotic novelty for the Viennese. The enthusiastic reception of Chopin’s
compositions that were marked by a frankly Polish character and his meeting with
other experts had encouraged him to write music that would contain both this
national coloring and his own special piano style. Soon he returned to Warsaw and
once again, among the whirl of the Romantic Movement, he felt narrow-minded and
went to Paris. His imaginative playing and the unusual charm of his personality at
once gained him many friends in both literary and musical circles, including Liszt,
Berlioz, Hiller, Bellini and Meyerbeer and so was at the center of the Romantic
movement. (Arthur Hedley and Maurice J.E. Brown)
Like many of the Romantic artists, writers and composers who were inspired by
the French Revolution or American Revolution, Chopin obtained his sources of
creation from a significant history event like The November Uprising. The
November Uprising (1830–1831)—also known as the Cadet Revolution—was an
armed rebellion against Russia's rule in Poland. It was started on November 29,
1830 in Warsaw by a group of young conspirators from the army's officer school in
Warsaw and was soon joined by large part of the Polish society. (November Uprising)
Chopin was one of the first known nationalist composers. He loves his country so
much that he even wanted to go back to Poland and fight there himself if his friends
didn’t manage to stop him. Chopin was inspired by his country so much and he
wrote several songs for this subject. In his songs he went further by allying his
music to Polish words. Some of them are like mazurkas, some are in other simple,
folk-like forms. He also used the themes and dances of his native country as
resources to create many songs, especially the polonaises and mazurkas. (M.Tevfik
Dorak) One of his most famous creations is the “Polonaise Op.53”, also known as
“Héroique” is a very good example of his love for his country. The song first
describes how prosperous and magnificent Poland used to be and then it talks about
people’s misery and suffering under the control of Russia.
One major category of compositions Chopin is Etudes. The term “étude” has long
been used to describe compositions of technical, sometimes virtuosic, difficulty,
focused on training and refining a specific aspect of a performer’s technique.
Masters such as Czerny and Hanon wrote famous etudes that are legendary
exercises in finger and hand dexterity and strength. Although invaluable in this
regard, these etudes are lacking in musical development, since most of them are
merely repetitions of the same general pattern of notes; they have no inherent
musicality. (Yu, Fred)
Chopin’s etudes are special in this sense. Chopin was the first to transform the
etude into an actual art form. Although all of his twenty-seven etudes for piano
adhere to the basic principle of an etude – to train and refine a specific aspect of a
performer’s technique – there is another element present. Each of the etudes, rather
than being a dry repetitive exercise, has its own musical story to tell. Like virtually
all of Chopin’s compositions, there is an emotional aspect that transcends the mere
playing of notes, and takes a true virtuoso to execute well. This newly developed
musical aspect of the etude persisted as a feature of Romantic repertoire; among the
other great Romantics, Liszt was particularly famous for his technically intense yet
passionate concert etudes. (Yu, Fred)
One should also note that while each of the etudes focus on a specific aspect of
the performer’s technique, a common thread ties all of them together. Even though
the Etude Op. 10 No. 1 is a difficult exercise in broad chords and the Etude Op. 25
No. 10 is more of a study for octave technique, they share something in common.
Each of Chopin’s twenty-seven etudes, in addition to what each specifically focuses
on, is an exercise designed to develop a legato style of playing. (Yu, Fred)
Other than his etudes, Chopin is also well known for his nocturnes, preludes and
waltz. People often use words such as "Songs of the night" to describe Chopin's
nocturnes. They are piano miniatures among the most well known and most
beautiful of Chopin's works. The genre of the piano nocturne was created by the
Irish composer and pianist John Field. Chopin was introduced to nocturnes by his
teacher Josef Elsner and was fascinated by the works of John Field. Chopin fully took
the name and the broad concept of a dream-like melody over a broken chord
backing, relying on liberal use of the sustain pedal and the offset of a contrasting
middle section before a reprise of the opening material, and made it famous in the
piano literature. The nocturne, perfectly suited to the mood of the era, evokes with
its very name romantic images of the night, the moon, and all the shades of lyrical
and dramatic expression associated with them. Its poetry is shaped by an
atmosphere of intimacy and reverie. Other famous nocturnes were written by
Clementi, Ries, Szymanowska, Kalkbrenner, Schumann and Liszt, among others, but
it was Chopin, above all, who raised the nocturne to the peak of poetry, becoming its
most celebrated master. (Nocturnes - Frédéric Chopin)
Originally, preludes are compositions that are created to serve as short passages
that went before something bigger, perhaps to set the mood. However, Chopin tried
something new: he did not put anything after the preludes and let them stand alone.
Chopin composed 24 short preludes. They are all really short, with the longest
prelude (the famous “Raindrop” prelude) being five-minute long. Despite their
lengths, the preludes became masterpieces as well. (Chopin Preludes) The best
word to describe Chopin’s preludes is probably “enigmatic”. The preludes engage
the listeners wholly in not a picture or an image, but rather a complete experience.
Each prelude presents a distinct, discrete musical idea. Surely, one must admit that
those preludes are rather strange. Nowhere else can one find such a diverse
collection of music so strange and yet so entrancing. As such, they are also
wonderfully fascinating and exceptionally hard to master. They are a set of
extremely diverse pieces that include nearly all of Chopin’s stylistic quirks
considering as a whole. Therefore, to play the whole set demands an intimate
familiarity with Chopin’s style. To master the entire set is to have captured the spirit
of the master’s music, and is exceedingly difficult. When considering these preludes,
it is absolutely crucial to note that Chopin was strongly opposed to programmatic
music. Programmatic music was simply not part of Chopin’s musical ideology. It had
never occurred to him that music could represent images and it was never his intent
to do so either. To Chopin, his music represented abstract ideas and feelings,
transcending visual, earthly images. As a final point to note concerning preludes,
Chopin did not write technical difficulties for the sake of writing technical
difficulties. Unlike Liszt, who notoriously sought to make a great portion of his
compositions incredibly difficult, Chopin did not consciously do this. If the piece is
difficult, it is because it could not possibly have been written in any other way.
There was no intent to make the piece hard just for the sake of its being hard; the
mechanical difficulties of Chopin are as much a part of the music as the musical
qualities themselves are. Chopin used only as much technical difficulty as was
needed to express his ideas, and none beyond that. This is why his preludes vary so
greatly in their technical demands. (Yu, Fred)
During Chopin’s time, Waltz became very popular, both as a dance and as saloon
music. No worthy middle-class home could afford to be without the piano and the
Waltz was the perfect piece for the pretty daughter or wife to play. The dance was
intimate and one cannot help to reflect how uneasy mothers and fathers were,
watching their daughter in familiarly arms of a stranger. The grace sweeps and
closes body carriage in which the freedom is returned to the females. Chopin himself
had poured scorn on the Waltz, writing home from Vienna. “They actually call
Waltzes works”. And so eventually did he as the businessman he was. His own
Waltzes undoubtedly reached their finest flowering in Paris but he first discovered
the form in Warsaw. He took special pains over the structure and continuity and the
organic principle of developing variations lies in one way or the other behind most
of them. Musical analysts can expose layer upon layer of thematic correspondences
and derivations, which are useful to reveal the inner unconscious logic of the
compositional process. (Ståhlbrand, Robert)
Chopin’s inspiration comes from a lot of different resources. For example,
Chopin’s friend circle of composers and poets had some influences over him and his
creations. The fundamental texture of Chopin’s music is accompanied melody, and
much of the fascination with his music comes from the limitless resources with
which he varied it. Chopin’s most characteristic melodies can never be thought of
without their accompaniments, which makes them pianistic. Nevertheless, they had
much in common with the vocal melodies of the contemporary Italian operas. The
similarity of Chopin’s nocturnes to Bellini’s cavatinas has often been noticed, though
there is little evidence of direct influence in either direction. The influence of
Rossini’s and Weber’s operatic melodies is apparent. In the matter of musical form
Chopin has always been underestimated. Like other Romantics, he has been accused
of inattention to musical structure or not being able to develop his materials in a
larger scale. (Nicholas Temperley 306) Also, some say that Chopin’s Ballades are
based off of his friends’ poetry. All Romantic composers composed some vocal music.
For Chopin, he wrote a few songs based on Polish poetry. There are definitely more
characteristics of Romantic music, but those above are instrumental in the change
from Classical to Romantic and are elements that are evident in the work’s of Chopin.
(Arthur Hedley and Maurice J.E. Brown)
Another source of inspiration for Chopin’s composition comes from his love for
his country. Like many of the Romantic artists, writers and composers who were
inspired by the French Revolution or American Revolution, Chopin obtained his
sources of creation from a significant history event like The November Uprising. The
November Uprising (1830–1831)—also known as the Cadet Revolution—was an
armed rebellion against Russia's rule in Poland. It was started on November 29,
1830 in Warsaw by a group of young conspirators from the army's officer school in
Warsaw and was soon joined by large part of the Polish society. (November Uprising)
Chopin was one of the first known nationalist composers. He loves his country so
much that he even wanted to go back to Poland and fight there himself if his friends
didn’t manage to stop him. Chopin was inspired by his country so much and he
wrote several songs for this subject. In his songs he went further by allying his
music to Polish words. Some of them are like mazurkas, some are in other simple,
folk-like forms. He also used the themes and dances of his native country as
resources to create many songs, especially the polonaises and mazurkas. (M.Tevfik
Dorak) One of his most famous creations is the “Polonaise Op.53”, also known as
“Héroique” is a very good example of his love for his country. The song first
describes how prosperous and magnificent Poland used to be and then it talks about
people’s misery and suffering under the control of Russia.
Chopin is also known for his passion for piano. His real love was only for the
piano, and all efforts to direct his energies to composition for other instruments or
within Classical forms were vain. His characteristic qualities appeared as soon as he
was allowed to follow his natural bent and compose for himself as a performer.
(Arthur Hedley and Maurice J.E. Brown)
Overall, Chopin is definitely a notable figure in the Romantic Period and qualifies
as one of the most famous representatives of Romanticism. Although he is long gone,
his works will remain in this world forever.
Work Cited
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“Composers” Essential of Music 21 May 2009
http://www.essentialsofmusic.com/composer/chopin.html
Hedley, Arthur and Brown J.E. Maurice (Sect 1—6) Nicholas Temperley (Sect 7—
14) “Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians. London: McMillan, 1980.
"Introduction to Romanticism" Romanticism. 21 May 2009
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/rom.html>.
Kuhn, Laura. Student Encyclopedia of Music. New York: Schirmer, 1999.
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<http://members.tripod.com/~dorakmt/music/romantic.html>
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<http://www.pianosociety.com/cms/index.php?section=129>.
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<http://www.economicexpert.com/a/November:Uprising.htm>
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2009 <http://www.ourchopin.com/>
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2011. <http://www.pianosociety.com/cms/index.php?section=633>.
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THE PIANO. Web. 24 Jan. 2011. <http://www.ourchopin.com/analysis/etude.html>.
Yu, Fred. "Chopin : Complete Music Analysis - Preludes." CHOPIN : THE POET OF
THE PIANO. Web. 28 Jan. 2011.
<http://www.ourchopin.com/analysis/prelude.html>.