# Chopin: bravura salon swoon-inducer, or great composer?



## Arent (Mar 27, 2017)

Are his works mere exercises in sentimentality and poetic or heroic affectation, or does he approach a Beethoven-esque level of depth? What say you?


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## Schoenberg (Oct 15, 2018)

It's all salon music. The only reason he is popular is because people like sentimentalism, and he also writes for piano, the most popular instrument.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Richard Wagner once said: “Mozart’s music and Mozart’s orchestra are a perfect match. An equally perfect balance exists between Palestrina’s choir and Palestrina’s counterpoint, and I find a similar correspondence between Chopin’s piano and some of his etudes and preludes. I don’t care for the lady's Chopin, however. There is too much of the Parisian salon in that; but he has given us many things that are above the salon.” 

In my opinion, Wagner didn’t know the half of it and great beauty & depth can be found in Chopin's Ballades, Polonaise, Scherzi, and other works such as his Barcarolle and F minor Fantasy. They are truly rich and great with outstanding harmonic genius and not without plumbing the depths of human experience, plus an outstanding appeal to the imagination for those who have one.


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## Minor Sixthist (Apr 21, 2017)

I don't see why the two have to be mutually exclusive.

Wording of the question plays a big part in how anyone might perceive this question. Why do we have to describe his work as "merely" sentimental or poetic? Are his works insufficient in some way, in their sentimality?

I think his nocturnes and preludes are pretty great. Does that make him a great composer? I don't know. Whenever I see "great" in a TC title I'm immediately reticent. In my opinion these threads about "greatness" could do with some tightening of parameters, not that the discussion they invoke is any less interesting or worthwhile.

That being said, I haven't had much experience with his larger-scale stuff. I'll say I _enjoy _his first piano concerto more than I've enjoyed the ones of Beethoven I've had experience with (1, and Emperor), but my opinion shouldn't speak to either of their greatnesses. Beyond that, I would have to know if by "depth" you mean emotional/figurative depth, or literal depth of the orchestration, like polyphony-wise. They'd be two different questions, both hard to answer but I suppose interesting to get takes on.


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

A great composer of course.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Keyboard music is my favored genre, and many of Chopin's are favorites: Scherzi, Ballades, Preludes, Mazurkas, Nocturnes, Barcarolle and Fantasy in F minor. His piano concertos are also outstanding.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Schoenberg said:


> It's all salon music. The only reason he is popular is because people like sentimentalism, and he also writes for piano, the most popular instrument.


As any pianist will tell you, that is far from the truth. My vote goes for "Beethovenian expanses of depth". He is one of the greats.


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## Guest (Jun 5, 2019)

Chopin is definitely a great composer. For me, however, I don't play his music so often these days as I used to. I generally prefer the solo piano work of Schubert and Schumann.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Chopin is one of the two great composers who seems to be disappearing from programming. Haydn is the other one. Their music is becoming rare in live concerts. Are these composers suffering a loss of status or are performers' and listeners' interests just shifting to other things?


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Arent said:


> Are his works mere exercises in sentimentality and poetic or heroic affectation, or does he approach a Beethoven-esque level of depth? What say you?


Both. He wrote a good deal of attractive music of no great depth or subtlety (the waltzes, mazurkas...?) and some that has both of those attributes and bears comparison with some of the finest of the piano repertoire (the later nocturnes, ballades, barcarolle...).

Chopin was at his best when he wrote what he meant, rather than writing what he thought was expected of him. I've often had the same thought about Elgar.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I don't think Chopin would have appreciated being compared to Beethoven of all people!


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Pat Fairlea said:


> Both. He wrote a good deal of attractive music of no great depth or subtlety (the waltzes, mazurkas...?) and some that has both of those attributes and bears comparison with some of the finest of the piano repertoire (the later nocturnes, ballades, barcarolle...).
> 
> Chopin was at his best when he wrote what he meant, rather than writing what he thought was expected of him. I've often had the same thought about Elgar.


You have the Mazurkas in the wrong category.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

If you don't like it, thats though for you however..... his music will be performed long after we are all dust.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> You have the Mazurkas in the wrong category.


Fair enough. I know better than to argue over matters of subjective taste.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Pat Fairlea said:


> Both. He wrote a good deal of attractive music of no great depth or subtlety (the waltzes, mazurkas...?) and some that has both of those attributes and bears comparison with some of the finest of the piano repertoire (the later nocturnes, ballades, barcarolle...).


I disagree about the waltzes having no great depth or subtlety. Listen to Artur Rubinstein's performances for proof.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I like Chopin. . . . . . . .


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## samm (Jul 4, 2011)

Just look at one of his preludes in isolation, the popular op.28 number 4. Look how simple and brief it is and yet look what he achieves with it. A beautiful, languorous melody largely consisting of four drawn out notes. It's an exercise in chromatic harmony long before Wagner's heyday. The final 7 or 8 bars before the end is pianistic writing par excellence.

Great composer.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Open Book said:


> I disagree about the waltzes having no great depth or subtlety. Listen to Artur Rubinstein's performances for proof.


Or Samson François.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Or Sofronitsky.

What do the Chopinists think of Arrau’s Chopin waltzes?


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## Rubens (Nov 5, 2017)

He elevated bravura-salon-swoon-inducement to great art.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Open Book said:


> I disagree about the waltzes having no great depth or subtlety. Listen to Artur Rubinstein's performances for proof.


Hmmm...if anything, Rubinstein's recordings of Chopin's waltzes are what I had in mind.
But a chacun son gout.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

The same care, subtleties and harmonic genius went into the Chopin waltzes as much as anything else he wrote. The same artistry. There are often many varieties of emotion, sometimes longing, sometimes melancholy, sometimes a mixture of different moods, often exquisite and poetic. They are not always just simple, straightforward waltzes that are superficial... And exactly what is wrong with writing something that can delight listeners? Nothing.

Exquisite, poetic, refined, beautiful... It's his same high standard of writing:


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

I have only 4 small composers statues on my piano. Beethoven (for everything he has composed), Wagner (for his operas) Liszt (because he found our instrument) and Chopin, because I like the flowers his music smells.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Just start to listen to a separate Chopin piece each day and ignore the full cycles of etudes, waltzes, nocturnes, preludes. If you listen to one separate piece, played by a serious pianist like Argerich, Pollini, Rubinstein, Zimerman, Richter, Sokolov, you will hear much more in this music, well beyond pictures of Parisian salons filled with yearning admirers.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I'm curious, what does the OP think?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Chopin was a genius of harmony, counterpoint and poetic vision.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

There's enough in Chopin for me *and *my grandmother. :lol:


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Yes, we love! Maybe the first true romantic. Now you all have to listen to guitar music from the same era.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Most of his best known pieces are either boring or overly sappy to me. But his Sonata 3 and Ballade 1 and others are really up there in my book.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Phil loves classical said:


> Most of his best known pieces are either boring or overly sappy to me. But his Sonata 3 and Ballade 1 and others are really up there in my book.


You may be hearing bad performances if you think any of his music is sappy. But I agree that the 3rd sonata and the 4 ballades tower over most of his other works.


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## rice (Mar 23, 2017)

How do one quantify or even qualify "depth" to be the only absolute value we seek in art?
Chopin composed exquisite music that are still praised 200 years later. Would that be adequate for greatness?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Not everyone has a feeling for the poetic and then they may conclude that most everything is just sappy. Chopin‘s polonaise are definitely not sappy. They are full of military might and force but rarely if ever mentioned by those who think he’s mostly sloppy or sappy. More than in his sonatas and ballades. He was a great master and humanity was lucky to have him. But his exquisite sense of refinement is not always appreciated, and so much depends on how he’s played. There’s a backbone in his music that’s too often neglected, but he can sound weak and feeble if he’s played that way, especially in his nocturnes. He was not an indecisive composer and he shouldn’t be played that way. He followed his own path, not to mention his genius for melody that can be heard in virtually everything he wrote. That can’t be taught!


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Pat Fairlea said:


> Hmmm...if anything, Rubinstein's recordings of Chopin's waltzes are what I had in mind.
> But a chacun son gout.


Rubinstein had an elegance and taste that I find unequaled, and also was capable of great depth. His favorite Chopin waltz was one of the less flashy minor key ones, and I agree with his choice.

Things are different today. Does he sound kitschy to you?


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

Anyone who calls Chopin a "salon pianist" is just an idiot.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Arent said:


> Are his works mere exercises in sentimentality and poetic or heroic affectation, or does he approach a Beethoven-esque level of depth? What say you?


I have a sense that you are describing salon music as something to be looked down upon (like elevator music). In its simplest definition, it is music composed for the salon. These where gatherings in well to do people's homes where people socialised and discussed matters like art, philosophy and politics.

Chopin preferred the salon to the concert hall but this in no way makes his music inferior. The intimacy of these spaces is directly related to him being a specialist in solo piano music (especially miniatures).

It can be argued that Chopin was more or less a lounge pianist but (a) what's wrong with that? So was Satie and (b) its akin to arguing that the opera was (is?) just a mere stage for the elites to rattle their jewellery and gossip about last night's dinner party - which is more of less how Beecham stereotyped his clientele in one ascerbic quip - regardless of what's being performed.

My view is that salon music has its own attributes and the likes of Chopin and Schumann where masters of this realm. Much salon music has been forgotten but theirs has endured.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

The Chopin Scherzi are not something that I would describe as "salon music" which is usually used as a term of dismissal by those who condemn him as nothing but a lightweight, superficial "miniaturist", though there's an intimacy about them because they are entirely outspoken, full of ferocity and depth. He could be probing, sarcastic, bitter, brilliant, restless, agitated, highly intellectual, emotionally refined and elevated, and tell a story that is head and shoulders above what most people think of as salon music. It's not his fault that some miss out on his ferocity and sarcasm that is hardly salon music and I consider that a gross mischaracterization of so much of his music though there were certainly times when he wished to be pleasing and delightful. His exquisite artistry rendered it way above what most people consider pleasing salon music. He simply would rather play for his friends in an intimate setting in the "salon" rather than doing public concerts. That doesn't make him a "salon music" composer who necessarily wrote easy superficial music.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Highbrow salon music it may be, but its still salon music.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Sid James said:


> Highbrow salon music it may be, but its still salon music.


Maybe you mean "saloon music"?

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a rag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Fred Chopin,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Pam.

When out of the night, which was fifty below...

Etc.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

That’s the other extreme. Even the Viennese Waltz was too lowbrow for Fred. He was like Goldilocks...between the concert hall and ballroom the salon was just right.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Sid James said:


> Highbrow salon music it may be, but its still salon music.


Larkenfield gave a great explanation why Chopin's music is not of a salon nature, and I agree with him.


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## robin4 (Jun 9, 2019)

Chopin's piano music remains the most frequently played in history.

Almost every note he wrote is in the permanent repertoire.

Arthur Rubinstein confirmed: "When the first notes of Chopin sound through the concert hall, there is a happy sign of recognition. All over the world men and women know his music. They love it; they are moved by it. Yet it is not Romantic music in the Byronic sense. It does not tell stories or paint pictures. It is expressive and personal, but still a pure art."

Anton Rubinstein called him "the Piano Bard, the Piano Rhapsodist, the Piano Mind, and the Piano Soul," declaring that "whether the spirit of the instrument breathed upon him, I do not know . . .but all possible expressions are found in his compositions, and are all sung by him upon this instrument."

The world rightly knows Chopin as "the poet of the piano." Indeed, the instrument's very prestige would be in jeopardy without his contribution.

https://chopinsociety.org/chopin/biography


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## Ras (Oct 6, 2017)

I love my grandma's Chopin !


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Bulldog said:


> Larkenfield gave a great explanation why Chopin's music is not of a salon nature, and I agree with him.


My point is that a large amount of his music was composed for the salon, which was his favourite place to perform. So by definition it's salon music, albeit of an exceptional kind.

Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. Isn't it obvious that the OP is presenting a dichotomy? You understand it doesn't really square up with basic logic, right? So much around here doesn't, so maybe I shouldn't bother.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

One man's opinion and a Chopin devotee... I know there is more than one side to him. Nevertheless, the use of the description "salon music" is generally not a compliment to any musician or composer, and I could easily imagine that he wouldn't have cared for it, because some of his harshest critics think that's _all_ he was: a salon composer and a "miniaturist," while neglecting to notice the great power and depth found in so much of what he wrote. His Polonaises are not salon music. They are full of thunder and war. I believe it's more accurate to say that he also wrote lighter and less serious works, such as Waltzes and Mazurkas, rather than describing any of his works as salon music just because they happened to be played in a private home, intimate setting, or other smaller venue.

People associate salon music with superficiality. He played at private gatherings and "salons" rather than in concert halls, after his original experience with them, because he did not have a large sonority at the piano compared to someone like Liszt. He played in a salon but did not compose for the salon, though he liked intimate settings and also liked to enjoy himself and would write lighter works. His Mazurkas, that some like to write it off as salon music, were actually very meaningful to him as a reminder of his Polish homeland written like little gems with many rhythmic and inventive details. If one sees the artistry in his works, it's harder to use the term "salon music" as if he can be dismissed because not everything was serious. He used to play Waltzes and Mazurkas at parties for his friends, but I feel that doesn't make him a salon composer. I feel that he was a serious composer who occasionally wrote lighter works.


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## Ras (Oct 6, 2017)

Larkenfield said:


> People associate salon music with superficiality. He played at private gatherings and "salons"


I find these objections against Chopin in many ways similar to the "powdered wigs" objections against Haydn. So thank you for defending Chopin, Lark.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

It’s less about defending Chopin and more about responding to a dichotomy.

Next up - Satie: Composer of armchair music or great composer?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Sid James said:


> It's less about defending Chopin and more about responding to a dichotomy.
> 
> Next up - Satie: Composer of armchair music or great composer?


The various sides of Chopin's nature and music have been commented on. I would also consider him one of the greatest melodist of all time even if he was writing something as simple as one of his Preludes. A salon composer mainly writes on the surface to please rather than being true to his own muse, whether the works are simple or complex. He used to pull his hair out writing certain works and going over and over them. His standards were extremely high.

George Sand on the Chopin Preludes:

"His genius was filled with the mysterious sounds of nature, but transformed into sublime equivalents in musical thought, and not through slavish imitation of the actual external sounds. His composition of that night was surely filled with raindrops, resounding clearly on the tiles of the Charterhouse, but it had been transformed in his imagination and in his song into tears falling upon his heart from the sky. ... The gift of Chopin is [the expression of] the deepest and fullest feelings and emotions that have ever existed. He made a single instrument speak a language of infinity. He could often sum up, in ten lines that a child could play, poems of a boundless exaltation, dramas of unequalled power."






I entirely agree with her.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Ras said:


> I find these objections against Chopin in many ways similar to the "powdered wigs" objections against Haydn. So thank you for defending Chopin, Lark.


I appreciate that! I've heard virtually everything he ever composed over many years and his music has been played in larger concert halls all over the world, even if he didn't and simply preferred smaller venues because of his smaller sonority on the piano. The spirit behind many of his works could be large, such as his Barcarolle and Fantasy an F minor. But even here, some would dismiss him as being a "miniaturist".


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Honestly, whatever. I don’t care for splitting hairs and the Satie comment was an attempt at irony. 

In future, I’ll think twice before contributing to a debate where the topic itself is a dichotomy. It’s getting to the point that most threads can be described as such. Logic and the internet rarely go together, do they? It was my mistake to think TC is any different.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

What true appreciator of Chopin would ever consider him as a "bravura salon swoon-inducer" under any circumstances? He was an inspired artist even when he was being simple and uncomplicated. He had standards much higher than what one might normally consider a "salon" pianist and his appreciators are quite happy to point this out.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

When people describe Chopin that way, I often wonder if we are speaking of the same composer... Even as a lay listener, before I ever touched a piano or got into classical music, I could tell his music was filled with immense power and depth. It was only much later when I learned that there were those out there in the world who dismissed him as a "salon" composer. 

And for the record, Erik Satie was a great composer too, but there would be a much stronger argument to make for him as a "salon" artist than Chopin (still wrong).


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"Spring Waltz" is a 2006 South Korean television series in the genre of romance and melodrama.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Waltz_OST
If you look at Spring Waltz OST, disc 1 contains a whole bunch of works by Yiruma and disc 2 contains these works by classical music composers:

Chopin Nocturne in C # minor (쇼팽 녹턴 C#단조)
Schumann Humoreske (슈만 유모레스크 도입부)
Chopin Waltz in B minor (쇼팽 왈츠 B단조)
Chopin Prelude in E minor, Op.28-4 (쇼팽 프렐류드 E단조 작품 28-4)
Chopin Etude in E major, op.10-3 (쇼팽 에튀드 E장조 작품 10-3) - 이별의 노래
Tchaikovsky 'Autumn Song' (차이콥스키 '가을의 노래')
Chopin Nocturne in E♭major, op.9-2 (쇼팽 녹턴 E♭장조 작품 9-2)
Chopin Etude in E♭minor, op.10-6 (쇼팽 에튀드 E♭단조 작품 10-6)
Chopin Prelude in D♭Major, op.28-15 (쇼팽 프렐류드 D♭장조 작품 28-15) - 빗방울
Tchaikovsky Nocturne in C# minor (차이콥스키 녹턴 C# 단조)

Why so much Chopin? What does this tell us? 
We acknowledge Chopin as an innovator of the Romantic era, but for some of us the "images" his music creates are hard to ignore.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Chopin: the bravura salon swoon inducing composer, for all the right reasons. Great composer.

Solved.



Larkenfield said:


> And exactly what is wrong with writing something that can delight listeners? Nothing.


Writing something that can delight listeners is the primary purpose of why music has been developed by humans. I cannot comprehend the brain differences that must be behind someone trying to argue against it. Are they aliens? Are they robots? Are they alligators?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Spring Waltz" is a 2006 South Korean television series in the genre of romance and melodrama.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Waltz_OST
> If you look at Spring Waltz OST, disc 1 contains a whole bunch of works by Yiruma and disc 2 contains these works by classical music composers:
> ...


"So what does this tell us?" Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And no one who appreciates and understands the first thing about this great composer would ever mistake the saccharine music written for this South Korean show as being even remotely similar in quality to the music of this melodic and harmonic master. That they have a playlist using his music and the music of others is not a negative reflection on him other than the show's producers are undoubtedly looking for music with a sensitive and poetic feel. But it's always back to square one with some of the critics who are unwilling to hear that he was far more than a salon pianist. His music and reputation would not have survived for 170 years if he wasn't more than that. He's one of the most played composers in the world performed by most of the world's greatest pianists on a list too long to quote.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

The East Asian fascination with Chopin is very cute. If only he could see it!


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

There are those who don't like chocolate.

There are those who don't see anything in the eyes of a dog.

There are those who don't like the scent of a rose.

There are those who don't enjoy waking up to the first snowfall of the year.

And there are those who simply don't get Chopin. 

Pity.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Sid James said:


> My point is that a large amount of his music was composed for the salon, which was his favourite place to perform. So by definition it's salon music, albeit of an exceptional kind.
> 
> Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. Isn't it obvious that the OP is presenting a dichotomy? You understand it doesn't really square up with basic logic, right? So much around here doesn't, so maybe I shouldn't bother.





Sid James said:


> Honestly, whatever. I don't care for splitting hairs and the Satie comment was an attempt at irony.
> 
> In future, I'll think twice before contributing to a debate where the topic itself is a dichotomy. It's getting to the point that most threads can be described as such. Logic and the internet rarely go together, do they? It was my mistake to think TC is any different.


I get the point of these posts and support the nuanced position you were arguing. Chopin's music is the perfect case for rejecting the knee-jerk pejorative reading of the term salon music underlying the thread title. Beethoven too performed a lot of salon music, including his sonatas. Musical salons were incubators for much great music and many budding composers.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Or Sofronitsky.
> 
> What do the Chopinists think of Arrau's Chopin waltzes?


Dunno about other chopinists but I'm a fan of Arrau's Chopin. Of the pianists that have recorded the majority of Chopin's work, Arrau is near or at the top for me--I like his recordings as a whole better than Ohlsson's or Ashkenazy or Lortie or Askenase. I like some of Francois's recordings quite a bit but some of it very little. I'm pretty lukewarm on the recordings in the Rubinstein collection, although I hear some of his earlier recordings are better, and I actively dislike most of Pollini's recordings.

re: the subject of this thread--as a young man, I used to sneer at Chopin as overly effete and insubstantial and unserious, and considered his popularity with the unwashed masses as a real strike against him. As a middle aged man, I take myself much less seriously and laugh at my prior pomposity, and Chopin is now my second favorite composer after Wagner.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Spring Waltz" is a 2006 South Korean television series in the genre of romance and melodrama.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Waltz_OST
> If you look at Spring Waltz OST, disc 1 contains a whole bunch of works by Yiruma and disc 2 contains these works by classical music composers:
> ...


The bone-headed, tin-eared, stone-hearted, mindless, soulless insensitivity of this comparison may represent a new low in musical commentary. If that's what it should be called.

Perhaps what Yiruma's inclusion of Chopin and Tchaikovsky tells us is simply that he finds Chopin's and Tchaikovsky's music beautiful and moving and hopes that his listeners will too. Chances are he's right to hope so.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

howlingfantods said:


> Dunno about other chopinists but I'm a fan of Arrau's Chopin. Of the pianists that have recorded the majority of Chopin's work, Arrau is near or at the top for me--I like his recordings as a whole better than Ohlsson's or Ashkenazy or Lortie or Askenase. I like some of Francois's recordings quite a bit but some of it very little. I'm pretty lukewarm on the recordings in the Rubinstein collection, although I hear some of his earlier recordings are better, and I actively dislike most of Pollini's recordings.


The thing about Arrau's waltzes is that they are very slowed down, and that changes the character of the music fundamentally. I mentioned Sofronitsky because he seems to me to find a real emotional depth in the Waltzes he recorded, again revealing.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> The bone-headed, tin-eared, stone-hearted, mindless, soulless insensitivity of this comparison may represent a new low in musical commentary. If that's what it should be called.
> Perhaps what Yiruma's inclusion of Chopin and Tchaikovsky tells us is simply that he finds Chopin's and Tchaikovsky's music beautiful and moving and hopes that his listeners will too. Chances are he's right to hope so.


Yiruma is a pianist-composer who is globally known for his sentimental character pieces. (He's not one of the producers of the show "Spring Waltz")






The producers of the show decided to include music by Yiruma and Chopin for the bulk of their soundtrack. So it appears they were actually thinking Yiruma is the 21st-century Chopin and Chopin is the 19th century Yiruma.

EdwardBast has a good point. We must judge music by their content not by what they're written for. But this constant Slavic sentimentality in Chopin's music - Some people consider it Chopin's strong point and emotional power. But to me, it constantly conjures up images of a man seducing a woman. It's necessarily not a bad thing, but I feel Chopin has way too much of it. 
Perhaps I've been affected by the media portrayal of Chopin. But these days when I hear Chopin I imagine titles like "No Other Love" being attached to his pieces. Perhaps this is why Chopin wanted so bad people treat his works as "absolute music". He knew the amount of Slavic sentimentality in his music, but did not want people have "weird images" with it.






There's also a Taiwanese show called 'Secret', and I'm not very impressed by this portrayal either.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> EdwardBast has a good point. We must judge music by their content not by what they're written for. But this constant Slavic sentimentality in Chopin's music - Some people consider it Chopin's strong point and his emotional power. But to me, it constantly conjures up images of a man seducing a woman. It's necessarily not a bad thing, but I feel Chopin has way too much of it.


There's no such thing as too much seduction. :kiss:


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

aleazk said:


> Chopin was a genius of harmony, counterpoint and poetic vision.


Excellent point and very true. In these aspects he was very influential to later generations of composers. I know in the Preludes there are examples of harmonies which are extremely beautiful and attractive and are so unique they are unorthodox and incapable of traditional analysis. The only way to make sense of them is to see how he arrived at them contrapuntally. This was a very important discovery. The listener accepts the non-traditional harmony when the counterpoint is clear, logical, and sensical. That principle later became one of the very foundations of twentieth-century composition/counterpoint. Chopin can therefore be considered an important and influential composer.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

There is a huge difference between sentiment and sentimentality and some will mistake one for the other who may lack imagination or an appreciation of the poetic. Some will avoid anything that has to do with human sentiment or emotion because it’s too uncomfortable or unfamiliar. It’s something to feel rather than analyze. The portrayal of the human condition was one of the outstanding traits of the romantic era and Chopin was not one of its excesses or his music would have never endured and be played by the world’s greatest pianists for 170 years. As an example, the Chopin polonaise are not full of Slavic sentimentality. Most are masculine, emotionally straightforward, and military, and of course not mentioned in the usual slander and misrepresentation of this outstanding composer whose works are known for their melodic and harmonic genius that are overall head and shoulders beyond sentimentality. But there’s genuine poetic sentiment in full measure that’s expressed with infinite skill and variety for those with the ears to hear it. Unfortunately, some evidently are unable to do this while most can. He’s one of the world’s most performed and appreciated composers.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> The thing about Arrau's waltzes is that they are very slowed down, and that changes the character of the music fundamentally. I mentioned Sofronitsky because he seems to me to find a real emotional depth in the Waltzes he recorded, again revealing.


Here's Arrau playing the op34 no.3 in 1921. He sounds like he's trying to fit in with the times and at the same time trying to find something new as a young artist. Times have changed.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Spring Waltz" is a 2006 South Korean television series in the genre of romance and melodrama.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Waltz_OST
> If you look at Spring Waltz OST, disc 1 contains a whole bunch of works by Yiruma and disc 2 contains these works by classical music composers:
> ...


Images are a consequence of the imagination of the person providing them. Quite recently I posted an excerpt from Jerome Robbins' masterpiece, "Dancers at a Gathering," in the Ballet forum. I take the liberty of re-posting it here:






That is only one of Robbins' Chopin based ballets. Here's another one - "The Concert."


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> The thing about Arrau's waltzes is that they are very slowed down, and that changes the character of the music fundamentally. I mentioned Sofronitsky because he seems to me to find a real emotional depth in the Waltzes he recorded, again revealing.


Yes, Arrau's waltzes are more wistful and nostalgic than others. I do prefer Sofronitsky's and especially Francois's waltzes--their waltzes really dance--but I think the Arrau's is a good and valid approach. Arrau is probably best in the nocturnes and preludes, and he plays a terrific polonaise-fantaisie.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

howlingfantods said:


> Yes, Arrau's waltzes are more wistful and nostalgic than others. I do prefer Sofronitsky's and especially Francois's waltzes--their waltzes really dance--but I think the Arrau's is a good and valid approach. Arrau is probably best in the nocturnes and preludes, and he plays a terrific polonaise-fantaisie.


The preludes is the best thing I know from Arrau in Chopin, the live one from Prague, I don't think he's so interesting in the studio. Similarly I'm not so keen on his nocturnes, but there are some live ones which I think are special. The waltzes on the other hand are so quirky they're interesting.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Daniil Trifonov...


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

Salon music, why not? These women at the salon are listening to Chopin.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Arent said:


> Are his works mere exercises in sentimentality and poetic or heroic affectation, or does he approach a Beethoven-esque level of depth? What say you?


Great composer. A personal favorite on the piano.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Sid James said:


> It's less about defending Chopin and more about responding to a dichotomy.
> 
> Next up - Satie: Composer of armchair music or great composer?


I know I'm about six months late for this comment, but Satie as an armchair music composer is brilliant satire, since he did actually compose furniture music.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Chopin perhaps more than any other composer had a perfect sense that less is more. His pacing and note-placement is near perfect, up there with Bach and Mozart. However his mind was deterred to the _bigger picture_ of music and theme-building, avoiding extraneous notes and counterpoint, instead focusing on the "larger development" happening within a theme, even more than how Beethoven had interpreted. To fill in the smaller parts in his music, he would shorthand mimic the effect of harmonic lines with his right hand, thus without putting any compositional attention there. He was so stuck on writing for piano, as though all he had were these bigger ideas running through his head and never the time or interest to write the small notes and parts; he knew how it worked, and was the first composer who truly aimed for the full circle concept, thus had to make sacrifices with the smaller parts. His work shows marvelous genius towards this breadth of cohesion, a pinnacle piece in everything to come later. Debussy dubbed him the best composer of all time, and while this is certainly a matter of individual opinion, it is also a matter of interpretation about what music is and how it actually works. I can safely say that Chopin had more vision and ingenuity than most of the major Romantic composers, due to his much more profound focus on development and his knowledge of how full-scale theme design works.

Don't know how many times I need to post this piece, it's 100% a Tier 5 work or above. Imagine hearing this years and years before anything of Brahms and Tchaikovskys:





On the opposite spectrum to the topic, I'm not really sure what 'Bravura Salon Swoon' means musically... It feels similar to when people degrade the following song by comparing it to Bugs Bunny being knocked unconscious 




It just doesn't have any validity of description to the actual music we're listening to. It's meaningless description.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Ethereality said:


> Debussy dubbed him the best composer of all time,


Anti-German sentiment in France was extreme at the time. Debussy had a nationalist view on music and his twisted opinions on Beethoven and Wagner are probably results of that thinking, - like how Wagner refused to acknowledge the merit of Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer and their influence on him because they were Jews.

"Wagner was a sunset that was mistaken for a sunrise." -Debussy
"the old deaf one" -Debussy on Beethoven


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> Anti-German sentiment in France was extreme at the time. Debussy had a nationalist view on music and his twisted opinions on Beethoven and Wagner are probably results of that thinking, - like how Wagner refused to acknowledge the merit of Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer and their influence on him because they were Jews.
> 
> "Wagner was a sunset that was mistaken for a sunrise." -Debussy
> "the old deaf one" -Debussy on Beethoven


Yes, we should have a much better grasp of all intellectual subjects today than did the people of Debussy's time.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Luchesi said:


> Yes, we should have a much better grasp of all intellectual subjects today than did the people of Debussy's time.


I wasn't talking about having a 'better grasp of intellectual subjects', I don't even know what you mean by that exactly. I was talking about how Debussy was nationalistically biased in his view on music.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I still think if Chopin was German and Hummel was French, and Debussy knew them, Debussy wouldn't have deemed Chopin as the greatest.

Anyone else hear Chopin's 4th Ballade in this?

[4:00]


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

The reason composers like Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, are so widely praised and celebrated, is because they embraced grand form more than any other composers. It's what makes all other music like Mozart and Beethoven, sound more like abstract art and scattered experimentalism, when placed next to their meticulously-written concrete forms and themes. Then especially Schubert and Bach sound much more scattered and experimental in comparison, and are much less based on the principles of concrete realism in form.

However, the minute you start comparing the composers to other aspects of music besides form, then it's easy to make an argument that 99% of composers did x and y better than Chopin and the others, such as counterpoint for instance. But it's because that wasn't their aim and intention, that made them so revered and loved in the end. So comparing to Hummel, imo, is like comparing apples and oranges. They had a different interpretation about music, that sounds nothing like Hummel or Schubert or most music, and it strikingly appeals to a lot more people. The most widely-loved themes of Mozart and Beethoven were composed based on this principle of large form, theme-based interpretation, a more complete tie to their music which they occasionally tapped in to. But Chopin and Tchaikovsky I think mastered large form best, and in order to critique them you mustn't apply an entirely different interpretation of music to their own analysis; but instead note the real interpretation of their music and understand why you're partial.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> I still think if Chopin was German and Hummel was French, and Debussy knew them, Debussy wouldn't have deemed Chopin as the greatest.
> 
> Anyone else hear Chopin's 4th Ballade in this?
> 
> [4:00]


Better than I expected. He's Haydn without the humour. Call and response balancing, symmetry. He probably didn't realize he was so predictable in those years. Composed in his late twenties, he can be forgiven for the octaves in unison for the ending flourish?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Luchesi said:


> Better than I expected. *He's Haydn without the humour.*


Are you kidding me, Mr. Luchesi?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Nepomuk_Hummel
_"While in Germany, Hummel published A Complete Theoretical and Practical Course of Instruction on the Art of Playing the Piano Forte (1828), which sold thousands of copies within days of its publication and brought about a new style of fingering and of playing ornaments. Later 19th century pianistic technique was influenced by Hummel, through his instruction of Carl Czerny who later taught Franz Liszt. Czerny had transferred to Hummel after studying three years with Beethoven."_

Have a look at this article: "Hummel and the Romantics"
https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/files/EMagSummer07Hummel.pdf
and my recent post in Sounds similar to Beethoven and Brahms?

Piano writing such as these (fast passages involving alternating overlapped hands) are found in Hummel and Liszt, but not in Beethoven and Chopin:
Hummel Piano Concerto No.2: 



Liszt Transcendental Etude No.2: 



Liszt Transcendental Etude No.10: 




Piano writing such as these are found in Hummel and Liszt, but not in Beethoven:
Hummel Piano Concerto No.2: 



Liszt Transcendental Etude No.9: 






Luchesi said:


> Call and response balancing, symmetry.


[0:48]
















Luchesi said:


> He probably didn't realize he was so predictable in those years. Composed in his late twenties, he can be forgiven for the octaves in unison for the ending flourish?


But he didn't write stuff to be played in unison by both hands for an entire piece or movement, 












or "minimalism" (for lack of a better term) such as:








or using passages of octaves in both hands in unison entirely to build tension to a climax:


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