Chopin

Michaela Boros

The A-B-C’s of Nocturne Repertoire: Alexander Before Chopin

Piano students transitioning from method books to standard intermediate repertoire often yearn to study the beautiful and deservedly popular Chopin Nocturnes. However, these require oft-underestimated musical sensitivity and technical command. Jane Magrath recognizes this in The Pianist's Guide to Standard Teaching and Performing Literature, statin...
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Susanna Garcia

Chopin: Waltz in B Minor, Op. 69, No. 2

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Preparation and Presentation Context: Pieces that are helpful to have experienced or played before approaching this onePyotr Tchaikovsky, The Sick Doll, op. 39, no. 6Dmitri Kabalevsky, Slow Waltz, op. 39, no. 23Frédéric Chopin, Waltz in A minor, op. post.Edvard Grieg, Waltz, op. 12, no. 2Samuil Maykapar Waltz, op. 28, no. 5Get Ready: Creative activ...
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Helen Smith Tarchalski

Spring 2019: Keyboard Kids' Companion

To print or save, use the PDF below. Hover your cursor over the document and a black bar should appear with print and download icons.   Download PDF File Here
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Kingsley Day

Deciphering Chopin’s shorthand in the posthumous Mazurka in F minor

​If someone had told me a decade ago that I was going to produce the first (and, so far, only) published reconstruction of Chopin's posthumous Mazurka in F Minor that includes every uncanceled measure of the composer's sketch, I would have laughed. But apparently when a performance opportunity inspires a research obsession, unexpected things can ha...
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Beth Chen

Performing Chopin in the style of Chopin?

Interest in historically-informed performance continues to evolve as scholars and serious-minded pianists gain more knowledge regarding nineteenth-century performing styles. Though much progress has been made in this field, a question still remains: Is there a definitive performance practice that enables pianists to play the works of Chopin in the ...
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Teng Fu

April 3

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1832 - First duo performance of pianist Franz Liszt and Frederic Chopin, in Paris, which was at a benefit concert organized by Hector Berlioz for his bankrupt Shakespearean actress wife Harriet Smithson. They performed together on seven occasions between 1833 and 1841. 
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Teng Fu

March 17

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1830 Premiere of Frédéric Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21, with Chopin as soloist, in Warsaw.  
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Teng Fu

March 1

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1810 - Birth of pianist, Frédéric Chopin in Zelazowa Wola, Poland. He died on October 17, 1849, in Paris, France. Some of the world's most beautiful music was composed in between. Here's a favorite recording from pianist Krystian Zimerman.
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Igor Iwanek

Why don't you come out of the pantry? Is left-handed piano music anything more than just a historical curiosity?

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Why should a pianist with both hands in perfectly working order bother to devote their time and energy to study—not to mention perform—compositions or arrangements for the left hand alone? Is there any value in exposing oneself to that obscure genre? And what if you actually have some inclination towards it, but a...
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Beth Chen

Playing composers' slurs: From Mozart to the nineteenth century

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In recent decades, scholars and publishers have reproduced composers' original notations in so-called Urtext editions. In these scholarly editions and facsimiles of composers' autographs, pianists will notice two slurring patterns—slurs obviously cutting off a phrase or a melody, or a slur ending before the bar line when the end of the phrase or me...
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Laurie Shulman

A trip down memory lane: An unmarked, homemade tape recording leads to a reassessment of salon music and what constitutes musicality

​It started out as a "name that tune" exercise.In January 2010, my husband and I flew to New York to attend the annual Chamber Music America conference. During our visit, we had brunch with my brother Marc, a rock guitarist. In the course of our conversation, he asked a favor. His friend Dan Francazio, another rock musician, had a sister who died b...
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Michael Johnson

A left-handed complement to Frédéric Chopin: An interview with Ivan Ilić

American expatriate pianist Ivan Ili´c has just finished a semi-private recital of Godowsky's Chopin transcriptions for the left hand at his Bordeaux apartment, and the thirty guests are sipping Bordeaux rouge in his dining room. Most of us had been unfamiliar with the repertoire before this event, and many seemed awestruck that so much music could...
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Jonathan Mann

Preluding with the Masters

​For centuries, improvising introductions to keyboard works, also known as preluding, helped inspire musicians and prepare audiences for what was to come. (The German verb präludieren and the French verb preluder can simply mean "to improvise.") Preluding had practical functions as well, allowing performers to warm up, test tuning, or adapt to unf...
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Michelle Do

The life of Chopin (and autographed piano)

The Chopin Foundation of the United States has in its possession a rare and unique item: a Pleyel piano with the autograph of Frederic Chopin. This well-traveled piano has touched many lives and resided in multiple countries, not unlike the man who signed it. As we celebrate the 200th birthday of this influential composer, it is notable to con...
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Jim Samson

Which Chopin?

There have been numerous collected editions of Chopin's music since his death, and few of them agree on anything. Why is this? The answer lies principally in the complexity of the source tradition, and I include under that heading both manuscript and early printed sources.It may be helpful to attempt a rough classification of these sources. Sketche...
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Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger

Chopin and Pleyel

Translated by Deana Shuman   The first concert in Paris Chopin's first concert in Paris (February 25th, 1832) played a determining role in the artist's career, leading to his recognition as a composer and a pianist, providing him contacts with music publishers, opening the most influential salon doors to him, and thereby assuring him a st...
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Jane Magrath

Chopin's teaching

We all know Chopin's piano literature-almost every serious piano student plays (or aspires to play) his works. But what do we know about Chopin's teaching? After all, teaching was an important part of his life and provided his main source of income.1 What can we take from Chopin's teaching in the 1800s and apply to our own professional models ...
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