RICHARD DOWLING PLAYS CHOPIN

Piano Productions Recordings 0211

Liner Notes

Composer-pianist Robert Schumann was among the first to recognize Chopin’s talent. After having heard Chopin’s youthful Variations on “Là ci darem la mano,” Schumann exclaimed, “Hats off gentlemen, a genius!” In 1827 at the age of seventeen, Chopin began composing this set of variations for piano and orchestra based on the famous duet from Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. The work was planned for Chopin’s debut performance with orchestra at a major hall in Vienna in 1829. The concert was an enormous success and led to many invitations for solo engagements. Later, for his own performance convenience Chopin reconfigured this work as a solo piece by incorporating the orchestral interludes and accompaniments into the solo piano texture, thus making this virtuoso display piece even more difficult. The solo version is rarely performed by pianists today for this reason. In the long introduction, we can already discern Chopin’s distinctive lyrical and unique pianistic style of writing. In the following six variations, Chopin gave himself ample opportunity for display of his formidable technique: double-note figurations, repeated notes, winding scales and arpeggios, staccato leaps, and extended left-hand passagework. The slow variation is a dramatic and beautiful nocturne. The last variation, marked Alla polacca, transforms the theme into a lively polonaise––a tribute to his native Poland that Chopin loved so much.

During Chopin’s lifetime, his most popular compositions were the nocturnes (“night pieces”). His inherent understanding of the expressive possibilities of the piano resulted in these highly personal and vocally-inspired works. The nocturnes of Op. 9 were composed in 1831. The first in B-flat Minor is beautiful in its simplicity of texture. Its long-phrased melodies are underlined by frequent adventurous harmonies. The E-flat Major nocturne is probably the most popular of the twenty-one he composed. Its melody is instantly recognizable. This nocturne is more typical of the French salon music of the day, however Chopin infuses it with inventive chromatic modulations and a dramatic cadenza that would have seemed surprising at the time.

The first Grande Valse Brillante was also composed in 1831. Chopin’s waltzes are concert pieces of pure art––they are not for dancing. The “brilliance” of this particular waltz results from its fast tempo and virtuoso repeated-note figurations. It is an effective work in the “grand” manner, full of memorable melodies and graceful rhythms that immediately capture the attention of the listener.

Chopin was also a superb improviser. Frequently at the end of concerts and at private parties he would perform ad libitum. The Impromptu in A-flat (composed in 1837) is by its very nature improvisatory and reveals to us what the more “informal” Chopin probably sounded like. Its three part ABA form is simple in design. The outer sections are almost etude-like and contain some unusual dissonances and a innovative phrase of descending parallel major triads. The middle section is a short nocturne whose melody was used as the theme for the Hollywood movie based Chopin’s life, Impromptu.

So thorough was his knowledge of the technical and expressive qualities of the piano that Chopin composed little for other instruments. This concentration of purpose and identification with his chosen instrument rewarded us with some of the most profound and important works ever written for the piano. Among these are the four Ballades. Epic tone-poems for the piano, they are artworks of sound that, although lacking specific programmatic content, take us on journeys of the heart and soul. The Ballade No. 3 in A-flat was composed in 1840-41 and is one of his most popular pieces with pianists and audiences. It is a technically and musically demanding work, concise in form, and full of remarkable harmonies and modulations.

Chopin considered the Barcarolle to be his finest composition. He completed it in 1846 and premiered it in Paris in February 1847. The word barcarolle comes from the Italian barca (“boat”) and was originally the name of a kind of song popularly identified with Venetian gondoliers. Mendelssohn wrote several barcarolles for piano in his collection of Songs without Words, but probably the most famous is Offenbach’s from the opera, Tales of Hoffmann. However without a doubt, Chopin’s is a far more substantial, subtle, and important work than any previously composed. Its lyricism is eloquent and poetic, its harmonies complex and sophisticated. It combines the grandeur of his ballades with the intimacy of his nocturnes in a precisely-measured form that, with the underlying characteristic undulating rhythm, builds slowly to a dramatic finish.

The waltzes presented here from Op. 64 are two of the best-known of the nineteen Chopin composed. The C-sharp Minor is aristocratic in its grace and elegance, tinged with a bit of melancholy. The D-flat Major (better known as the “Minute Waltz”) is by far the most popular. It sparkles with the short-lived energy of fireworks. In France it is said that this waltz was inspired by a little dog chasing its tail! Both waltzes have contrasting middle sections lyrically inspired by the bel canto singing style that Chopin was so fond of emulating.

Like other singular works in his oeuvre, such as the Barcarolle, Boléro, and Tarantelle, the Berceuse (French for “lullaby” or “cradle song”) is unique. Perhaps Chopin felt that the strongly individualistic and programmatic features of these forms limited his originality to one example. In any case, the Berceuse is one of the loveliest ever composed. Originally conceived in 1843 as a set of variations, the repetitive rhythm and harmonies of the left hand support a simple right-hand melody that is spun out into increasingly complex and extraordinary figurations.

Chopin missed two opportunities for collecting publishing royalties with the famous Fantaisie-Impromptu. It was originally composed in 1834 as a private commission from the Baroness d’Este, whom pianist Arthur Rubinstein believes kept the work for herself, not allowing it to be published commercially. After Chopin’s death in 1849, his heirs found a manuscript copy he had retained. They published the work as a posthumous Op. 66 and it became instantly popular. Two slightly different versions of this work exist. Mr. Dowling performs the original version in this recording. A hundred years or so later, the memorable theme of the middle section of this work was borrowed for the American pop song I’m Always Chasing Rainbows. Chopin was cheated out of his rightful earnings again!

The musical term scherzo (Italian for “joke”) was coined by Beethoven as a jovial and more upbeat replacement for the traditional minuet movement in his symphonies and piano sonatas. Chopin’s four scherzi retain the traditional triple meter, but are stylistically much more intense and dramatic than their title would suggest. The Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp Minor from 1839 is actually an extended sonata form, and is the most technically difficult of the four to perform. Its principal theme is stated in fortissimo octaves in both hands. The second theme in D-flat major is a majestic chorale interrupted by brilliant casades of arpeggios, perfectly composed to exploit the piano’s upper register. The work concludes heroically in a virtuoso display of scales, arpeggios, and octaves.

––– RICHARD DOWLING