Dueling Chopin Polonaises – and my very brief piano career
My favorite classical composers are as follows: Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Dvorak. Note the order; Chopin leads the way. Is that because I was heavily exposed to Chopin from the age of four in ballet class? I don’t think it’s just that. I think it’s because Chopin’s music is totally unique and exceptionally beautiful.
Many long years ago I bought one of those huge record sets that had all his works. I listened to all of the piano pieces over and over and became at least somewhat familiar with every one.
I don’t play piano, or really any other instrument. But – like so many people – I took piano lessons as a child and quit very early, maybe after John Thompson book number two.
But much later I was in law school and living in a rented house with four other women. This house had an old upright piano in the living room. One day after listening to one of my Chopin records I decided I was going to learn how to play one piece by Chopin. I bought the sheet music to a whole book of Chopin’s waltzes, opened it up, and chose one. It took many months of laboriously working it out (I read music very very slowly) and adding on little bits every day, but at some point I mastered that thing.
Well, “mastered” isn’t the correct word. But I could play it from start to finish, and I could fool people into thinking that I therefore knew how to play the piano with some vague competence. But when they asked me to play something else I had to explain there was nothing else I could perform except a few excerpts from “Teaching Little Fingers to Play,” which I’d encountered at about the age of six, and which sounded like it.
So I learned one additional piece, this time an easier one by Bach.
Later I tried Janacek – and was defeated. That was when I lived in my own house with my own family – husband and young son who briefly took piano lessons as well – and had my own ancient and not-very-good upright piano.
That was a long time ago, as well. Now I’ve lived without a piano for over twenty years and can’t play any of these pieces.
Here is the Chopin I decided to learn and did learn. I chose it because I liked it, it’s relatively easy (for Chopin), and (best of all) it’s in the key of C. Well, that is, it starts in the key of C, and then it has some lovely key changes later on. I could play that waltz by heart – which was fortunate, since I can only read music at geologic speed. Once I had memorized it, it was all in the body memory, and I could pay attention to making it sound sort of good:
10:36 15:50
I don’t even remember which Bach piece I learned, but here’s the Janacek that defeated me:
And now let’s come to the Chopin polonaise that is, after all, the subject of this post. Here’s a modern-day pianist named Lang Lang with what is known as Chopin’s “Heroic” polonaise:
He’s good, but whatever he’s doing doesn’t get to me. It seems to be a surface kind of playing compared to the old school – the school that some call too emotional and histrionic but that I much prefer. Here Rubinstein seems to me to be so beautiful and smooth and graceful, and expresses whatever the music is saying and meaning so much more satisfyingly:
And here Horowitz is so dramatic – with pianissimos so soft and fortissimos so loud. And yet he also retains what I see as the essence of the music. Apparently there are some wrong notes in this performance; I certainly don’t hear them, nor do I care one whit:
There’s an awful lot written about both Rubinstein and Horowitz and even about the two versus each other. On Horowitz:
Even more important than popular acclaim, in a way, was the enormous respect, often tinged with awe and perhaps a bit of fear, with which other pianists viewed him. Horowitz “made me feel deeply ashamed of my persistent negligence and laziness,” Rubinstein confessed, and he was not alone among pianists in this feeling, though he was more eloquent than most in expressing it. Rubinstein finally went into a sort of identity crisis, withdrew from performing until he had radically improved his own playing and ultimately consoled himself with the idea (shared by many other music lovers) that Horowitz might be the better pianist but Rubinstein was the better musician….
Many colleagues considered [Horowitz’s] technique — positioning of hands and fingers, wrist action etc. — awkward and impossible to imitate; it worked for him, but not for others,
This unusual hand position was noticeable with Horowitz’s Chopin, even to me – and that flowing liquid style, as though his fingers were rendered temporarily and magically boneless.
More:
Horowitz’s style frequently involved vast dynamic contrasts, with overwhelming double-fortissimos followed by sudden delicate pianissimos. He was able to produce an extraordinary volume of sound from the piano without producing a harsh tone. He elicited an exceptionally wide range of tonal color, and his taut, precise attack was noticeable even in his renditions of technically undemanding pieces such as the Chopin Mazurkas. He is known for his octave technique; he could play precise passages in octaves extraordinarily quickly. When asked by the pianist Tedd Joselson how he practiced octaves, Horowitz gave a demonstration and Joselson reported, “He practiced them exactly as we were all taught to do.” Music critic and biographer Harvey Sachs submitted that Horowitz may have been “the beneficiary — and perhaps also the victim — of an extraordinary central nervous system and an equally great sensitivity to tone color…
Horowitz’s hand position was unusual in that the palm was often below the level of the key surface. He frequently played chords with straight fingers, and the little finger of his right hand was often curled up until it needed to play a note; to Harold C. Schonberg, “it was like a strike of a cobra.” For all the excitement of his playing…Horowitz’s body was immobile, and his face seldom reflected anything other than intense concentration.
Rubinstein was born in Poland and is considered one of the greatest of Chopin interpreters:
At age two, Rubinstein demonstrated absolute pitch and a fascination with the piano, watching his elder sister’s piano lessons. By the age of four, he was recognised as a child prodigy. His father had a predilection for the violin and offered Rubinstein a violin; but Rubinstein rejected it because he thought his instinct was for harmony and polyphony. The Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim, on hearing the four-year-old child play, was greatly impressed, telling Arthur’s family, “This boy may become a very great musician — he certainly has the talent for it… When the time comes for serious study, bring him to me, and I shall be glad to supervise his artistic education.
More:
Rubinstein, who was fluent in eight languages, held much of the repertoire (and not only that of the piano) in his formidable memory…
Rubinstein also had exceptionally developed aural abilities, which allowed him to play whole symphonies in his mind. “At breakfast, I might pass a Brahms symphony in my head,” he said. “Then I am called to the phone, and half an hour later I find it’s been going on all the time and I’m in the third movement.
Regarding Rubenstein and Poland:
At the inauguration of the United Nations in 1945, Rubinstein showed his Polish patriotism at a concert for the delegates. He began the concert by stating his deep disappointment that the conference did not have a delegation from Poland. Rubinstein later described becoming overwhelmed by a blind fury and angrily pointing out to the public the absence of the Polish flag. He stopped playing the piano, told the audience to stand up, including the Soviets, and played the Polish national anthem loudly and slowly, repeating the final part in a great thunderous forte. When he had finished, the public gave him a great ovation.
And here’s a quote from Horowitz:
“I was born very, very lazy and I don’t always practice very long”, he said, “but I must say, in my defense, that it is not so good, in a musical way, to overpractice. When you do, the music seems to come out of your pocket. If you play with a feeling of ‘Oh, I know this’, you play without that little drop of fresh blood that is necessary — and the audience feels it.”
That little drop of fresh blood.
Horowitz is my favorite pianist, probably because around 16 I watched a TV performance by him that astonished me.
Years ago I read a quote by him; “If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, my wife knows it. If I don’t practice for three days, the world knows it.”
Another; “Piano playing consists of common sense, heart and technical resources. All three should be equally developed. Without common sense you are a fiasco, without technique an amateur, without heart a machine.”
Now let’s be grateful to Mr. Janacek – it was HIS music behind the old radio series of Sergeant Preston in the Yukon, before the days when those White People and their evil intentions and inventions – trial by jury! – were condemned to face the muzzle of the Cancel Cannon.
I must admit, his Preston music was a bit more sprightly than the moody Overgrown Potato example.
That little drop of fresh blood.
The price is a bit steeper in rock and roll:
____________________________________
You should be nervous. All you can do is be yourself and leave a pint of blood on that stage.
–“Almost Famous” (2000)
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/a9433854-a8ff-40cd-a9b3-0be0674b8b0e
The Sgt Preston theme music was from the Overture to Donna Diana by Emil von Reznicek, not Janacek.
Classical and Romantic < Baroque
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j0sD0y-ydQ
My mother loved Horowitz. I don’t recall her ever commenting on Rubinstein in my hearing.
Years ago there was a TV documentary which visited Horowitz’s home. He was quite jovial, and clowned around a bit at the piano. His wife, Toscanini’s daughter, seemed exasperated with him, as if he had taken out his false teeth. I read later that she was the only one from whom he accepted criticism.
I seem to recall some Rubinstein (Anton, Arthur?) saying, “You don’t play piano with your fingers; you play it with your _________.”
But I’ve forgotten the who and the what.
Thank you for introducing me to the Horowitz Tchaikovsky. I always thought the VanCliburn was the best. No more
@tcrosse – Thanks. I mixed up my Czechs.
I started listening to classical music in the early 1970’s. Rubinstein and Horowitz definitely were the two most highly regarded pianists at that time. As mentioned in Neo’s post, Rubinstein for his musicianship, Horowitz for his virtuosity. Their complements at that time on the violin were Stern (musician) and Heifetz (virtuoso). Horowitz (born in Kyiv), was a sensation when he came to western Europe. A story, I think true, was that a famous pianist of the 1920’s, upon hearing Horowitz, cancelled all of his concerts, lest he be embarrassed. On a side note, a pianist maybe a notch below those two at the time was Clauddio Arrau. I remember attending a Sunday afternoon concert at Tanglewood back in the mid 80’s. The latest Russian sensation was to perform, Berman or Bronfman, I think. Well, when I got there, they either made an announcement or placed a hurriedly typed note into the program, Berman/Bronfman was sick and substituting for him, playing Beethoven’s 4th Concerto was Clauddio Arrau. Lucked out.
Insufficiently wrote: I mixed up my Czechs.
I know the feeling. You should see my Czech book.
I share your taste in pianism. I am ver much a Horowitz admirer, too. I attended two of his last concerts given in his life in the upper mid-West, circa 1977-79. People prepare themselves to be stunned. And these audiences were.
I too dropped piano playing quite young, yet later “mastered” an easy Chopin piece. Just so, like Neo. It entrance me, so I dedicated myself to the task. And yet stayed a life long lover of classical music, taking one university course in music history, “The Symphony from Classic to Romantic Eras” (for non-majors — thank you Professor Jackson — it was fun!).
Like you, I’m a spectator and concert music consumer. In high school, I’d skip class after lunch merely because of Walter Haas radio shows on classical music simply captivated me too much!
During lockdown time, I spent time rediscovering to the great Glenn Gould’s music on YouTube, an appreciation deepened by recorded talks or interviews from Gould himself. (There are some award winning documentary films up online, as well.) It seems his legacy foundation has been doing much to promote his memory, to my benefit at least.
A bona fide prodigy and eccentric, I often wind up agreeing with Gould’s many opinions. He is said to have favoured the classic piano composers over the Romantics. But, he did record a lot of the Romantics, save Chopin.
For example, everyone loves Mozart! But I don’t.
Gould says Mozart is deficient in two ways. First, he’s deliberately exhibitionistic or showy. And indeed he was and is. Second, so much of his output consists of juvenilia — playful and delightful, but simple in unadorned and, flat out, not that interesting. How right again — yet refreshingly unconventional.
In both respects, by explaining how Mozart is less than Great as a composer, he explains by deductive inference why the similarly short-lived Franz Schubert is the superior Master of composition. Schubert’s juvenile period was briefer and his exhibitionism more rare and by comparison restrained. (And THIS difference probably explains why Brahms burned his early works before his death: he didn’t want to undermine his more mature achievements.) And unlike his elder contemporary, Beethoven, Schubert very much anticipates Chopin by letting the melodies flow and flow.
Schubert was also a prodigious and great song writer. Often ranked number two to Hugo Wolf, in German Lieder (“Art-song”).
To finish with Gould on Chopin, he calls him a “superb miniaturist” and that possibly “no on ever understood the piano as an instrument as well.” But Chopin didn’t write what Gould looks for in music — exploring architectonic musical structure, we famously appreciate from his immortal Bach performances.
Yet, he confesses, he’s moved to play Chopin at least once a year! A waltz, nocturnes, impromptu events have all been recorded by him. And Sonata No. 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhtjZXZU41c
Gould’s trademark genius is bringing out the voice of inner textures you never realised were there before! And this is no less true of his faves as in Chopin.
Here’s one astonished reaction to his No. 3: “it makes me feel like I’m hearing this piece for the first time.” Another: “Glenn really nails the nostalgia and melancholia here.”
Alex Brk writes “Surprisingly, this might be one of the finest versions of this piece that I have heard. There lies in this interpretation some articulations which make me entirely rediscover the piece, even after hundred times of listening. Splendid.”
One year ago, David Impastato adds: “Completely brilliant. Gould was interested in music as it was ‘ideated’ or thought in the composer’s mind. This interpretation, like all of Gould’s work, takes us to that interior place of ‘music before sound and beyond sound,’ his mystical gift to the art form.”
But back to contemporary pianists, those who prefer Horowitz ought to enjoy another Russian, Evgenin (?) Kissin. Long ago he denounced Vladimir Putin and has long lived in London in defiance…. Alan Ling Ling? I find his play too fey. Too facile.
Oh. And between Horowitz’ time and ours today, I’m still trying to grasp the mighty or even stupendous Daniel Barenboim, who seems to have played piano or conducted everything worth hearing in the classical music repertoire. An achievement unmatched by Claudio Arrau or Wilhelm Kempf in piano, or even Bernstein in both.
Two more pianists in the Russian-Liszt manner of playing of whom Americans are unfamiliar (mostly because they don’t tour the States), are Ivo Pogoreli? and French woman Helene Grimaldi. First, an intro for the first.
“After Ivo Pogoreli? (b1958) was eliminated from the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, jury member and fellow pianist Martha Argerich stormed out in protest, calling the Croat a ‘genius’. A one-time DG artist, his recordings have attracted as much acclaim as criticism.” He’s eccentric about tempo, preferring much more rubato than many like.
Nonetheless, he remains a living exponent of the Russian-Liszt School of playing. His mentor at Moscow Conservatory was an older Georgian woman, whom he married. When she died, Pogorilec went into seclusion for years to mourn. But he was back touring when Covid broke out.
So, the Romantic pianist was a romantic in his personal life as well? Yup.
And so is the striking Helene Grimaud. She came to the piano late, as her folks last gasp to tame her rebelliousness. It worked because she had a prodigy’s talent, merely skipping the child part. Like Gould, she graduated from her music conservatory, the Paris Conservatoire, early.
Her earlier in life American BF, a wind player, lived in Florida. She didn’t speak English, but became fluent by watching TV while first visiting him there.
Her eccentric passion is wolf wildlife rescue. And thus she keeps a home with a private preserve in New York dedicated to this cause.
Here’s Grimaud’s stirring performance of a Bach favorite, originally transcribed by Liszt (because first written for the organ). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOHiI_5yycU
Or for purists, Brahms Sonata Number 3. (I had a university GF named Gretchen who’d launch my body chilling “eargasms” by playing the crashing chords witnessed here in the first movement, while I lay beneath the baby grand piano at the School of Music). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeOLopzrDXs
And speaking of Franz Liszt, I’m reading random sections from Allen Walker’s second volume biography on him (chosen from three in all), “The Weimar Years” in Germany (mid-1840s to ‘61?). This was after Liszt became a world-wide performing sensation as a touring pianist, establishing a barnstorming tradition unbroken until the Internet.
This was also when — and Weimar was where — the War of the Romantics began. That is, an aesthetic conflict over pure or absolute music, versus story telling “Programme music” like Wagner’s – with the burning question: which should be preferred?
Historians play the game of “When would you have most liked to have lived? After all, don’t most philosophers wish they had lived in Ancient Athens? Everybody can enjoy playing this salon game.
Historians seem to have developed a consensus on the second half of the 18th century, when the Founders rebelled. Or perhaps London or Paris back then, for non-Americans?
My new personal fave entry is London in 1850s, then Vienna from the 1890s until the Great War. Oh! To have been alive then! (Weimar was too small, around 12,000 — and a museum-piece town devoted to Goethe and Schiller, etc., anyway.)
Catch me some Liszt, Brahms, and Chopin when this was all a fresh sound-tacular sensation! As well as the Second Enlightenment in the sciences …with inner technology (ie, inventions) — it’s my own version of ”Back To The Future” part 2, fantasy life: complete with Jules Verne and Victor Hugo to go.
Than you, neo, for sharing your passion. And some readers, for letting me share some of mine.
I played piano as a kid, then played the violin from age 35 to 65. Violin is very social: you can hide in the back of the 2nd violins and still have a good time.
At age 75 I have returned to the piano, playing a $100 electronic thingy. The interesting thing is that, even at 75, I can practice and make my playing better. Right now it’s Bach’s Minuet in G and Beethoven’s Für Elise. Plus Bach’s Aria from the Goldberg Variations.
On my smartphone, I listen to mostly piano, and Bach, Bach, Bach.
neo and TJ,
It’s great that you took the time to master one of your favorite Chopin pieces! One can learn a great deal from an exercise like that. I’m sure you are much better for having spent the time on it.
A few years ago I bought a Yamaha P-71 for $430. It had 88 keys and weighted-action, meaning it was a reasonable simulation of a real piano.
I figured I would either stick with practicing or I wouldn’t. But either way I would have a piano in the living room like Americans of yore, which wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Well, I stuck with the Minuet in G and some basic beginners books plus a few stabs at Satie’s 1st Gymnopedie for a couple months, but with pressure from my college courses and general discouragement — it’s plain hard to get ten fingers to do different things at the same time — I’ve let my keyboard lie for the time being.
I may get back to it. Or perhaps some enchanted evening a guest will step up to the keys and thrill me with miracles of Bach or Beethoven or Satie.
I did sign up for an online piano course called Piano Superhuman. The teacher brings an infectious enthusiasm to the task plus he’s done a lot of out-of-the-box thinking.
https://www.bestpianoclass.com/dashboard/the-best-piano-theory-course-for-beginners/piano-superhuman-overview/
Some of his students do quite well. I didn’t stop because his lessons were bad, but it just took more time than I was willing to spend.
I imagined the vast stretches of leisure which would open up for me in retirement. But it’s only so much. I am pushing ahead on math, programming and chess — any one of which could be a full-time pursuit.
–Clint Eastwood, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG2cux_6Rcw
I am in entire sympathy with your list of favorites but–no Prokofiev? There is some ravishing Prokofiev, especially Romeo and Juliet.
Not exactly on topic, but on the matter of attempting to learn an instrument more or less on one’s own: I have been fiddling with the guitar since I was 15 or so, and I had some lessons around that age that taught me the rudiments of reading music, but I never worked at any of it consistently or tried very hard to get better. Around age 30 I had sort of accidentally come into possession of a nylon-string (classical style) guitar, and picked up a book of easy classical guitar pieces. I worked fairly hard at mastering the first one (don’t remember what it was) and thought I had it reasonable well.
So one night I say to my wife, who as a high school band member knows how to read music, “Listen to this” and she stands behind me while I play it, from the book because I haven’t memorized it. I finish and she says “Well, that’s very pretty, but it’s not what’s written on that page.” It seems my rudimentary reading was enough to get the right notes, but I was pretty much mangling their time values.
Well, it sounded good to me. I still can’t follow written music–it tells me what notes to play, but I have to get the timing from a recording.
I don’t know Chopin’s music well at all. Not entirely my cup of tea. But I did like Rubinstein better than Lang.
Wendy Laubach:
I do indeed like Prokofiev’s R&J very much. But for me, it’s not quite up there with the others.
I saw a Rubinstein recital in 1976 when he was 89. A full two-hour recital including Chopin and Beethoven, plus some encores. He is usually my reliable go-to for Chopin, but I prefer others, usually Russians like Gilels or Richter for Beethoven and other composers. I admired Horowitz but can’t think of any piece for which he’s my favorite, except his incredible arrangement of Stars and Stripes Forever.
And TJ, I’m afraid you’re wrong about Mozart. Gould wasn’t being entirely serious, just provocative, and even he said he greatly admired Mozart’s younger (in his 20s) works. And he made a very good recording of the C minor piano concerto. “[S]o much of his output consists of juvenilia — playful and delightful, but simple in unadorned and, flat out, not that interesting.”? Check out “Marriage of Figaro” or “Don Giovanni” and get back to me.
Jimmy,
I absolutely agree. And what’s wrong with “playful and delightful?” How many humans who’ve walked the earth have provided so much delight to so many?
I saw Rubinstein in concert in 1966. No Chopin, but he played Beethoven’s 4th piano concerto and Brahms’ 2nd concerto. Two major works in the same evening – unheard of! And memorable!
Horowitz is the best performance I have heard. Listen to it a few times a year. Never approached that level of delicacy on the keys when I was taking lessons. Brilliant pianist.
I’ll cast another vote for the Horowitz performance. I might have appreciated Rubinstein more if there had been accompanying video, but, not really knowing the piece, just in listening to it, I found Horowitz captured my interest in a way that the others did not. On re-listening, Rubinstein sounds like it is probably technically perfect, but it also sounds a little too earnest and like he’s trying too hard. By contrast, the Lang Lang version seems like he’s barely trying and like he is just showing off. There’s something more natural and flowing about Horowitz’s rendition.