Sociological research finds creativity is concentrated in networks: the most creative in one generation start their careers by contact with the most creative of the previous generation. This is the pattern world-wide in the history of philosophy, mathematics, and science. The pattern also appears in art and music. But Chopin looks like an exception. Chopin is among the most famous composers of all time. But he has no contact with the stars of the previous generation.
Chopin
seemingly comes out of nowhere. His father is a French servant on an estate
owned by a Polish aristocrat, who returns to Poland to escape the French
Revolution. In Poland, he becomes a tutor in French, the high-status
international language, then live-in master at a boarding school for boys,
where young Frédéric grows up among upper-class friends. His mother, an
educated woman from the aristocrat’s household, teaches him piano at an early
age. Chopin is treated as a child prodigy, composing by age 7 and touring
Poland in his early teens, regarded as a local Mozart. Chopin fits the pattern
of servants of east European aristocracy who became upwardly mobile through
music-- from Haydn through Liszt-- when
feudal lords sought reflected glory as patrons in the new era of musical fame.
Poland
had no famous musicians yet, but desperately wanted one in the era of national
struggles after Russia and Prussia partitioned Poland in 1795. Young Chopin
(born 1810) was groomed for the part in the 1820s. What Polish nationalists
wanted was grand political opera-- the prestigious musical genre of the time--
what Verdi (3 years younger) would supply for Italy with his resounding operas of the 1850s that became rallying
cries for resistance against Austrian domination. Chopin never filled that
part, but national hope launched his early reputation as a pianist. Liszt, one year younger, set the example,
touring Europe as a teenager in the 1820s, both as a Hungarian nationalist
(although ethnically German) and as the first super-star whose concerts
infatuated mass audiences, like the Beatles of the 1960s.
Being
famous as a performer, however, is not the same as creating a lasting
reputation as a composer; and until the mid-1830s Chopin (when he is around 25
) had not yet composed the works that would join the repertoire of
classics. On theoretical grounds this is not surprising, since creating at the
forefront usually comes from an early network that launches you from the
previous high plateau of techniques. This network came late for Chopin. It is
true that in Warsaw, he was accepted as a pupil at age 6 by a grand-pupil
(pupil of a pupil) of Johann Sebastian Bach. Thorough training in Bach’s
keyboard music was the foundation of Chopin’s style-- it was one ingredient that
set him apart from other composers, and throughout his career Chopin would warm
up for performances of his own work by playing Bach. But Bach (who died in
1750) had been considered old-fashioned by proponents of new music even in his
own lifetime; and it was Chopin’s new blend that would make him one of the most
famous of innovators. Where did the other ingredients come from?
Road
Map:
Chopin
enters the horizontal network of New Music
Beyond
the Classic style: Tonic-dominant chord harmonies
Chopin
before and after he finds his niche
Chopin’s
peak and decline: hustling on the music market
Chopin’s
distinctive style: Prelude in E minor
Chopin’s
ingredients: Baroque counterpoint plus Bellini arias
Dissonances
as plot tension: Prelude in A minor
History
of dissonance: Mozart’s quick resolution
Chopin
and Mozart, dying young
Chopin
enters the horizontal network of New
Music
We
see young Chopin’s limitations in his early ventures outside of Poland, two
visits to Vienna in 1829 and 1830. Here there is more competition; Hummel’s
pupil Thalberg is the reigning virtuoso pianist (he would have a famous piano
duel with Lizst in 1835), and there are other musicians in the wake of Schubert
and von Weber. Chopin’s earliest music score is a piano settting of Mozart’s
famous duet from Don Giovanni, “La ci
darem la mano”, but this was from 40 years ago and Vienna publishers seeking
new music turn it down. Prospects change when Chopin makes his way to Paris in
1831. By fortunate catastrophe, his old patrons and admirers from Poland had
arrived there in exile, after a failed uprising against Russian occupation in
1830; and since they had brought their fortunes in cash, he immediately has a
social and economic base of support. Chopin was the darling of the Polish
ex-pats in Paris even before he composed his great new works. Yet in the early
1830s Chopin still shared concert stages with other pianists, and he performed
other composers’ music as well as his own.
The
wealthy international salons were a springboard, at first, because they hosted
the networks where Chopin encountered the cutting edge of the musical world:
Liszt, Berlioz, Mendelsssohn, Bellini. Chopin formed his distinctive style: not
so much by imitating them, but by close acquaintance with the new music then
generating popular enthusiasm, while finding his own niche. Liszt was famous
for his dramatic modulations and high-speed ripples of sound so dazzling that
it was rumoured his hands had six fingers.
Thalberg invented a way of playing the melody with both hands, and
accompaniment too, giving the impression he had three hands.
In
reaction, Chopin composed pieces to show off his light touch, clear and
distinct in every voice. As a teacher, he would admonish his pupils not to
practice too many hours; the aim was not to build up muscles for loud
crescendos and acrobatic feats on the keyboard, but quiet delicacy. Liszt is
the master of the fast and loud; Chopin
becomes the master of the quiet and smooth.
I
began by noting that Chopin is an exception to the pattern of creative persons
being pupils or followers of the stars of the previous generation. But there is
a second dimension of creative networks: a horizontal network of contemporaries
all breaking away from the older generation at the same time. In the 1820s and
30s, they were breaking away from Beethoven, whose symphonies and concertos
were so dominant that younger musicians thought nothing more could be done
along that line. Chopin taps into the horizontal network, indeed is greeted by
them as a new recruit to their cause. Liszt is quick to befriend him; Schumann,
who has started a musical periodical newspaper to promote the new music, gives
him enthusiastic reviews.
But
horizontal networks of “young Turks,” a brotherhood of rebels, soon encounters
a problem of their own: if they all do the same new thing, most of them will
not get credit for it, the fame going to the one who most dramatically catches
the public eye. * Thus a circle of young rebels eventually start fighting with
each other, breaking away to promote their own version of the new style. Each
one has to create their own niche. Chopin quite soon recognizes that he needs
to do something to distinguish himself from Liszt and other dazzling pianists
drawing the big crowds..
*
To give just one example from the history of philosophy: Marx, Engels, Stirner,
Bakunin and others in the aftermath of Hegel agreed that the Idealist
philosophy must be replaced. But they soon quarreled with each other over what
direction to go. Their quarrels were constitutive of what they create as they
split up the post-Hegelian field. Such
quarreling itself was structured by what they had to do to make a distinctive
reputation. In this case, Marx upstages all the others. See Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies, for the worldwide historical pattern of
creativity by opposition.
Chopin
eventually becomes the prima donna of the Paris salons. One might describe him
as delicate/aggressive; always polite and agreeable with his high-status
friends and supporters, but frequently contemptuous of them in private. He is
admired and promoted by Liszt, Mendelssohn, and Schumann, but he dislikes their
styles and scorns their movement of “new German music” (i.e.
post-Beethoven). Berlioz, striving to
establish a post-classical orchestral style, emphasizes the musical colour of
instrumental combinations; but Chopin rejects the idea of an alliance and
declares his preference for Bach and Mozart. The one Paris contact that Chopin
does imitate is Bellini, an opera composer, whose way of writing arias Chopin
adapted for piano melodies. The salon networks bring him together with the
avant-garde of art and literature, including Balzac and George Sand. Delacroix
is a close friend and supporter during Chopin’s growing illnesses, but Chopin
dislikes Delacroix’s painting and finds nothing in common with his emphasis on
colour over form. Most of his friends
are political radicals, but he himself becomes conservative, despising
revolutions of any kind. Although in fact a social climber (or perhaps
because), Chopin clings to the lifestyle and milieu of aristocracy. Opposing
the main trends is Chopin’s niche.
Chronology
tells the story. Chopin meets the cutting-edge musical networks during 1831-34
onwards. His most important works follow: the Preludes in 1837-41; Ballades and
Sonatas 1839; Polonaises 1834-42; Mazurkas and Nocturnes 1830-46.
What
Chopin gets from the avant-garde is not new tools of the trade. He acquires a
sense of the competition in the field, a sense of where a distinctive niche can
be found. His unique resources are the counterpoint he has learned from Bach’s
disciple, combined with Bellini’s style of “never-ending” melody.
Beyond
the Classic Style: Tonic-dominant chord
harmonies
Chopin
is classified as a Romantic composer. In technical terms this doesn’t just mean
a love-lorn sentimentalist, but a method of composing music that comes after
the Classic style (Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven), which in turn followed the Baroque
(Bach and Handel.) These categories are rather clichéd, and music historians
tend to explain these shifts in terms of the psychology and emotions (or lack
thereof) in the music. But you can actually see the shift in how the music is
written-- and this is what determines what it sounds like. You can be as
sentimental as you like, but if you can’t write the notes and harmonies in a
particular way, it won’t work. So how did Chopin do it?
Chopin
comes along when Classic composing techniques are morphing into something different.
The core of Classic composition is the tonic-dominant pattern.
Tonic
is the basic note in the scale of the key you are playing in. In the key of C
major, these are the white keys of the piano, starting with C and going up the
octave via D-E-F-G-A-B-C. The tonic
chord is C-E-G. We can also call this 1-3-5. These intervals resonate well
together and give a bright, cheerful sound.
If
we start on the 5th note and skip upward every other white key, we get the dominant chord: G-B-D-F. This is
smoothest-sounding chord that isn’t the tonic. Other than its own octave (C-C
an octave up or down), the micro-tone vibrations of C sound best with G. It is,
so to speak, a resting place away from home.
The G chord or G-7th chord (with the F) creates a tension in the
listener, but this tension is easily resolved by sliding into the tonic chord. G stays the same, since it exists in both
chords; the other notes pivot around it: B goes up to C; D goes up to E, and F
goes down to E or up to G. Melody notes don’t have to move very far to get
from a tonic chord to a dominant chord, or vice versa.*
*The
same principle applies to all other keys. Tonic is 1-3-5, counting from
whatever note you start on; dominant is
5-7-2-4 (or played in any other order, 2-4-5-7 etc.). Adding the 7th (F is the
7th note going up the G scale) to a dominant chord increases the tension, since
there is one more note your ear is striving to resolve back onto the tonic
chord.
The
tonic-dominant system has been the normal mode in Western music ever since the
mid-1700s. Most popular music uses it, even in the era when 20th century
“serious” or “art” composers were using more and more dissonances and creating
music that avoided resolving back to the tonic. In this respect, rock n’ roll
and Beethoven are quite similar. Consider a simple example, the children’s
nursery tune, here in the key of C major:
Mary
had a little lamb [E-D-C-D-E-E-E] [accompanied by tonic chord C-E-G]
Little
lamb [D-D-D] [dominant chord G-B-D]
Little
lamb [E-G-G] [tonic chord]
Mary
had a little lamb [E-D-C-D-E-E-E] [tonic chord]
Its
fleece was white as [E-D-D-E-D]
[dominant chord] snow. [C] [tonic chord]
This
is a typical song form. The melody is sung or played twice. Each time it goes
from tonic to dominant back to tonic. Most rock n’ roll songs do this too,
while adding a few more chords, notably the
subdominant 4-6-1 (F-A-C in the key of C), or F-A-C-E flat (i.e. F 7th).
This is the distinctive “blue-note” of
jazz and blues, since E-flat clashes with E of the tonic chord. Even with this
cool-sounding dissonance, rock n’roll almost always resolves back to the tonic
before long.
Chopin
before and after he finds his niche
Chopin
becomes simultaneously more old-fashioned and more modern as he developed his own style. His earliest work is
more narrowly in the tonic/dominant style. For example, a waltz written in
1829, before he came to Paris, has a conventional sequence of chords in the
accompaniment:
Chopin Waltz (1829)
The
score is in D-flat major, and the chords as you read across the bottom clef
are:
D-flat
major [tonic], A-flat major [dominant], B-flat 7th, E-flat 7th, A-flat major
[dominant], and again:
D-flat
major, A-flat major, B-flat major, E-flat major, A-flat 7th, D-flat major
[tonic].
This
is mostly the cycle of fifths. A-flat major is the dominant, the second most
common chord in the classical style and its descendants.
One
can hear how much Chopin changed by listening to his Piano Concerto No. 1,
written in 1830 before reaching Paris. It is an incongruous combination of
orchestral effects in the style of Beethoven symphonies, loud blasts of chords
in brass and massed strings, alternating with passages of lyrical piano, nice
melodies with familiar chord progressions. It contains little that is
memorable, nothing comparable to the haunting effects of his famous Preludes.
If Chopin had composed nothing but this piano concerto, it would not be
remembered. Chopin soon recognized this was not the direction he would make his
mark, and composed no more music for large orchestral ensembles.
Chopin
found his niche in music for the salon, not for large public concert halls. Big
concerts had bigger payoffs (5000 francs or more-- multiply by a factor of
perhaps 5 for current dollars) for the few piano concerts Chopin gave when
desperate for money. But he felt uncomfortable in big halls, where his light
touch did not carry well; and the exclusivity of private salons appealed to his
sense of eliteness. Probably he felt out of his element, where he could not
keep up with Liszt or Thalberg-- Chopin even said Liszt could perform his music
in public better than he could himself.
Chopin’s
peak and decline: hustling in the music market
Chopin
came along at just the right time to specialize in intimate piano pieces. The
lightweight piano of Beethoven’s day had been surpassed by stronger and more
resonant pianos. It was one of the most explosive consumer markets of the
industrial revolution. Pianos were now constructed with metal frames that did
not warp and allowed tighter strings with stronger sounds all across the range
from low base to high treble. And they began to be mass-produced, for an expanding
middle-class whose prime form of entertainment, as well as claim for cultural
status, was a piano in the home. By the 1840s, there were 60,000 pianos in
Paris. Along with this came a demand for piano music. The economics of a
composer’s career took a new direction. Where previously they had depended on
patrons (or the hyper-competitive world of getting an opera produced), famous
composers now could make a living by selling music scores. Music publishing had
become big business.
Recorded music did not come along until the
early 1900s. In the decades from 1830s through the 1890s, if you wanted to hear
music other than by attending a concert, you needed a piano, someone in your
home who could play it, and printed sheet music. Operas and orchestral music could
be heard in piano arrangements. One of the ways that Liszt padded his income
was arranging piano versions of popular operas. At the beginning of his Paris
career, Chopin did a little of this too. But his niche was short pieces, like
preludes, because they sold well. Obviously, Chopin was far from being a hack,
but the economic dimension blended with his special skill. Chopin’s is probably
the most beautiful music that an average piano player can perform, not to
mention professional pianists and musicologists who see deep excellences in his
scores.
Fame
brought a composer publishing contracts and high-paying pupils. Concerts were
the best way to fame, but Chopin preferred salons where he could pretend to be
uncommercial, just another distinguished guest of the aristocracy. This caught
him up in a cycle of expenditure. He dressed like a dandy, a style-setter in
opera cape and pale gloves, dark gray trousers (no stripes), velvet waistcoat
(with a small pattern). His rooms must have dove-gray wallpaper with a dark
green border, “nothing loud or vulgar,” and needed a private entrance not
shared by children or servants.To make the proper impression on aristocratic
pupils, he kept a grand coach to arrive at piano lessons. It took him until the
mid-1830s to work himself up to a comfortable level of fame and prosperity
(charging $100 per lesson), while his expenses grew along with his status.
The
combination of his economic situation, his spendthrift habits, and his need to
keep up an aristocratic front probably contributed to Chopin’s declining health
during his years of greatest fame. He found himself hustling more and more--
teaching six or seven pupils a day, attending several salons in the evening and
playing piano into the small hours of the morning. He got some relief in the
summer months, living in a country mansion where he had time to compose. His
country hostess and mistress from 1838
(age 28) onwards was George Sand, pseudonym for Aurore Dudevant, an
aristocratic heiress and quasi-divorcée, famous writer and exemplar of women’s
sexual liberation. But living with Sand created its own strains, with her
multiple affairs -- she had a fling with all the Paris celebrities-- and
quarrels with her own children over their failed careers and arranged
marriages. Chopin distanced himself from her in 1846-- henceforth no more
idyllic vacations in the country. His last years were spent in the city,
hustling even harder for pupils. In 1848, months of revolution and political
turmoil in Paris drove away aristocratic patrons. Chopin finally had to accept
an invitation to tour Britain. It was just the kind of public appearances he
abhorred, in large halls where his playing could scarcely be heard. English
weather and the constant strain of respiratory and digestive illnesses finished
him off.
Chopin’s
distinctive Style: Prelude in E minor
We
can capture the distinctiveness of Chopin’s technique if we look at two of his
compositions from 1837-9. I have chosen some of his simplest music, accessible
even to persons with a slight acquaintance with reading music. The striking
thing about Chopin is that he makes the simple sound beautiful, never banal or
boring. How does he do it?
Let
us start with Prelude No. 4 in E minor. The key is easy, only one sharp, and
the tempo is Largo-- slow, dignified, unhurried. We will walk through it,
starting with the melody in the upper clef; then the chords in the lower clef.*
*
I suggest that you play the upper or
melody line on the piano, and also try to sing it. Each bar or measure has 4 beats, and we will
go through it bar by bar. Many of the bars repeat themselves, especially in the
melody line.
For orientation, Chopin’s E minor Prelude begins and ends
with the tonic/dominant sequence. (The tonic chord is E-G-B; the dominant in B -
D sharp - F sharp.) What happens in between is what makes Chopin distinctive.
BARS
1-8
The
melody line jumps an octave to high B [bar 1], holds it for 3 beats, then the
4th beat goes up to C [bar 2]. Same thing repeats for bars 3-4. Then it slowly
descends through bars 7-8.
The
same pattern occurs over and over: hold the main note for 3 slow beats, then a
brief note upward, or drop to a new note, with long slow holds again.
BARS
9-12
Bar
9 continues descending, 3 beats A, 1 beat G-sharp. Bar 10 briefly livens up the
melody line, with a little up-and-down riff of 8th-notes, settling in bars
11-12 onto F-sharp.
BARS
13-16
Finally,
in bar 13, we get another little descending 8th-notes riff that gets all the
way down to B-- repeating the starting note in the 1st measure-- before skipping up to high D-C-B, bringing us
in bars 14-15-16 exactly where we were in bars 2-3-4.
Bar
13 is the half-way mark and the turning point in the Prelude. We have run
through the melody once, and finally melody and chord are aligned on a B-7th
chord; the dominant chord which should bring us home to E minor. Instead, it’s back to the top, and we run through
the melody again, only this time with some new chord changes and a faster
melody line.
BARS
17-26
I
will skip bars 17-19, and pick it up again on the last note of bar 19: A
leading to 3 beats of F-sharp in bar 20; and same thing again bar 20 into 21 at
the end of which-- finally! F-sharp drops to E (home key). But not yet-- it
teases us for two more measures (bars 22-23): 3 beats E, back to 1 beat
F-sharp; and repeats.
Bar
24 looks we’re there-- but not if you look at the left hand, which throws us a
switch, harmonizing E with a C-7th chord instead of E minor. We’ll finish up
the last two measures below.
That
is Chopin’s game: the melody note goes remote from home, then slowly drifting
downwards, briefly punctuated with slight upwards teasing notes. In chordal
terms, we jump an octave to the 5th (B, in the key of E minor); slide all the
way down once; then back up again, slide down even further-- and a little
surprise before we finally resolve into the home key.
Shortly
we will look at the score again, this time for the bass clef (the left hand
piano part). But first, consider how Chopin has combined elements from several
styles, creating his unique sound.
Chopin’s
ingredients: Baroque counterpoint plus Bellini arias
The
melody line in Prelude No. 4 is unusual,
compared to Classical style. At first glance at the written score, it looks
simplistic. It has none of the ringing high notes, trills and vocal acrobatics
favored by opera singers throughout the history of previous opera. It is just a
long, slow, descent from B down to E. The descent is chromatic, and each step
is held a long time-- it would be an opportunity for a singer to show off her
voice quality. It is made even slower since in most bars the melody note is
held for three beats, then takes a short upward step on the fourth beat.
Everything about the melody echoes itself.
These
brief rising notes usually create suspended chord dissonances. These passing dissonances are quickly
resolved, although they keep on repeating.
They give interest and tension to the melody line: imagine what it would
sound like if it were nothing but a straight descent from B down to F-sharp,
with every note held for four beats or even longer. These suspended dissonances
make the melody work.
This
type of aria was invented by Vincenzo Bellini, an opera composer from Naples
who moved to Paris in 1834 and became a friend of Chopin. Bellini was known for
the “never-ending melody”, his technique of stretching out the sequence of
notes to create sweetness and emotion in the aria. Chopin in effect makes the
piano sing a Bellini aria in the melody line, combining it with his
chromatically shifting counterpoint in the accompaniment. The combination is
the same that Puccini would use in the 1890s and early 1900s in operas with
full-scale orchestration (instead of the tonic/dominant accompaniment Bellini
still used). Think of the slowly descending aria “Vissi d’arte” in Tosca, or similarly nerve-melting
moments in Madama Butterfly that
leave you weak in the knees. Puccini is too sweet for some hardened music
critics, and it is true that he is more of a culmination than a pioneer of new
paths; but the point here is that the techniques that make such music work were
created in the lineage Bellini/ Chopin/ Wagner/ Puccini.
In
Prelude No. 4, the overall design is counterpoint, the style of composition
that preceded Classical, and that dominated in the century leading up to
Bach. Counterpoint itself developed out
of medieval music, which for centuries consisted of singing one line only. When
more voices were added, each one followed its own melody. Counterpoint was a
technique of singing or playing lines simultaneously, guided by rules for what
kinds of relationships there could be between two notes heard at the same time.
It had no tonic and no dominant. Various chord intervals were created as the
music went along, but the chords were not driving the melody the way they do
with Classical music. Chords did not resolve into each other, but just happened
coincidentally as the result of the combined melody lines.
This
is essentially what Chopin was doing. The E minor Prelude is harmonic to the
extent that the melody and chord lines start out and end in the same key. But
in between, they go their own way. The overall effect of the chords is a series
of coincidences. To be sure, original counterpoint did not sound like Chopin;
for one thing, he is much more chromatic than early counterpoint, and the
development of keyboard instruments made it possible to play a lot more notes
in faster rhythms. Chopin’s counterpoint is based on Bach. His set of 24
Preludes, in all the major and minor keys (more or less), is patterned on
Bach’s systematic compositions displaying the possibilities of the clavichord.
Bach is also similar since he composed in the early 18th century, when the
tonic/dominant system was coming in, and thus combined elements of it with
counterpoint. Chopin also sounds like Bach’s predecessors and contemporaries
such as Pachabel and Albinoni, who ring through the changes of chords that
arise above a chromatically changing base line.
The
chord accompaniment line
BARS
1-8 AGAIN
Starting
with bar 2, we are in E minor, because the left hand is playing G-B-E. This is the E minor chord, except in inverted
order; E is not at the bottom, which creates a little feeling of tentativeness,
since the firmest chord would have the tonic note in the base line. The melody
line above it -- high B-- also fits the E minor chord.
The
left hand plays the E minor chord eight times in the bar, a steady strumming of
eighth-notes in a rhythm that will be maintained until the final 3 bars
(24-26). The only exception is bar 13,
where the melody has been played through the first time: the left hand
holds a dominant-7th chord for 1 beat, followed by three beats of silence while
the melody climbs back to the top to begin again.
A
classic tonic/dominant composer would undergird the melody line with chords,
not so much by strumming them repeatedly but breaking them into arpeggios
(skipping up and down the notes of a chord, which gives a lively but harmonious
quality to the “development” parts of a Beethoven sonata where he is
elaborating on the theme). Chopin creates more variation in a different way: he
gradually changes the strumming chords very slightly so that the harmony
shifts. In Prelude No. 4, he changes one or two notes in the chord at a time,
almost always descending a half-note. This gives a chromatic sound-- like going
through all 12 white and black keys in the octave, and violating the
straight-forward sound of a regular 7-note scale (also known as a diatonic
scale).
In
bar 3, the E minor chord keeps the top E but the lower notes drop to A and
F-sharp for 4 repetitions; then the top E drops to E-flat for the next 4 reps;
in bar 4, the top E-flat is still there but the bottom F-sharp drops to F
natural; then the E-flat drops to D (2 reps), then A drops to G-sharp (2 reps).
If
you trace with your finger across the base clef of the entire Prelude, you will
see the bit-by-bit dropping of one note at a time happens 18 times while the
melody line is first played through. Then back to the top again, dropping more
rapidly the second time around. The whole Prelude, in both the melody line and
the chord accompaniment, consists of a gradual downward flow.
This
could sound mournful, but it’s beautiful. What keeps it from being boring? It’s
the steady stream of key changes, many of them strange and surprising.
If
you include the melody note as part of the chord underneath it, the Prelude
starts out in familiar E minor; then shifts to something that sounds like B 7th
except for the E held over from the previous chord-- this would be called a
suspended 4th, since in a B chord E is the 4th note, and clashes with the
expected D-sharp right next to it. This tension is soon resolved by dropping
the E to E-flat (which is the same as D-sharp in the B chord); but then the
F-sharp goes to F, creating another strange-sounding chord, which resolves into
the next one (D minor 6th)-- and on and on.
Every
once in a while there is a recognizable chord (E 7th in bar 5); but nothing is
stable, the whole rhythm of the piece is to keep changing the chords note by
note downwards.
Obviously,
Chopin is not being a tonic/dominant composer. Or is he? The melody is played
through twice. The first time it ends on B 7th-- the dominant, which should
resolve into the tonic E minor. Now we are back in the normal universe, except
that in bar 14 everything jumps back to the high B melody note and the chords
start their chromatic journey downward again, with a few more surprises.
Look
at the bottom line:
BARS
21-26
In
bar 22, the melody line has finally ended its descent to the tonic E; but the
chord underneath it is C, then C 7th. In bar 23, the left hand underneath the
melody E goes to B-E-A, which is a suspended 4th; the next two eighth-notes
resolve this chromatically into B-E-G-sharp-- we’re home, except this is a E
major chord and we’re supposed to be in E minor. Two eighth-notes later we drop
to the expected E minor-- except that now the melody line rises to a suspended
F sharp, for one last bit of tension...
In
bar 24: the suspended F goes back to E, but instead of finishing, the low B
goes down to B-flat-- now we have a C 7th chord--
where the hell is this going? Chopin piles on the suspense, breaking the
strumming rhythm of the entire Prelude by holding the chord for two beats. ---
Then--- 2 beats of silence, as prolonged as the pianist wants to make it.
Now
both hands are in the base clef: left hand playing low B in octaves; right hand
playing E-F-sharp-B-E -- what the hell is this? it should be B-F-sharp-D-sharp
to create the dominant chord leading back to E.
A half-note later, the chord resolves chromatically downwards, the E’s
become D-sharps, we’ve got our dominant, leading to the final measure which is
a full-scale whole note E minor chord: THE END.
In
sum: the first chord of the entire prelude is the tonic E minor; at the
half-way point between the first and second times through the melody, the
chords go from dominant B 7th to E minor; and again in the last two chords to
end on the tonic. In between, Chopin follows none of the normal chord
transitions.*
*
Not even the cycle of fifths, so common in Mozart and the Classicals: a
succession of chord changes, each a fifth apart, each one acting as a dominant
for the next tonic. The cycle of fifths is a staple of popular songs:
Twenty-six
[C major] miles a- [A minor] cross the [D minor] sea [G 7th]
Santa
Cata- [C major] lina is a- [A minor] waiting for [D minor] me [G 7th]
Santa
Cata- [C major] lina [A minor] the island [D minor] of ro- [G 7th] mance [C
major]
Chopin
is a tonic/dominant composer at the beginning and end, while in between he
follows an entirely different pattern of chromatic changes. These create a lot
of strange-sounding but momentary dissonances. The reason Chopin could get away
with this, and why he has been so enduringly popular ever since, is because the
outer frame of his music is conventional. The audience recognizes the normal
harmonies and chord sequences at the beginning and the end, and occasional
points in between. It is like a journey away from home, but you eventually get
back there. This is the essence of post-classical music (I am resisting calling
it by the misleading cliché, “Romantic”). George Bernard Shaw, explaining
Wagner to the English public in the 1890s, said that Wagner starts with
dramatic but recognizable harmonies, then pulls further and further away (especially
in vocal parts of his operas), creating a tremendous feeling of tension; so
that when the tension is finally resolved in the climax, it is like a musical
orgasm. Chopin is a lot quieter, but the principle is the same.*
*
Musicologists have pointed out that many of Wagner’s most exotic chord effects
are there in Chopin. Although they never met, Wagner worked in Paris in his
struggling years of the early 1840s, and surely would have known Chopin’s
music.
Dissonances
as plot tension: Prelude in A minor
Try
another Chopin Prelude, No. 2 in A minor. This one is even more blatantly
disssonant, in the chords accompanying another sweet “never-ending” melody
line.
PRELUDE
NO. 2 BARS 1-8
Start
by tracing the left hand. The first three
bars are exactly the same, 8 eighth-note chords per bar, the second and fifth
chords clashing with the lower chord that makes a steady drone every other
half-beat. This rippling alternation goes on slowly-- Lento-- all the way down
to bar 19, when the melody line takes over and we get a traditional
dominant-tonic conclusion.
The
Prelude is in A minor, but you wouldn’t know it until the very last chord (bar
23). The beginning measures are especially ambiguous, since the left hand plays
two-finger chords. The melody line
doesn’t start until bar 3, so in the first two bars, we hear only two notes at
a time: E-B / A-sharp-G / E-B / G-G octave / E-B / A-sharp-G / E-B / G-G.
E-B
is an open fifth, the tonic and dominant notes of the E scale; but is it major
or minor? Open fifths have a hollow sound. The second chord has G as its upper
note, which fills in the minor third-- we are in E minor. --except that the low note is
A-sharp, a very dissonant combination.
Another
way to say it is that the middle note of
the E chord wavers between B and A-sharp. B is the 5th of the E chord, but
A-sharp is an augmented 4th-- if you play A-sharp and B together, the result is
is a grating sound, especially when the other notes anchor it in the E chord.
Chopin softens the dissonance by having it appear only in two of the eight
chords in a measure; the E chord gets the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th repetitions,
the dissonant A-sharp-G chord gets the 2nd and 6th, while a bland G-G octave
gets the 4th and 8th.
The
effect is that the accompaniment is constantly going in and out of harmony, “in
and out of tune”.
The
same pattern repeats throughout the Prelude. In bars 4-8, the basic chord is D-B, then D-A, then G-E-G, then B-F-sharp; and so on throughout. The
2nd and 6th chords in each measure create a harsh dissonance, while the 4th and
8th chords usually soften it. This goes on all the way down to bar 19.
Chopin
gets away with what in the 1830s would have been considered a horrible
dischord. In one respect he pours it on: if it had been played fast it might
have just sounded like a passing ripple, but it is played Lento-- you can’t
avoid hearing it. But you soon get the idea-- this piece is driven by the
device of going in and out of key, in a predictable pattern.
PRELUDE
NO. 2 BARS 9-23
Now
for the melody line. The melody is simple; it has four phrases, all with the
same shape.
In
bars 3-7, we start with E, held for three and one-half beats, then down to B
(the 5th of the E chord) for a half-beat, and up to D. Then D is held five and
one-half beats (ignoring a little F-sharp-E grace note), down to A (its 5th)
for a half-beat, and up to B, which is held for 6 beats (including a little
syncopated repetition of B). Altogether, the melody first time
through moves very lazily from E to D to B. We then get four beats of silence
in the melody line, while the left hand continues its alternating harmonic and
dissonant chords.
Second
time through (bars 8-12), the same
pattern is shifted up to B, down to A (with the same grace notes), and then to
F-sharp (with the same syncopation). Another silence (7 beats long) in the
melody line.
Third
time through (bars 14-19), same pattern
starting in A, down through F-sharp, to D. After a 2-beat silence, we get:
Fourth
time the same melody starts, but more quickly (bar 20): D three and one-half beats-- (including the grace notes), down to A
(its 5th). But then (bar 21) B is added
above it, both held for two beats. B
above A, no other notes: what is this? it could be a segment of a B 7th chord,
ambiguous because the left hand is silent.
Then
two firm chord changes: resolving the A-B
into G-sharp-B with E below it-- an E major chord-- not the B 7th we expected;
but then comes a full B chord (B-D-sharp-F-sharp-B). Bar 22 repeats the
conventional dominant/tonic closing even more emphatically: two beats E major chord, two beats E 7th.
The ending (bar 23) is a full-fledged A
minor chord rippling from low A upwards.
This
is the first time Chopin gives us an A minor chord, although the piece is
titled Prelude in A minor. One might call it an A-minor tease. Also, a
tonic/dominant tease, since Chopin has been playing with ambigous and dissonant
chords all the way through. No worries: in the end, all is revealed; the cycle
of fifths is firmly repeated: B-7th-E
/ B-E7th / A minor. Your tradition-accustomed ear is
cleansed. It was all a dream, and now you are waking up.
The
History of Dissonances: Mozart’s quick resolution
Dissonances
of course had been used before. A mild dissonance had been a staple of Classical
compositions, certainly since the time of Mozart:
MOZART MINUET K.6
In
the 8th bar, Mozart plays F-sharp in the right hand against G in the left; but
this resolves on the very next note, upper line going up to D, lower line down to
D and G-- i.e. resolving into the G chord. He does it again in bar 16, this
time playing a B above a low C, then resolving it into a C chord for the ending.
Mozart
composed this when he was six years old, and it was quite standard-sounding
music for that time (1762). The value of the temporary dissonance is easy to
hear. If you play it G over G, C over C, it takes away some of the interest of
the piece.
This
was a general principle, well understood by composers ever since the tonic/ dominant
system came into use. Dissonances drive the music forward, because the ear
wants them to resolve into another note. The rules of composition told you how
to do this, and to do so more or less immediately. Dissonances play the same
role in music as plot tension does in literature.
Dissonances
are even more important for tension-creating in Chopin, since he doesn’t
resolve them in the conventional way. They are much more frequent, and give a
distinctive bitter-sweet quality to his music. Mozart’s music is clear and sweet
because he got the most out of tonic/dominant harmonies with the briefest of
dissonances. With Chopin, if you change the dissonant notes to harmonies-- as
one can easily do with Prelude No. 2 on the piano-- it loses its quality.
Chopin
can be considered the first composer in the modern style (usually considered to
come after the Romantic style). But he knew how to please his audience, and he
didn’t take it too far. The pathway to modern music would increase the
dissonances and put off their resolution until later, or not at all.
Chopin
and Mozart: dying young
Chopin
died in 1849, age 39. In this he resembles Mozart, who died at age 35, in 1791.
They lived in different music-market conditions. Mozart had to work harder,
because the amateur market for piano scores was as yet small. In his last
years, he was simultaneously producing operas-- not just composing and
directing them; taking commisions for church masses; giving orchestral
concerts, chamber music, anything that paid. No wonder Mozart wrote so much
music-- Opus numbers mounting over 600--- he needed the money. Like Chopin,
Mozart was a spendthrift, renting posh apartments in Vienna and keeping up with
aristocratic fashion as best he could. Mozart literally worked himself to
death, staying up all night trying to fulfill commissions. There were a lot of
pages to write out-- even if he composed tunes and harmonies in his head--
since he did large-scale works requiring scores for many instruments and
voices. Chopin wrote fewer pieces -- reaching Opus 68-- and these were shorter
and had fewer instrumental parts. But Chopin spent more time hustling than
Mozart, in a daily grind, out on the streets of Paris no matter his bad health,
making visits to give lessons and entertain salons.
The
image of Chopin as a Romantic artist following his spontaneous impulses is far
from the truth. He worked hard over his music, obsessively revising, a
self-driven perfectionist. It was not Romantic fatefulness that killed Mozart
and Chopin at an early age; nor were they starving artists whose time had not
yet come. They had opportunities to become famous and make a lot of money, but
neither had a salaried position or a steady income. They lived among the
wealthy elite and disguised themselves as one of them, but they had to hustle
every day, piece-meal for what the music market could give them. Both worked
constantly and under a lot of strain. Whenever there was a temporary setback,
they had to hustle even harder. Both died struggling, to do what they did so
well, just one more day.
It
is tempting to exclaim, what couldn’t they have done if that hadn’t died so
young! On the contrary, it is easy to see what they would have done if they had
survived their last sickness. It would have been more of the daily grind, with
all its strains and susceptability to illness. They were like boxers who
couldn’t afford to leave the ring, taking more and more punches until the final
knockout.
Liszt,
whose career as pianist more or less parallels Chopin’s, escaped alive.
How? Liszt made a great deal of money on
concert tours-- more whole-sale income than piece-meal. He was not a
spendthrift. And he retired from touring at age 38, taking a salaried position
as musical director for the court at Weimar, where he composed at a leisurely
pace, and promoted the works of other new musicians, having made the transition
from entrepreneur to patron. He lived to 75.
References
Benita
Eisner. 2003. Chopin’s Funeral.
Random House.
Harvard
Biographical Dictionary of Music. 1996. Harvard Univ. Press.
The
Cambridge Music Guide. 1985. Cambridge Univ. Press.
Charles
Rosen. 1995. The Romantic Generation.
Harvard Univ. Press.
Randall
Collins. 1998. The Sociology of
Philosophies. Harvard Univ. Press.
Thank you for this entry. In Poland Chopin is kind of an icon, you gave him a more "human" dimension.
ReplyDeleteAs a sidenote, the last partition of Poland was actually in 1795: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Partition_of_Poland