Program notes by Eric Bromberger 

Three Nocturnes, Opus 9
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
Born February 22, 1810, Želazowa Wola, Poland
Died October 17, 1849, Paris

Chopin composed these Three Nocturnes during the years 1830-31, just as he turned 21. The title nocturne means “night-music,” but that term suggests the character of the music rather than defining a specific musical form, and Chopin’s nocturnes can take quite different forms. The actual mood of Chopin’s nocturnes can vary sharply as well. Not all are dreamy and dark, and in Chopin’s hands this one form encompasses a vast range of mood and expression.

Already evident in the Nocturne in B-flat Minor–the music of a twenty-year old!–is that phenomenal rhythmic freedom that will characterize Chopin’s mature work. Throughout, the left hand has an unbroken sequence of eighth-notes, simple arpeggiated chords, while the right hand soars with unexpected freedom: against the steady left hand, the right has patterns of eleven, twenty, and twenty-two notes. The easy freedom of this opening section gives way to a sterner middle section, and then comes the wonderful transition back to the opening material, a famous passage where Chopin lets the music rock along dreamily above seventeen consecutive measures of D-flat major chords.

The Nocturne in E-flat Major shows some of the same freedom: the left hand maintains a steady 12/8 pulse, while the right introduces the graceful main idea and then embellishes that theme through a series of increasingly ornate and fluid repetitions. This nocturneis not in the expected ternary form, but proceeds simply through the extension of its lovely opening theme to a great climax, which Chopin marks con forza.

The Nocturne in B Major is the longest and least familiar of the set. Marked Allegretto, it dances easily along its 6/8 meter in the opening section, which is full of effortless key shifts. This gives way suddenly to a turbulent middle section, and the return to the opening material brings a surprise: in the closing seconds of this nocturne Chopin offers an aside of cadenza-like freedom before the music closes quietly.

Two Polonaises, Opus 40

The polonaise–as its name implies–is of Polish origin, but that title does not begin to suggest how deeply this form is embedded in the national character. In triple time, it was originally intended as ceremonial music and could be sung or danced as part of festive processionals. By the eighteenth century, it had become a dance form, but Chopin took it a step further in his fifteen polonaises for solo piano. He insisted that all his music was abstract and should be understood only for itself, but his audiences–particularly his audiences in Poland–believed his polonaises to be expressions of nationalistic sentiment.

Chopin composed the Two Polonaises of his Opus 40 during the years 1838-9. The dramatic Polonaise in A Major is one of his most famous works, and it is easy to see why this heroic music has attracted a number of interpretations: some felt that it depicts the victory of the Hussars of Subieski, and a generation ago this music acquired the nickname “Military.” Given its powerful character, that does not seem an inaccurate nickname, though it did not come from the composer. The pounding opening section, with both parts repeated, gives way to a center section in D major, where a wide-spanned melody sings above characteristic polonaise rhythms.

Chopin completed the Polonaise in C Minor in January 1839, when he and George Sand had gone to Majorca. Despite the storms that would pass through, Chopin loved it there. To a friend he wrote: “I am at Palma among palms, cedars, cactuses, olive-trees, oranges, lemons, aloes, figs, pomegranates . . . The sky is like turquoise, the sea like emerald, the air as in heaven . . . In a word, a superb life!” The polonaisehe completed in Majorca is less extroverted than its predecessor. In the opening section, the melodic interest is entirely in the left hand, which plays in octaves throughout, and the dynamic remains fairly quiet through this opening, though there are moments of agitation here as well. The middle episode, in A-flat major, is marked espressivo, but this too grows more dramatic as it proceeds.

Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Opus 35

Chopin was not particularly comfortable with the large forms of the classical period. Although he had written one piano sonata and two piano concertos by the time he was 20, he preferred shorter and less-structured forms. He never wrote another concerto, though he did compose three mature sonatas: two for piano and one for cello. The Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor may not conform strictly to the classical definition of sonata form, but it is an astonishing piece of music, perhaps just because it is so wildly original. Written in the summer of 1839, it offers four radically different movements. The movements are so dissimilar that some unsympathetic critics have felt that this sonata has no unity at all: Schumann said that in this sonata Chopin had “bound together four of his maddest children.” Others, however, have found this dramatic sonata totally convincing.

The first movement opens with a three-measure chordal introduction marked Grave before the music leaps ahead at the Doppio movimento with a main theme built on insistent short phrases and marked agitato. Chopin treats this theme in many different ways in the course of the movement. Sometimes it drums quietly in the background as an accompaniment figure; at other points it becomes dramatic and extroverted. The second theme-group is lyrical, and Chopin develops both themes before a superheated coda brings the movement to its dramatic close.

The Scherzo falls into several sections. Its opening idea–pounding, driving, exciting–gives way to a waltz-like trio that is as peaceful as the opening had been turbulent. This lovely melody returns at the end to bring the movement to an unexpectedly quiet close.

Many listeners will find they already know the third movement, for it is a funeral march that has become famous on its own (this sonata is sometimes called the “Funeral March Sonata”). It was written in 1837, two years before the rest of the sonata, and some believe that its somber tone and sharp contrasts form the unifying principle of the entire sonata. The march moves along darkly over chords that sound like tolling bells–the music is lugubrious enough that it seems to foreshadow Rachmaninoff (who, incidentally, made a famous recording of this sonata).

The final movement is the shortest of the sonata–and the most original. Marked Presto, it is a blistering perpetual-motion for virtuoso pianist. But what is so unusual is the fact that this flow of triplets, music that seems almost without recognizable theme, is unaccompanied–Chopin simply has the pianist play it in octaves, and the movement rushes to its explosive concluding chord.

Variations brillantes on Je vends des scapulaires from Hérold’s Ludovic, Opus 12

The French opera composer Louis Joseph Ferdinand Hérold died in Paris in January 1833 from tuberculosis. Hérold was almost 42 at the time of his death, and his operas have virtually disappeared–his name survives today almost solely on the overture he wrote for his opera Zampa. Left unfinished at Hérold’s death was his opera Ludovic, but French composer Fromental Halévy “completed” the opera, and it was premièred in Paris on May 16, 1833. Ludovic, which tells of a love triangle set near Rome, has not held the stage, but Chopin–who had arrived in Paris in September 1831–was attracted to the aria “Je vends des scapulaires” and almost immediately wrote a set of variations on it (that title, by the way, translates “I sell scapulaires,” scapulaires being a sort of religious vestment).

This was the era when tunes from operas were regularly subjected to virtuoso variation and embellishment by virtuoso pianists. Liszt wrote a number of such works, but it is unusual to find Chopin–who disliked conscious virtuosity–attracted to the form. Nevertheless, his own title–Variations brillantes–makes clear that the emphasis here is on virtuosity. His Variations open with a grand introduction marked Allegro maestoso, and then Chopin presents Hérold’s tune, a rocking and somewhat innocent melody in 6/8. This theme then undergoes a series of brief variations, both slow and very fast, across the eight-minute span of the Variations brillantes.

This sort of crowd-pleasing virtuoso variations represented a path Chopin did not choose to follow, and in fact over the next few years he came to dislike public performance altogether. The Variations brillantes thus remain a sort of anomaly, but they remind us that Chopin understood and could take on the popular forms of the day, even if his mature artistry would lead him in entirely different directions.

Three Mazurkas, Opus 7

A mazurka is a Polish country dance that originated in the village of Mazovia, near Warsaw. The dance was in triple time, with the accent often on the second (or third) beat rather than the first; in its original form the mazurka was danced by groups of couples who would separate and return; it was sometimes accompanied by the bagpipe. Chopin loved this dance, and he wrote about sixty mazurkas across the span of his life: the first when he was 14, the last in the year of his death. Chopin’s mazurkas are not a matter of self-consciously assuming the trappings of Polish folk-music. Instead, he took the general form of the mazurka and used it to write his own music, often quite original in matters of rhythm and harmony.

Chopin composed the Five Mazurkas of his Opus 7 during the 1830-1 season, which he spent in Vienna. Vienna proved inhospitable, and it may have been natural under those conditions that Chopin would return to the music of his homeland. This recital offers the first three mazurkas of Opus 7: No. 1 in B-flat Major, with its high spirits and rhythmic spring, has long been a favorite of audiences and pianists alike; do we hear the drone of a bagpipe in its second part? No. 2 in A Minor is full of chromatic tension, particularly in its opening sequence; the middle section begins dolce but quickly rises up on powerful triplets and hammered octaves. No. 3 in F Minor seems to break this mold with its dark and ominous opening before it too breaks into an animated (if somber) dance

Mazurka in C-sharp Minor, Opus 30, No. 4

Chopin composed the Four Mazurkas of his Opus 30 in 1836-37 and arranged them in a sequence of increasing complexity for publication. No. 4 in C-sharp Minor is music of unusual rhythmic and harmonic interest. Though marked Allegretto and beginning quietly, it quickly reveals its taut rhythmic pulse, driven by a fundamental dotted rhythm and enlivened with turns, triplets, quintuplets, and great swirls; the middle section remains very much in this same character. The closing has been much admired–it is based on a sequence of unresolved seventh chords, and out of this harmonic instability the music plunges downward and vanishes.

Four Études, Opus 10

While still a teenager in Warsaw, Chopin heard Nicoló Paganini perform his Caprices for Solo Violin and was impressed (like so many other musicians of that era) with what the Italian composer had achieved in this music. Here were extraordinarily complex works for the violin that presented specific technical problems yet managed to be exciting and engaging music at the same time. Chopin resolved to write something similar for the piano, and over the next few years he did just that.

Chopin left Poland–never to return (it was then being swallowed up by Russia)–in 1830 and settled the following year in Paris. Even before leaving Warsaw, Chopin had begun work on a series of Étudesfor the piano, and he completed the set of twelve in Paris in 1832. These twelve short pieces were not composed in the order in which they now appear–Chopin went back and carefully revised them and arranged them in a new order before publishing them in 1833.

Chopin’s Études, Opus 10 have become one of the supreme tests of a pianist’s skill, particularly of the new virtuoso style developing in the early nineteenth century. Chopin sets before the pianist all sorts of finger-breaking problems, from the racing runs of No. 1 in C Major through the chromatic writing of No. 2 in A Minor. These étudesdemand a pianist with huge hands as well as a nearly-perfect technique: many of the chords stretch so far that they are beyond the reach of pianists with small hands. No. 3 in E Major, based on a lyric main melody, was one of Chopin’s own favorites. No. 4 in C-sharp Minor is in constant motion throughout and finally drives to a grand close.

Waltz in A-flat Major, Opus 42

The Waltz in A-flat Major (1840) feels more like a breathless sequence of waltz-ideas than a tightly-unified structure in the expected ternary form. It has a brief introduction–a quiet but expectant trill–and off the music goes. Chopin supplies no tempo indication, but the implied marking is clearly very fast indeed, and the waltz ideas almost shower down around a listener. Particularly impressive is the first, where the left hand has the expected waltz rhythm 3/4, but the right-hand melody is accented in 6/8; this is quickly followed by a series of sparkling runs and further waltz-tunes. The central episode (insofar as one can be isolated) is a very brief, chordal waltz marked sostenuto, but Chopin passes through this quickly, as if anxious to get back to the energy of his opening ideas. These drive to an exciting conclusion, after which the sudden close feels almost brusque.

Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Opus 31

In his Four Scherzos, Chopin does not copy the forms of Haydn or Beethoven, but adapts the general shape of the classical-period scherzo for his own purposes. He keeps the quick tempo, the 3/4 meter, and (usually) the ABA form of the earlier scherzo, but makes no attempt at humor–the emphasis in this music is on brilliant, exciting music for the piano. The general form of the Chopin scherzo is an opening section based on contrasted themes, followed by a middle section (Chopin does not call this a trio) in a different key and character; the scherzo concludes with the return of the opening material, now slightly abridged.

Chopin’s Scherzo No. 2 dates from 1837. This is the most popular of the four, full of blazing spirits and wonderful writing for the piano–Schumann called this piece “Byronic.” The very beginning is especially effective, with its ominous, whispered opening motif and the powerful chordal answer. By contrast, the middle section is calm and lyric, broken at two points by effortless, cascading runs across the entire keyboard. In this center section appears the brief rhythmic figure, based on a triplet, that Chopin will use to drive the opening material to its dramatic climax. This Scherzo is unusual in that Chopin does not return to the opening key but instead concludes in its relative major, D-flat major.