22
6. Pedal
Chopin had a marvelous skill in the way that he used the pedals on the piano. Antoine
François Marmontel, a French pianist and teacher at Paris Conservatory, said, “No
pianist before
him [Chopin] has employed the pedals alternately or simultaneously with so much tact and
ability, …”
81
Chopin freely used the damper and
una corda pedals separately and together to
create a wider variety of sounds and dynamic levels. He used the
una corda for lighter
embellished melodies,
82
and for enharmonic modulation passages.
83
He used the damper pedal
for the brilliant “chromatic and modulating
passages,” sustained harmonies, and low bass
notes.
84
In particular, he “used plenty of pedal, especially in left-hand arpeggio passages.”
85
Chopin stated that pedaling is one of the hardest skills in piano playing and should be studied
carefully.
86
Chopin’s ideas about teaching were derived from his own pianism.
He stressed the
adoption of a natural and comfortable position for the finger, hand, wrist, and entire body when
playing the piano. This concept drew him to teach the B-Major scale as the very first scale based
on his physiological approach to piano playing. This desire for greater ease and playing also led
him to choose innovative fingerings. As a pianist, he was known for his virtuosic technique and
beauty of tone. His contemporaries greatly admired him for
his sensitive playing and
improvisatory style.
81
Niecks, 99.
82
Eigeldinger, 58.
83
Kleczyński, 44.
84
Eigeldinger, 58.
85
Schonberg, 157.
86
Niecks, 341.
23
CHAPTER 3
EDITIONS
History of Chopin Editions
One of the main difficulties in teaching Chopin’s music is selecting an appropriate
edition. One reason for the many available editions is that there is no one definitive version, and
many sources exist.
87
Those include fragments, autographs, copies,
first editions, and Chopin’s
own annotations in his pupil’s copies. This multiplicity of sources is due in part to Chopin’s own
compositional process and the circumstances of the publication of his music.
Ekier has provided a good summary of Chopin editions.
88
Chopin talked about himself in
a letter to Jan Matuszyński on December 28, 1830, “I know that I am the most indecisive
creature in the world.”
89
One of his students, Marcelina Czartoryska, talked about how Chopin
sometimes played different versions of his compositions for his friends and then selected
whichever version they admired most.
90
The hesitation from Chopin seemed to come from his
desire to please the audience rather than from his own self-satisfaction. Chopin
continued to
revise his compositions even after they were published, which created even more elaborate
versions.
91
This showed his tendency to be flexible in variants rather than keeping with only one
version.
87
Kornel Michałowski and Jim Samson, “Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek,” In
The New Grove Dictionary of Music
and Musicians, 2nd ed., edited by Stanley Sadie, 5:706-36 (London: Macmillan, 2001), 723.
88
Jan Ekier,
Introduction to the Polish National Edition of the Works of Fryderyk Chopin, Part 1.
Editorial Issues,
Translated by John Comber
(Warsaw: Fryderyk Chopin Polish Music Publishing, 1974), the materials in my
dissertation are taken from Ekier’s book.
89
Ibid., 74
90
Ibid., 73.
91
Jeffrey Kallberg, “Chopin’s Compositional Process: from Piano to Public,” In the Fryderyk Chopin Society in
Warsaw, http://www.chopin.pl/edycja_1999_2009/biografia/prtw_en.html (accessed February 22, 2015).
24
Chopin also was in a position to publish through several companies in different countries
from 1832-1848.
92
The main music publishing companies that Chopin used were Maurice
Schlesinger in France, Breitkopf and Härtel in Germany, and Wessel & Co. in England. By
publishing in multiple countries, Chopin desired to gain control over more publishers and receive
more money for his compositions. In his father’s letter to Frédéric in September 1832, the father
recommended that Frédéric publish
in more countries, enabling more people to know about his
music, even if he had not performed there yet as a pianist.
93
The result of publishing in multiple
countries is that each edition was different.
The mistakes found in today’s Chopin editions are due in part to the inaccuracies from
the first editions as well as Chopin’s own notational errors. The first editions have numerous
omissions, deletions, and additions, likely due to the publisher’s arbitrary changes. This occurred
more often with the publications in England than elsewhere.
94
Chopin’s notation
included some
errors, and the accent and
diminuendo signs were very difficult to distinguish. The similarity
between these two markings was discussed by Jan Ekier in the preface to the Wiener Urtext
edition. In this preface, Ekier states that Chopin used the short accent sign indicating loudness,
but that “the long accent sign implies an expressive stress.”
95
History of Chopin Waltzes: Opus 64 and 69
The five waltzes selected for this study have an interesting history.
The waltzes of Opus
64 were composed in 1846-1847 and were published in 1847-1848 by publishers in Germany,
France, and England. Chopin’s continuous revisions even after the waltzes were published and
92
Ekier, 75-76.
93
Artur Szklener, “Chopin’s Letters,” In The Fryderyk Chopin Institute,
http://en.chopin.nifc.pl/chopin/letters/search/page/5 (accessed February 22, 2015); Ekier, 92.
94
Christophe Grabowski, and John Rink,
Annotated Catalogue of Chopin’s First Editions (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010), xxxiii-v.
95
Cited in: Eigeldinger, 148