Grünfeld, Pachmann, Friedman, Rosenthal, and Nyíregyházi play Chopin
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- The B major section of Chopin's Mazurka in B minor op.33 no.4 is a particular favorite of mine, as is the purported "authentic" method of performing Chopin's music...
"Berlioz affirms most emphatically that Chopin could not play in time, and Sir Charles Hallé pretends to have proved to Chopin, by counting, that he played some Mazurkas 4/4 instead of 3/4 time. In replying to Charles Hallé, Chopin is said to have observed, humorously, that this was quite in the national character ( ... ) It is Tempo Rubato which makes the Hungarian dances so fantastic, fascinating, capricious; which so often makes the Viennese waltz sound like 2/4 instead of 3/4 time; which gives to the mazurka that peculiar accent on the third beat, resulting sometimes in 3/4 + 1/16* "
From: "Tempo Rubato" by Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1909)
* 1/16 = pause, "Luftpause" ahead of the third beat: at 2:39 etc.
(0:01) Alfred Grünfeld (1852-1924), recorded in 1905 (?)
Grünfeld was born within three years of Chopin's death and is, therefore, an important link in the search for an "authentic" Chopin mazurka tradition.
The evocative micro-accelerando... and the variance of how he plays with the perceived downbeat ahead, on, and behind it is masterful.
Grünfeld omits repeats, obviously to fit the mazurka on a 78 disc, but the cuts (especially of the repeat of this B major section) rather spoil Chopin's large-scale tableau effect.
(0:42) Vladimir de Pachmann (1848-1933), recorded in 1916
At 1:37 he also plays beats that are not written... a free, expressive, creative style of playing. Missing some micro-accelerando found in Grünfeld, and obviously both of them cannot compare to Friedman and Rosenthal...
However, Pachmann's approach to Chopin in particular was informed by a great deal of thought and study: similarities exist between his playing and that of Rosenthal, both of whom represent different branches of an "authentic" Chopin tradition (where Rosenthal studied with Chopin's pupil Mikuli*, Pachmann studied with Chopin's last teaching-assistant Vera Kologrivoff Rubio). It is noteworthy that Rosenthal approached Pachmann for some guidance on Chopin performance.
* Mikuli himself supervised this Chopin edition
(1:53) Ignace Friedman (1882-1948), recorded in 1926
If I had not heard Friedman's wildly dance-like, fantastic rendition here, I would have declared Rosenthal's to be the best performance of this mazurka I had ever heard.
Still, Friedman's mazurka is more flowing. It always has a driving impulse with exquisite dance rhythm. Nowadays, pianists almost never play mazurkas with such adventurous rhythms. Horowitz's very flowing. He also has a strong sense of the dance rhythm. But no one comes close to Friedman in terms of "always dancing" yet free.
Real dances here. I've never heard this mazurka played with this level of Polish folk dance 'feel'. I don't worry about any little discrepancies re the score because overall this playing is so exceptional in it's ability to transport the listener back to early nineteenth century Poland.
Chopin said that some played the mazurkas well but Poles played them best, (understanding the rhythm of the dance).
(2:54) Moriz Rosenthal (1862-1946), recorded in 1935
Moriz Rosenthal was taught both by Mikuli, the famous pupil of Chopin who helped pass on certain approaches to the purported "authentic" method of performing Chopin's music, and also by Liszt. Rosenthal was amongst Liszt's most brilliant students... known as a 'banger' most of his career...
His recordings all come in his very later years, when his early fire and power had mellowed into a spirit of deep poetry. His playing is probably the most "colorful" of the Liszt students who recorded, with wonderful precision and perfectly nuanced shaping. His use of rubato is also sometimes very "19th century" but always absolutely compelling and never merely mannered.
Rosenthal's mazurka playing should be placed alongside Friedman's and Horowitz's, based on this ethereal interpretation.
(4:06) Ervin Nyíregyházi (1903-1987), recorded in 1972
Certainly not a natural Chopinist... oh well...we discussed that before...
played like a Lisztian rhapsody*... His tempi are slow even by today's standards, and his playing is rhythmically free even when compared to 19th century pianists such as Pachmann and Paderewski. With Nyíregyházi's approach, the printed text is merely a point of departure...
In the mazurka he also plays rather thick chords on the first beat that are not written. Every Nyíregyházi performance features these thickened chords - a Nyíregyházi "trademark". The results are more Nyíregyházi than Chopin, as Chopin was not in the habit of close-spacing bass chords.
* Chopin's tempo is "Mesto"... and Chopin's pupil Lenz said Chopin taught this as a ballade (!) and the composer described the end as a bell toll followed by chords sweeping away a cohort of ghosts...
Thank you for this glimpse into a bygone era of richly creative, extravagant, colorful, individualistic musical and pianistic artistry.
Nyiregyhaz? Grotesque. Rosenthal? Something too suave for a peasant dance, tending at times to cocktail piano. Pachman? With a variety of Pachman performances on RUclips, I have come to enjoy his recordings - always of course adjusting to a different style of Chopin playing. Nothing shocking about this performance, just an attractive rhythm and lyrical, if not peasant, phrasing. Friedman? For me this goes beyond perfection. I know of no other pianist who manages to capture the peasants' happiness in the dance, or the wonderful freedom with rhythm when dancing. I can see them in their costumes and hear them stamping the floor.
Your presentation and accompanying, copious liner-notes are all simply past-splendid! If only others were to take such care with being so lavish.
Subscribed and Liked!
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Nyiregyhazi all the way! :-D
Nyiregyhazi has the sacred fire :D
Pachmann's take is so Chopin. All the others are personal twists, but the last one is grotesque (Nyiregyhazi).
I enjoy all of these. I just wish poor Grünfeld could have had a piano tuner visit with the piano before the session!
fascinating!!!
Pachmann pachmann pachmann pachmann pachmann pachmann pachmann pachmann.
Rosenthal is unique!!!
Grünfeld
I don't know... I know I'm going to sound like a Philistine for saying it, and I love Chopin's music - but I don't enjoy any of these samples.
I find the rubato, the departures from the written score, grossly excessive, and the sustaining pedal is not used nearly enough - the sound is so dry and wispy that it feels like it could blow away in a puff of wind.
I think I prefer the newer school of Chopin (and piano) playing as exemplified by pianists such as Ivan Moravec, Martha Argerich, Marc-Andre Hamelin, amongst others. Some of those pianists have a wonderfully rich tone, use the pedal well, play expressively without sprawling rhythmically all over the place, and have more respect for the score as written - and to me these newer pianists show Chopin's magic much better than the older ones shown here.
How fortunate we are to have the recorded performances of Chopin's Mazurkas by Pachmann, Paderewski and Horowitz among a very small group of others, as an antidote for the appallingly languorous, rhythmically flaccid, over pedaled with little or no variety of touch, performances that we hear in our recital halls today.
I'm puzzled as to how one could regard the samples on this RUclips video as *not* being rhythmically flaccid - sometimes the triple rhythm was not even slightly obvious. As to pedalling, I personally found it sometimes too light on these samples - so I don't think more lavish pedaling is necessarily bad - it will surely depend on how it's done. Moravec's readings of the Chopin Nocturnes may be "over-pedalled" by some standards; but I have never heard a more magical rendering of them than this.
I don't know it you're a philistine but it's obvious you haven't really listened to historical recordings or even informed yourself about historical performance practice of the romantic period. In your modern ears, the rubato of Pachmann or Rosenthal might sound "grossly excessive". In fact, this use of rubato is the result of a long tradition of cantabile playing on the piano, shared by Chopin (Pachmann and Rosenthal, for instance, were taught by Chopin's pupils), by Liszt and even by Bach and Mozart. If you listen more carefully, you can hear how effectively historical pianists use rubato to create the effect of an expressive human voice (again, this might sound "excessive" to you but it is actually immensely difficult to create and requires a real artist such as Pachmann). This approach allows great freedom for expression, which is precisely why most hisorical pianists on record sound totally unique and original, which is not the case with modern pianists like Hamelin.
The "departures from the written score" might seem excessive in your ears but it was absolutely normal and even required to be creative and take risks in the 19th century (and probably earlier). Pachmann, Friedman or Rosenthal create truly poetic, expressive, spontaneous readings. Maybe, if Hamelin did something which isn't in the score, you might actually notice that he doesn't really create much of an emotional experience. He honors the score, yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean he is creating music. I'd suggest you read Busoni's writings to understand what composition and interpretation really mean. I do think you need to see interpretation from different viewpoints, for it is in fact you, not these historical pianists, who has broken with Chopin's tradition.
oh, and you are being unfair in your criticism of the "dry and wispy" sound because this is obviously a result of different instruments and recording quality (remember modern pianists benefit from close microphones and prepared pianos). the pedal is actually used phenomenally by Pachmann or Rosenthal, you actually don't even notice there is any pedal at all -- one of the most diffcult effects to create...
@@MJE112358132134 We imagine you, I think, to be 'a modern' and Mods do demand Mod ways.
Regarding your complaint about a pedaling lack heard within Classic Era recordings, the pianists of that day were instructed by the engineers of that time, to use as little of it as possible, as it caused "blocks" within the record.
Not sure exactly what they meant by this but we can be sure that they certainly did.
Enjoy, benefit and be uplifted by your modern demands and auditions of them, but why disparage the very forerunners of the traditions that produced your 'improved' ideals?
(Understand, please. We are seeking-after your answer to this, it being not in-the-least a rhetorical inquiry. We are patient and await it.)
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