Obscuring this relationship by varying such an essential part of the motive, its rhythm, seems highly unlikely.Ģ. It occurs over and over throughout the piece and also at the very end in displaced form, Chopin’s usual referring back to important motives at the end of his pieces. The descending scale in a dotted rhythm is a motive that is used to link the opening octave music with the chorale sections. 3, I think that it is most likely that he intended the dotted rhythm (staccato quarter note-eighth rest-eighth note-quarter note) throughout, as Mikuli and practically everyone else has found most natural.ġ. In the case of the famous rhythmic issue in the Scherzo no. I would like to single out here only one example, since it best illustrates the “confusion” and is also quite prominent:Īlong with filiation, one must also consider musical factors in dealing with a composer like Chopin who was so indifferent to proofreading that he often didn’t bother to mark corrections of printed wrong notes and rhythms in his student’s copies. The only way out is to have a detailed footnoting apparatus that indicates differing readings and explains them to the player. This source evaluation has, of course, problems, for also “final” changes made by Chopin in F F have to be documented somehow. So, although C does not represent the final version, it is the “best” source and was consequently the main source for my edition. It nevertheless shows an earlier and “worse” text state than C. I must therefore draw the following conclusions: F F is in fact the final definitive edition, thus the source corrected last by Chopin. Chopin did very carefully correct the copy C, on the other hand. Much is incompletely notated (dynamics are often lacking), and everything suggests that Chopin wanted to add these things then in the galley proofs for F F (which was done only to a very limited extent). What can’t be seen from this schematic presentation are the following observations: Autograph A exhibits many signs that Chopin was still not entirely “finished” with the notation. This interrelationship amongst sources can best be captured in a stemma: Before the French edition appeared, however, Chopin read two sets of galley proofs the state of the text after the 1 st proofreading became the model for the English first edition (F E). The autograph was used as engraver’s model for the French first edition (F F), the copy, for the German first edition (F G). No autograph is extant for the b-minor Scherzo, whereas for the 2 nd Scherzo we have both an autograph (A) as well as also a copy (C), checked through by Chopin. The source material, or so at least it is my impression, gets a bit more complicated with every scherzo.
Liszt opinion on chopin scherzo 2 update#
So, it makes sense to update my report from the Chopin workshop and to highlight a few problems in these editions. 39, are just now appearing in my new edition.
In the meantime, casually expressed, another 2 Scherzi later, 2 Scherzi more mature – and clearly even more confused, alas. IMSLP provides access to free, public domain sheet music.In my blog post of 21 March 2016, I lamented the existing “confusion” concerning the tied notes in Chopin’s 1 st Scherzo. is a great website to learn the fundamentals of music theory. commenting on someone's appearance), and the like, are not welcome and will be removed. Off-topic posts, spam, advertising, blog posts with little contentĪlso, please do not submit more than 3-4 posts per week, and you should not have more than 2 posts on the front page.Ĭomments that contain personal attacks, hate speech, trolling, unnecessarily derogatory or inflammatory remarks or inappropriate remarks (e.g. Requests for transcriptions, identifying chords/notes in a song (use /r/transcribe), what song is this?, requests for sheet music (see FAQ, use /r/musicnotes, /r/transcribe)Ĭommon generic questions covered by the FAQ such as "What's a good keyboard?", "What's my piano worth?", "How do I get started?", unless your question has specific details. (use /r/musicpics, /r/classicalmemes or /r/pianomemes) Image memes, pictures of text, rage comics, etc. The following types of posts are subject to removal: Recording from a Digital Keyboard into a Computer read the FAQ Newest Comments | Participate! Piano Jam | 'No Stupid Questions' Welcome to /r/piano! Whether you're an absolute beginner or a seasoned professional, we hope you've come to talk about pianos.