How to Appreciate Music

by Gustav Kobbé

Waltzes and Mazurkas.

A Chopin waltz will admirably afford contrast in a group of Chopin pieces on a recital program. Possibly the waltzes are the most frequently played by amateurs of all Chopin’s compositions. But, to perpetrate an Irish bull, even those that have been played to death still are very much alive. It was Schumann who said that if these waltzes were to be played for dancing more than half the dancers should be Countesses, the music is so aristocratic. Indeed, to listen to these waltzes is like looking at a dance through a fairy lens. They seem to be improvisations of the pianist during a dance, and to reflect the thoughts that arise in the player’s mind as he looks on, giving out the rhythm with the left hand, while the melody and the ornamental note-groups indicate his fancies—love, a jealous plaint, joy, ecstasy, and the tender whispering of enamored couples as they glide past. The slow A minor “Waltz,” with its viola-like left-hand melody, was Chopin’s favorite, and he was so pleased when Stephen Heller told him that it was his favorite one, too, that he invited him to luncheon. (Strange that we always should regard food as the most appropriate reward of artistic sympathy!) Each waltz, with the exception of some of the posthumous ones, has its individual charm, but to me the most beautiful is the one in C sharp minor, with its infinite expression of longing in its leading theme and its remarkable chromatic descent before the brilliant right-hand passage that follows in the second episode. These chromatics should be emphasized, as they are a feature of the 129 passage and form gems of harmonization. But few pianists seem to appreciate their significance and pay sole attention to bringing out the upper voice.

Thoroughly characteristic of Chopin, thoroughly in keeping with his Polish nationality and its traditions, are the Mazurkas—jewels of music, full of the finest feeling, the most delicate harmonization, and with a dash and spirit entirely their own. Weitzmann truly says that they are the most faithful and animated pictures of his nation which Chopin has left us, and that they are masterpieces of their class: “Here he stands forth in his full originality as the head of the romantic school of music; in them his novel and alluring melodic and harmonic progressions are even more surprising than in his larger compositions.”

Liszt on the Mazurkas.

Liszt, too, pauses to pay his tribute to them: “Some portray foolhardy gaiety in the sultry and oppressive air of a ball, and on the eve of a battle; one hears the low sighs of parting, whose sobs are stifled by sharp rhythms of the dance. Others portray the grief of the sorely anxious soul amid festivities, whose tumult is unable to drown the profound woe of the heart. Others, again, show the tears, premonitions and struggles of a broken heart, devoured by jealousy, sorrowing over its loss, but repressing the curse. Now we are surrounded by a swirling frenzy, pierced by an ever-recurring palpitating melody like the anxious beating of a loving but rejected heart; and anon distant trumpet calls resound like dim memories of bygone fame.” 130 All this is very fine, although a trifle over-sentimental. The fact is that the Chopin Mazurkas are archly coquettish, passionately pleading, full of delicate banter, love, despair and conquest—and always thoroughly original and thoroughly interesting. In fact Chopin never is commonplace. A Mazurka or two will add zest to any group of his works on a recital program.

The Polonaises are Chopin’s battle-hymns. The roll of drums, the booming of cannon, the rattle of musketry and the plaint for the dead—all these things one may hear in some of these compositions. The mourning notes, however, are missing from the “A Major Polonaise,” Opus 40, and usually called “Le Militaire.” It is not a large canvas, but it is heroic and one of the most virile of all his works. It was of this polonaise Chopin said that if he could play it as it should be played, he would break all the strings of the pianoforte before he had finished.

Other Works.

And then the Ballades and the Scherzos. These are perhaps Chopin’s greatest contributions to the music of the pianoforte. They are wonderfully original, wonderfully emotional, yet never to the point of morbidness, full of his original harmonies, fascinating rhythms and glow. In the Scherzos he is not gaily abandoned, as the title would suggest, but often grim and mocking—tragedy mocking itself.

Chopin also wrote Sonatas—felt himself obliged to, perhaps, because he was writing for the pianoforte, because pianoforte music still was in the grip of the thirty-two 131 Beethoven pianoforte sonatas. By no means did he adhere to the classical form; yet these three sonatas are not to be counted among his most successful compositions. One of them, the B flat minor, contains the familiar funeral march which has been said to “give forth the pain and grief of an entire nation”—Chopin’s nation, sorrowing Poland; and, indeed, the middle episode, the trio of the march, is pathetic to the verge of tears, while in the other portions the march progresses to the grave amid the tolling of bells and the heavy tramp of soldiery. It is played and played, possibly played too much; and yet, when well played, never misses leaving a deep impression. Because people will persist in “playing” certain popular pieces, there is no reason these should not be enjoyed when interpreted by a master. There is a vast difference between interpretation and mere “playing.”

This funeral march is followed in the sonata by a finale which aptly enough has been described as night winds sweeping over graves. The funeral march often is played at recitals as a detached piece. I cannot see why pianists do not add this finale, which has real psychological connection with it. The “Berceuse,” a “Barcarolle,” two “Concertos for Piano and Orchestra,” which often are slightingly spoken of, and most unjustly, since they are full of beautiful melody and most grateful to play—beyond these it does not seem necessary to go here, unless, perhaps, to mention the Impromptus, which are full of the most delightful chiaroscuro, and the great F minor “Fantaisie.”