please noteFULL DIGITAL ARTWORK

IS NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FOR THIS TITLE.

PLEASE EXCUSE ANY FORMATTINGOR SPELLING ODDITIES IN THIS

SCANNED BOOKLET.

KNOWLEDGE OF THE UPBRINGING of a creative artist can often assist in the understanding of his, or her, work. It would be difficult, for example, to rationalise one's views on the music of Mahler without some insight into his troubled childhood.

Chopin has often been accused of being what it is now fashionable to call an élitist. His seeking of the company of the aristocratie intelligentsia was often misunderstood, as was his preference for the intimacy of the Paris salon as opposed to the concert hall.

The Poland in which Frederic Chopin grew up was a country of paradox. An emotional people; the Poles used their sentimentality as a butt for their own jokes and, though fiercely proud of being Polish, they admired the Gallic way of life and most spoke French, a language taught in their schools.

Chopin was of mixed parentage, his father, Nicolas, being French, and his mother, Justyna, Polish. Nicolas had settled in Poland at Zelazowa Wola, a small estate some forty miles from Warsaw, where his wife-to-be was also in the employ of the Countess Louise Skarbek. Nicolas and Justyna married in 1806 and their second child, Frederic Francisek, was born in March 1810. Following Waterloo and the Congress of Vienna, the Russian Tsar Alexander restored the kingdom of Poland, and soon its capital was to experience a change of fortune. A social life based on Parisian models was established and Warsaw beckoned to the ambitious. So it was that Nicolas Chopin moved his family to the cultural centre of his new homeland and there set up a successful boarding school for the sons of the wealthy. Nicolas loved music and his house echoed to the sound of it. He also had an extensive library, consisting mainly of French books, which his family used fruitfully. The children spoke both French and Polish and enjoyed what was in many way s an idyllic childhood.

Frederic was but six years old when his perceptive father decided that his son needed professional music teaching. Although not a child prodigy in the manner of Mozart or Mendelssohn, Frederic made steady progress and his wise father allowed the boy's talent to develop naturally. Frederic's early pianistic prowess was not equalled by his creative talent; he was to achieve importance as a composer only in his twentieth year when he began work on his first book of Etudes, subsequently published as his Opus 10. His two piano concertos, published in reverse order to their composition, also date from this period.

In the hot summer of 1829, Chopin went to Vienna. The politicai atmosphère was restive and the heat enervating, not the most appropriate environment in which to launch a career. However, memories of the recently dead Beethoven and Schubert focussed the attention of the city's inhabitants on the fickle attitude displayed towards great musicians during their lifetimes, and assisted the début of the young Pole. Following his first recital in Vienna Chopin was accorded a fine reception. Even though some described his playing as 'too quiet', none denied his

3

extraordinary sensitivity and impeccable technique; indeed it astonished many, even in a place where such virtuosos as Liszt, TTialberg and Czerny were well-known.

Having gone back to a Warsaw he now found boring, Chopin chafed to return to Vienna but, typically, he vacillated and by the time he did return in 1830 he was no longer a novel sensation. Also a new uprising in Poland gave pause for thought to those in authority in Vienna who felt they might be drawn into the 'Polish problem' on the side of the Tsar. The insurrection understandably caused Chopin great mental stress, and he blamed the French for not going to the aid of the Poles. Despite this, in September 1831, Chopin arrived in Paris weary after a protracted journey. At this time the famous Paris Conservatoire was presided over by Cherubini, and the city bore some of the scars of the 1830 revolution which had caused the downfall of the Bourbon king. Notre Dame was being restored to its former glory and Chopin was quickly swept up by the excitement of living in the great metropolis.

After the revolution the aristocracy of France took a lower profile and developed a salon society where artists were made welcome and no longer considered as servants. Very much part of the Romantic movement, Chopin avoided its excesses. His contemporary Liszt suffered from what Heine described as the 'folie de grandeur', but not Chopin, who distilled the essence of the Romantic idea — tempering emotion with elegance. His music was altogether more original in concept and, by writing almost exclusively for the piano, his ability to bare his musical soul in terms of the keyboard became ever more remarkable.

The 24 Préludés of Chopin are dedicated jointly to Camille Pleyel and the composer J C Kessler. They were published in 1839 after the composer's notorious sojourn in Majorca with Georges Sand. Like many of Chopin's contemporaries, Robert Schumann found the Préludés very surprising, both in their brevity and their format. The scheme of tonality which binds this opus is very simple; each Prelude in the major is succeeded by one in the relative minor.

The First Prelude, a restive succession of arpeggiated chords, provides a suitably ambiguous opening to this intriguing set of miniatures. It seems to be over almost before it has begun and yet leaves an indelible impression. Its companion piece, in A minor, is truly lugubrious and leaves open the question of what Chopin was attempting to reveal in this stränge, grey piece.

The graceful Third Prelude cornes as a welcome breath of fresh air, its rippling left hand figure is repeated in similar motion in the final bars by the right hand to great effect. Number Four, the E minor, is a truly poetic piece of the simplest proportions, its climax judged to perfection. A typical example of Chopin's pianistic writing follows in the D major Prelude. Full of harmonie glints in its spinning progress it is one of the happiest pieces in the set.

Another sharp contrast is drawn in the Sixth Prelude whose warm, cello-like melody has ensured its popularity. The Seventh Prelude is really a mazurka of which is presented only the

4

outline, but its simplicity is genuine, and it makes the harmonie complexities of the Eighth Prelude's whirling figurations particularly effective.

Number Nine in E minor is an unexpectedly cheerless expression for so brighi a key. Its melancholy bass line with its double-dotted rhythm and trills has the inevitability and purpose of its antecedents in the Baroque. Schumann might well have entitled its companion piece in C sharp minor 'Papillon', so gossamer-like are its progressions from the heights to its cadence points.

Chopin's Eleventh Prelude again shows his subtle ability to find new rhythmic twists within the framework of compound time. No such niceties of rhythmic ambivalence exist in the Twelfth Prelude, a stormy piece of contained passion. The next, in F sharp major, has the flavour of a nocturne and remains at peace until its calm surface is slightly ruffled by its final modulations. There follows a strangely conceived E fiat minor Prelude that uses a triplet rhythm and single octaves, a macabre moto perpetuo that vanishes into the depths without trace.

One of the most populär in the set is the so-called 'Raindrop' Prelude in D fiat major. It also has the shadows of a nocturne with its sterner central section which ideally balances the exposition and its recapitulation of the tranquil melody. The continuous répétition of A fiat or G sharp is a feature of the piece that may well have influenced Ravel in the composition of 'Le Gibet' from Gaspard de la Nuit. Rapid scale passages and leaping figures combine to form the brilliant B fiat minor Prelude.

In the Seventeenth Prelude Chopin allows the 6/8 rhythm to predominate, unaltered by accent or cross-phrasing, and its haunting melody is supported by suitably affecting harmonies. The Etude-like F minor Prelude is fiery of gesture and, though short-lived, makes its point with true emphasis and style.

One of the most difficult of Chopin's Préludés to interpret, the one in E fiat major flowers where number Fourteen glowers. Its wide-stepping two-part texture is maintained until the penultimate bar, a masterpiece of economical writing. The famous C minor Prelude is, perhaps, a sketch for a funeral march; nevertheless it succeeds by sheer poetry in conveying so much more than could be imagined in so short a time span.

Another Prelude that stands close to the nocturne is the one in B fiat major. The chains of thirds and sixths that come towards the end are a logicai outeome of the figures that accompany the intriguing melody earlier in the piece. The G minor Prelude, with its studied dissonance and lurching phrases, is another inspired invention.

'Delicatissimo' is the direction Chopin asks to be observed in the beautiful F major Prelude, its upper tracery accompanying a melodie idea that is truly Chopinesque. The final Prelude, in D minor, is a formidable piece with which to crown the set. Its unnerving character is implacably,

5

and with great economy of means, presented in a surging 6/8 rhythm.

The Prelude in C sha rp minor, Opus 45, is dedicated to Princess Elizabeth Czernichev. It begins like an improvisation and subsequently journeys through many keys before a somewhat ambiguous 'cadenza' leads to its final peaceful bars. The tiny A fiat Prelude, written in 1834, was not published until 1918.

The Berceuse in D fiat major, Opus 57, was published in 1845 and dedicated to Madamoiselle Elise Gavard. Few have been honoured by so graceful a dedication. The music is sheer delight from first note to last, its seamless variations ornamenting a melody of limpid beauty underpinned by a rocking ostinato bass figure of monumental simplicity. Thus are beautiful jewels perfectly set.

The Fantaisie 's solemn, preludiai opening already poses problems for the listener, for it begins a work that has a strangely elusive character, as the title suggests. The opening slow march, which never returns, is a simple binary section with coda. It seems, with its dotted rhythms, distantly to recali the early French Ouverture; in any event it is a magical passage that is allowed to exist in its own right without further development. After it a bridge passage is needed to introduce the succeeding Allegro and this is formed by a succession of questing triplets which dramatically accelerate into the darkly passionate Allegro theme. Suddenly we are swept into a surging melody that only Chopin could have conceived, though it is soon interrupted by the triplet figures. A new march in quicker time is heard before the triplets lead us back to the syncopated Allegro theme, now in C minor. Soon the urgency of the music is quelled with the introduction of the middle section marked 'Lento sostenuto'. This delightful section is only twenty-four bars long but provides, nevertheless, a finely judged point of balance in the Fantaisie's structure.

Once again scurrying triplets lead to a new section, this time the recapitulation, and finally to the tonality of the relative major - a marvellously devised ending to a piano work of supreme achievement.

c PETER LAMB 1988

6

CHOPIN A portrait by Eugène Delacroix

Other records by Livia Rév

MENDELSSOHN SONGS WITHOUT WORDS Compact Discs CDA66221 -2 Cassette KA66221-2 LPA66221-2

FOR CHILDREN Music by Bach, Daquin, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Bizet, Fauré, Tchaikovsky, Villa-Lobos, Debussy, Prokofiev and others

Compact Di se CDA66185 Cassette KA66185

If you have enjoyed this record perhaps you would like a catalogue listing the many others available on the Hyperion label. If so, please write to Hyperion Records Ltd, PO Box 25, London SE9 1AX, England, and we will be pleased to send you one free of charge.

7

CDA66324

24 PRELUDES op 28 (TJ No 1 in C major / ut majeur / C-dur Agitato [0'43] [i] No 2 in A minor / la mineur / a-moll Lento [ 1 '57] QO No 3 in G major / sol majeur / G-dur Vivace [ 1 '01 ] Q No 4 in E minor / mi mineur / e-moll Largo [2'03] Ü3 No 5 in D major / ré majeur / D-dur Allegro molto [0'38] GO No 6 in B minor / si mineur / h-moll Lenio assa/ [2'05] (TJ No 7 in A major / la majeur / A-dur Andantino [0*43] [1] No 8 in F sharp minor / fa dièse mineur / fis-moll Molto agitato [2' 13] [i] No 9 in E major / mi majeur / E-dur Largo [ 1 '29] OH No 10 in C sharp minor / ut dièse mineur / cis-moll Allegro molto [0'35] [73 No 11 in B major / si majeur / H-dur Wvace [0'47] 01 No 12 in G sharp minor / sol dièse mineur / gis-moll Presto [ 1 '24] 0 No 13 in F sharp major / fa dièse majeur / Fis-dur L^/zio [3'03] 0 No 14 in E fiat minor / mi bémol mineur / es-moll Allegro [0'39] [Tsj No 15 in D fiat major / ré bémol majeur / Des-dur Sostenuto [6' 14] [Ü No 16 in B fiat minor / si bémol mineur / b-moll Presto con fuoco [1*181 0 No 17 in A fiat major / la bémol majeur / As-dur Allegretto [3'25] Elì No 18 in F minor / fa mineur / f-moll Allegro molto [0'59] ÜÜ No 19 in E fiat major / mi bémol majeur / Es-dur Vivace [1'30] [¡ö] No 20 in C minor / ut mineur / c-moll Largo [ 1 '48] Ü3 No 21 in B fiat major / si bémol majeur / B-dur Cantabile [ 1 '59] (Ü No 22 in G minor / sol mineur / g-moll Molto agitato [0'57] [Ü No 23 in F major / fa majeur / F-dur Moderato [0'50] ÜI No 24 in D minor / ré mineur / d-moll Allegro appassionato [3'04]

(Ü PRELUDE IN C SHARP MINOR / ut dièse mineur / cis-moll, op 45 [4'35] (Ü PRELUDE IN A FLAT MAJOR / la bémol majeur / As-dur, op posth [0'46] H3 BERCEUSE IN D FLAT MAJOR / re bémol majeur / Des-dur, op 57 [4'44] (Ü FANTAISIE IN F M I N O R / f a mineur/f-moll, op49 [12'50]

LÌVIA RÉV piano