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Did Chopin like Beethoven's music or not?

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24K views 39 replies 24 participants last post by  lextune  
#1 ·
I've come across lots of conflicting information about whether or not Chopin liked Beethoven's music. I read a quote earlier in which he praised Hummel, Bach and Beethoven as being the great examples to strive for. Also, I know he admired Beethoven's 12th Piano Sonata, Op 26. But then I've also read in several other places that he was not a fan of Beethoven other than the 12th sonata.

So anyone know which it is?
 
#2 ·
Chopin, in general, was not sympatico with Beethoven's music. Well, some aren't of course. I'm sure he understood its greatness regardless. He wrote once that Beethoven's music, on some occasions, "abandoned eternal principles." Whether this was a passing comment or an abiding opinion I certainly don't know.

He was known to assign the Op. 26 sonata to his students for study, but I don't know of any others.
 
#3 ·
Chopin must have at last admired Beethoven's music. Whether he liked it or not, that's for himself to decide. I loved Chopin's music.
 
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#12 ·
Supporting myself with a source not avaiable in English: the first Beethoven's work he commented upon (in 1829 letter), is op. 97, B major trio, which he admired and referred to as "great". A man called Wilhelm Lenz claimed he received piano score of Fidelio from Chopin with following advice to "study this masterpiece". In his repertoire, he had sonatas op. 26, The Moonlight and Appassionata and, according to Alkan, performed the piano reductions of the symphonies. In 1842 letter, he names three "great authors, masters for us all" and these are Mozart, Beethoven and Hummel.

Also, they became good mates in afterlife:

Image
 
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#14 ·
I don't know about liking it, but I hear some Beethoven in Chopin's music. Check out the 32 sonata at 2:00 and the etude 'revolutionary' at 0:10 - Chopin's "stormy" pieces seem to use Beethoven's techniques.

I read he often played his Appassionata.

Also here's some articles you can read:
http://www.carolinalive.org/compone...ent/k2/item/887-episode-188-chopins-favorite-beethoven-piano-sonata-no-12-op-26
http://www-scf.usc.edu/~sushilsu/chopin.html

Also read this excerpt from this book at page 224,
https://books.google.co.il/books?id...wB2oVChMI6qr-j--WxwIVij0UCh3gTgSj#v=onepage&q=did chopin like beethoven&f=false

It's often mentioned that Beethoven's aesthetic disagreed with Chopin, who is said to be irritated at Romantic music in general.
 
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#25 ·
I find this especially interesting since I hear Beethoven influences in some of Chopin's music. At the end of the Ballade in G Minor during the really fast 24 or 44 meter section, there's a part where the chord progression sounds quite a lot like a little motif in the third movement of appassionata. They are in different keys, of course, but where Beethoven's starts on a G flat major and goes to F minor, Chopin's moves from A flat major to G minor. I'd have to put together a videoo of clips to illustrate what I mean because I'm not sure this is stated all that clearly.

There are Beethoven's 32 variations in C minor, as well as this really neat second movement of his E Flat sonata 13.27. The second movement is a tarantella-like but not so fast and frantic, and is in C minor. Both these works have this great chromatic harmony scheme going on where C minor moves through to G and then F and eventually back to C, creating an irresistible almost haunting effect IMO.

I hear this in Chopin's Prelude 20, second half, which repeats, his Etude 10.12, as well as Etude 25.12. Each of these pieces treats this scheme differently, but it's there.
 
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#32 · (Edited)
Ocean Elf said:
. . . as well as this really neat second movement of his E Flat sonata 13.27. The second movement is a tarantella-like but not so fast and frantic, and is in C minor. Both these works have this great chromatic harmony scheme going on where C minor moves through to G and then F and eventually back to C, creating an irresistible almost haunting effect IMO.

I hear this in Chopin's Prelude 20, second half, which repeats, his Etude 10.12, as well as Etude 25.12. Each of these pieces treats this scheme differently, but it's there.
Click to expand...
This is interesting, ideas which are new to me, I wonder what other people think.
 
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#27 · (Edited)
The mutual admiration society appeared to have been between Chopin and Schumann. I know Schumann held Chopin in high esteem and dedicated a touching excerpt of Carnaval to Chopin. Also parts of Kreisleriana sound like they were lifted directly from Chopin's music.

"Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!" Schumann on Chopin, sealed the deal.
 
#40 ·
hpowders said:
The mutual admiration society appeared to have been between Chopin and Schumann.
Click to expand...
I would not call it mutual.

While Schumann did indeed love Chopin, and declared him a genius early on. Chopin did not share the same admiration for Schumann's music, (or Schumann himself; by some accounts, though they only met twice), calling it imbalanced and hectic.
 
#28 · (Edited)
According to this site, http://worldofopera.org/component/k...nt/k2/item/562-radio-chopin-episode-104-piano-concerto-no-2-in-f-minor-op-21-ii, Chopin cared for only 2 composers - Bach and Mozart.

He was quoted as saying: "Mozart encompasses the entire domain of musical creation, but I've got only the keyboard in my poor head."

And at his funeral, he had requested Mozart's Requiem to be played.

Pianist and music writer Charles Rosen declared, "Chopin was the greatest master of counterpoint since Mozart."
 
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#30 ·
I flipped through a Chopin biography that I have in my bookshelf, by Adam Zamoyski, and it seems that he didn't think too highly of Beethoven's music - he often described it as vulgar, and mentioned Bach and Mozart as the far superior composers. Zamoyski also makes a claim that Haydn was among Chopin's favourite composers at some point.

But from a letter written to Tytus Woyciechowski (20th October 1829) he wrote, about a Beethoven trio which he had played, that "I have not heard anything quite so great for a long time - in this piece Beethoven makes fools of us all".

So I guess we can easily deduce that Chopin had a lot of mixed feelings about Beethoven; he recognized the greatness of it, but felt that it didn't fit well with his own aesthetic principles. I also think it's important to note that Chopin considered himself more of a craftsman, rather than a genius composer in the very romantic sense of the term. So maybe the kind of heroism and transcendental genius associated with Beethoven felt alien to him, who knows?
 
#31 ·
A very good summary, I think.
 
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#35 · (Edited)
"Don't know about Chopin. I read yesterday that Verdi said 'Beethoven is the one we all kneel before!'"
David A

Perhaps so..............but this thread is about what Chopin thought of Beethoven........:)
 
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#37 · (Edited)
Chopin was known to like and even teach his students Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 12; so he did not categorically ignore or dismiss Beethoven's genius. However, their basic temperaments and harmonic approach were widely different, which should be apparent just from hearing them.

Chopin was highly influenced by the harmonic principles that Bach used so creatively but with discipline, and in his own way he tried to be equally free yet disciplined (play his first Etude slowly and it's very Bach-like in its harmonic logic and structure). On the other hand, he felt that Beethoven broke too many of such principles -- and that's one area where he parted company, not to mention that Beethoven's frequent emotional explosiveness was at times considered vulgar and unrefined. If so, it wasn't the first time that Beethoven had been accused by others of vulgarity, including his use of the Ode to Joy theme in the last movement of his 9th Symphony.

Nevertheless, Chopin was obviously familiar with many of Beethoven's works for piano to have developed his opinion about the German master, and IMO should not be faulted for preferring other composers more, such as Bach, Mozart, Hummel and Field, whom he most likely considered more refined and less rambunctious in their overall style of composing. Surely, if nothing else, Chopin was the embodiment of refinement, and his music is full of undreamed of sensitivity and subtleties.
 
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#39 ·
LOL! Very clever! Actually, though, I think you make a good point. Beethoven probably would have disliked Chopin's music, if he had lived long enough to hear it. Beethoven was not fond of that type of Romantic music. He criticized Weber and Spohr for using too many diminished sevenths and chromatic notes, which (in Beethoven's opinion) weakened the overall structure and narrative of the music.
 
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