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Chopin Etudes

3K views 22 replies 8 participants last post by  Feathers 
#1 ·
What emotion does Chopin's etude op. 10 no. 1 make you feel? Also, what about op. 10 no. 2?
 
#2 · (Edited)
Op 10, No. 1

First, gotta say my cliche, I don't care if he had a toothache when he wrote it.

That means, when a piece is titled "Etude and nothing but Etude," we can never guess -- near any surety, at what the composer was feeling or what the composer may have wanted the listener to feel.

I do hear this brilliance, a bloom of arpeggios, the slightest yet good line in the bass, and Chopin's startling yet often "Beautiful" harmonic display. It is spacious sounding, forte amplitude for the most part. "Exciting."

I can not think of one literally specific sentiment or specific emotion that would evoke, let alone in another listener.

Maybe of interest... Chopin, using this same configuration, and very much the same sort of manner used to make one kind of piano piece, symmetrically placed three other arpeggio etudes in this sequence of the 24 etudes:

Op. 10:
No. 1 treble right-hand arpeggios.


No 12 bass left hand arpeggios.


Op. 25:
No. 1 treble and bass left and right hand opposed arpeggios


No. 12 treble and bass left and right hand parallel arpeggios


Very neatly symmetrical, both use of arpeggios and placement of the pieces within the running order of Op 10, and Op. 25

I cannot hear Op 10, No. 2

as other than an Etude, knowing what the specific exercise is: there is to me some light Mendelssohnian scherzo generic late romantic evoke fairyland or something elusive, fey, about it.
Pleasant and light-sounding finger exercise -- some light, some shadow -- will never evoke much more for me, but a pleasant light piece which requires a hell of a lot to play it offhandedly as a pleasant and light piece :)
 
#7 ·
i think with the designer label of Chopin at the front of these works people may be expecting some sort of a near bathetic experience in the way of their personal emotive reactions to the music.

Well, they are, (not simple -- but) simply Etudes: they are not tone poems, nocturnes, ballades, etc. :)
 
#9 · (Edited)
Not really. There are a few, for certain, I know of one pair intended to be performed / heard as a pair (there may be others):
Op. 10, Nos. 3 & 4



Chopin's play-through cycle is the Preludes... a few assigned or attempted by early level pianists, they really don't make much sense as individual pieces. Once heard straight through, as intended, they plainly become one work.



 
#13 ·
There are etudes, and then there are etudes. Czerny composed a zillion of them. Debussy carefully defined what his were for. Alkan wrote etudes - apparently for virtuosos to work on. Liszt produced 'transcendental' etudes to show off with.

And those are just some piano guys.
 
#22 ·
So, hold up Etude Op 10 No 1: ask for people's personal emotional reactions to it.
Do the same with Op. 10 No. 2.

This is like a psychologist holding up an aural Rorschach blot, and asking the individuals for their reactions, what you saw, heard, thought.

I wonder just how much emotional reaction of any sort one thinks one should have in relation to those two etudes, Hmm? If you're not fairly content with a few minutes (they are short) of harmonic changes within a brilliant pianistic configuration, as a kind of thing in itself, then that is all it is.

A thread where everyone chats about their feelings, well... not so interesting to me compared to the actual music.
 
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