Chopin

Chopin’s music, as a corpus, towers to a lyrically philosophical height which only Schubert’s late works rival. It is characterised by a breathtaking blend of intelligence and democratic beauty of sound; of all composers (beating Schubert by a hair), Chopin had the most unerring attention to the presentation of his work. He gave the music nerds harmonic and structural innovations to pore over, but packaged the large part of these under elegant structures and generous melodies (melodies so ingeniously decorated that to take away the ornamentation would be to lose the melody). This means that, unusually for a classical titan, Chopin consistently offers just as much for the untrained as the trained ear to enjoy. A stubbornly piano-centric composer, who wrote (I’m pretty sure) no pieces which did not involve the instrument, he was surpassed by only Liszt among his contemporaries in pushing the expressive boundaries of the instrument. His works range from the ever-popular lyrical grace of his Nocturnes, to the staggeringly sweeping narratives of his four Ballades, to the relatively lesser-known fire and brimstone of his piano sonatas.

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Where to start

Ranking Chopin’s work by difficulty is hard, simply because of the consistent charisma of his works; I have been forced, unusually, to make a selection, rather than go for the “obvious choices.” I group it by moods, because otherwise you’ll go away with the impression that, for example, Chopin wrote sad, dreamy pieces and nothing else.

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The mysterious

• Nocturne, Op 9 no 1- Some great pieces, such as Beethoven’s Hammerklavier sonata, achieve greatness by consciously reminding you of their manmade nature. Others, such as this nocturne, walk a stupidly great line between asserting their natural right to exist and gripping you with the sheer elegance of composition. I think, as a fantastic description of night-time in a beautiful city, only Saint-Saëns’s Aquarium has equalled this.

• Etude Op 10 no 3- Leave it to Chopin to make a major key sound sad. The outer sections are Mona Lisesque in that respect, and the middle section descends into the kind of startlingly catchy despair that Chopin excelled at

The happy

• Piano Concerto no 1 in E minor, 3rd movement- People get so caught up in the “emo Chopin” aesthetic that they forget he wrote amazingly bouncy stuff; so here, in all its glory, is the sparkling last movement of his Op 11 concerto. It’s full of riotous, youthful energy and ambition.

• Mazurka, Op 6 no 3- Chopin’s mazurkas, miniature pieces in the Polish style, convey worlds of storytelling within a few minutes. This is one of my favourites; a town square, a distant trumpet call to the dance and general festivities seem to roll effortlessly through the listener’s imagination.

• Etude, Op 25 no 1: It’s extraordinary how much like a harp Chopin manages to make the piano sound in this little gem, which, depending on how you play it, can sound serene, joyous, or passionately yearning. Vladimir Horowitz, in my opinion, somehow manages to make it all three.

• Mazurka, Op 24 no 2- Another beautiful little piece, full of mini-fanfares and lyrical calls to action

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The narrative

• Op 48 no 1- A grave, almost menacing opening section, ingeniously transformed to become near-triumphant; it is interrupted by an angelic chorale, the only respite in the whole piece; the serenity of mood shifts seismically, jaggedly; a terrifying cascade plunges us into a hellish restatement of the opening theme (is it angry? Courageous? Victorious?), which in turn yields to a melancholic coda. A spellbinding narrative from the first note to the last.  

• Ballade 2 in F major, Op 38- the most accessible of the ballades (consciously narrative pieces). Opens with a lovely chorale which makes you think of walking slowly down the aisle of a great cathedral, and then drops, in typical Chopin fashion, into a completely different mood, before veering backwards again. Make up your own story to go with it.

• Prelude in D-flat major, "Raindrop"- As with the 2nd ballade, don't be fooled by the sugary opening. The menacing middle section contains the most hair-raisingly terrifying crescendo in musical history. Think the flash of lightning which lit up Frankenstein's creature on the slopes of the Alps, or the Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog.

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The angry*

• Fantaisie-Impromptu, Op 66- A controlled explosion if ever there was one. A sleek depiction of a tempest.

• Op 25 no 11- A neat trick of a piece. The melancholy melody of the first few bars suddenly clashes with a sweeping “winter wind” snaking down from the right hand.

• Op 10 no 9- Agitated and lyrical, with a beautifully anguished dialogue in the coda.

• Scherzi, Op 20 and Op 35- Some of the catchiest despair ever musically notated… Note the extraordinarily beautiful middle section of the Op 20, based on a Polish Christmas carol

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The dignified

Chopin's music is usually rather refined, but even by his standards, the slow movement of his F minor Piano Concerto is stupidly elegant. Whoever uploaded this beautiful recording to YouTube had exquisite taste, because it really does evoke the majesty of the rising sun.

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Other easy listens

The rest of the nocturnes- polished, lyrical and intimate. There are many brilliant recordings; Artur Rubinstein’s recording, famed for its straightforward yet refined approach, is widely considered the reference recording, but I’d try Claudio Arrau, Brigitte Engerer and Maurizio Pollini, too (Arrau in particular) for a fuller introduction, before moving on to more eccentric performers such as Samson François.

 

Harder

Chopin’s ballades, especially the 1st and 4th, are some of the most compelling musical narratives (perhaps “rollercoasters” would be a better term) ever written, with each packaged, extraordinarily, into about ten minutes. I’d start with Richter’s 1962 performance of the fourth**, followed by Horowitz’s famous performance of the first ballade*** (don’t be fooled by the weird opening of the latter; it quickly develops into one of the most exciting and versatile narratives you’ve ever heard). When you've become familiar with all four, I highly recommend Cortot's uniquely beautiful 1929 recording of the set.

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The sonatas are seriously underrated. The B minor sonata crackles with energy and beauty (the first and fourth movement are incredibly satisfying in their rage, and the slow third movement is stupidly gorgeous) and the B-flat minor sonata is deliciously jagged and hellish.

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The Polonaise-Fantasie, Op 61, is one of Chopin's weirdest works, but no less ingenious for it; written towards the very end of his life, its [unusually for Chopin] dreamy, exploratory structure makes one wonder what still greater heights he would have reached had he lived longer.

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Note: Some Chopin pieces hit differently once you know his works intimately. The Op 62 no 2 nocturne- the last published in Chopin’s lifetime- is far from the most popular, and doesn’t usually strike newbies as particularly special, but once you have familiarised yourself with Chopin’s work, particularly the nocturnes, you tend to recognise it as a towering pinnacle of the literature, full of emotional complexity and an exquisitely dignified sense of farewell.

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* 'Chopin in a rage was terrifying to behold,' wrote his lover George Sand, warning the reader not to underestimate a man often presumed delicately aristocratic. What is true of the man is true of his music. When Chopin abandons his porcelain musical sensibilities, the result can be electrifying.

**This Richter recording is one of those miracles which I can't shut up about once I've started. I heard it first when I was around fourteen, and its raw honesty still shocks me. I don't think I've ever heard the sorrow of the first theme so deeply and patiently etched. Seong-Jin Cho's recording is also absolutely gorgeous (if utterly different- whisper-light and meticulously shaded).

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*** This piece. It propels you forward with a kind of narrative grip which really should not be possible without words. Around seven minutes in I'm cheering wildly for God knows what (inexplicable cheering has only occurred thrice to me with music, and all three times with Chopin pieces).

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