Chopin - Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48 No. 1 - (Edited version. Merging two takes) скачать в хорошем качестве

Chopin - Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48 No. 1 - (Edited version. Merging two takes)

Chopin wrote about 21 nocturnes during his lifetime and each one of them is a beautiful, highly emotional, and rather melancholic piece. Within this great collection of romantic music, the C minor nocturne stands as one of, if not, the favorite representation of the genre among pianists. It is also regarded as the most technically challenging nocturne, with the leaping white key double octaves and its infamous "doppio movimento" section being particularly challenging. No wonder it is the most picked nocturne on the International Chopin Competition, it is a testament of musical maturity and technical prowess. It starts as a solemn, slow, sad, march-like theme, with a heartbreakingly beautiful melodic line. Then, the melody reaches a climax and the piece modulates to C major in the "poco piu lento", which is a choral like section. Here, the large arpeggiated chords and lightweight phrasing pose a significant technical and musical challenge. Pedaling is particularly hard, as the bass notes are not on the beat and synchronizing the pedal to catch them along with the melodic voice is very difficult. The cheerful and hopeful melody within these chords gets interrupted by "dark forces", creeping in as chromatic double octaves. This part is almost like a battle between hope and despair. Eventually, the darkness wins, after some flashy double octave cadenza like passages that preludes the infamous "doppio movimento". In the final part, the beautiful melody from the beginning returns, but faster (double tempo), and with an incredible dense chordal texture of triplets as middle voice and in the left-hand accompaniment. High dynamic contrast from pianissimo to fortissimo, restless chordal textures in both hands, big leaps, polyrhythms, and difficult voicing are among the challenges of this part. The melody follows the same notes as in the first section, and ends with a climax that is even more dramatic due to the "agitato" mood and dense textures. The piece ends with a ritenuto, with a whispering voice lament, and three dying C minor chords that resembles the fainting final heartbeats. As a relatively inexperienced amateur pianist, I knew this piece was way out of my league. I have sight-read through it a few times, and the "doppio movimento" part is just insane. I thought I would never be playing it, that this is one of those pieces that only concert pianists could play convincingly. But I got obsessed with it. Its iconic melody would play over and over in my head. I would sleep and wake up hearing it. After a few days, I decided to start learning it. At first, I thought I would spend a few days on it, only to realize this is a futile endeavor. But then, I thought about my piano journey and the pieces I played that required similar techniques. I could identify how my previous experience would be helpful for each challenge of this piece. For instance, the A section is similar to the F minor nocturne, Op.55 No.1; I've seen large chord figurations resembling the middle part in Liszt's Sonetto del Petrarca 104, and also from that piece a left-hand pattern that is almost identical to the doppio section; the Trio in Shubert's Op.90 No.4 has voicing over repeated chords which is used in the doppio passages; and studying the beginning of the octave etude, Op.25 No.10, helped with the chromatic octaves in this nocturne. In this way, I felt that there was nothing new in terms of technique for me in this nocturne. It was just the "same things" but on a much higher difficulty level. Later on, I realized that this was the perfect stretch piece for me at this point. It pushed my skills to the next level. Some remarks regarding my interpretative choices: The tempo is marked as "lento", and if you consider that the doppio movimento in the last section is relative to the "poco piu lento", then the melody in the end is less than twice the tempo of the beginning. Also, there is an "agitato" marking in the doppio. That doesn't mean faster, but to me, it indicates a sense of restlessness, which can be interpreted as rubato, or a more flexible tempo. I took the interpretative aspects for this piece very seriously, and I had a solid musical imagery that I strived to achieve. In my image, the doppio movimento had to be crystal clear, and the melodic line had to breathe. With that goal, I played it at a slower tempo, and I also tried my best to keep the left-hand and middle voice chordal textures in check, so it would never overpower the melody. I might have ended up missing out notes, that would simply not ring due to the deliberate lack of energy I put in those accompaniment textures. But to me, it is not about playing the notes, but of bringing out the underlying music. It is ok to sacrifice accuracy for musicality. But this might just be the long justification for the fact that I can't really play this piece. Despite my limitations, I am very proud of myself and really happy with my performance.