(( 🔪❄ - A song short playlist that I identify with your character and our characters fighting against each other, aka here’s way more piano music than you ever asked for or wanted
In two different parts: first, Beet pieces I identify with Choppers...
1. Sonata no. 12 in A-flat, all 4 movements. (But especially the first and third!) Reportedly Chopper’s favorite Beet and a model for his own piano sonatas. Possibly also my favorite Beet piano sonata, mostly because of the gorgeous first movement. The theme and variations beginning is right up Chop’s alleyway, with 1. how damn good the variations are and 2. the mood they set...or maybe I should say lack thereof. None of these emotional outbursts, sforzandos that make you jump. At least to me, the mood evoked is calm and quiet wonder and exploration. The variations naturally unfold without a sense of “oh, here he’s showing off his virtuosity;” they seem like an organic outgrowing of the beautiful, calm theme itself, and what personality does come into play it’s focused on the theme, not expressing. And of course, the third movement is the inspiration for Chop’s famous funeral march.
2. Sonata no. 14 in C-sharp minor, “Moonlight.” I mean, I know this is an easy answer, but Choppers did have it in his performance repertoire and told his students how he liked the first movement. Plenty’s been said about it, but I just want to add that the experience of hearing the first movement on a fortepiano, as opposed to a modern piano, sort of changed my life. The link doesn’t do it justice. Modern pianists have to disregard the performance instruction at the beginning, which says to hold the sustain pedal down throughout the movement, because modern pianos sustain notes much longer and the result is muddled and unclear. On a fortepiano, though, the combination of the damper and the sustain creates an absolutely unearthly tone color. Honestly, when I listened to it, the effect was less sadness and more...creeping pressure, building to something on the brink of insanity, with a distance to the sound that amplified the grief and loneliness that must have come as one’s aural world gradually closes off around you. It was easy to hear why some of Beet’s contemporaries thought he was going insane. I linked only part of the piece on a fortepiano, but the rest of the video explains the technicalities behind the fortepiano way better than I ever could if you’re curious and have 7 minutes. Plus, imagine the shock the third movement would be, coming after that....
3. Piano Sonata no. 30, movement 3. The tempo indication says it all: “Full of song, with innermost expression.” A very similar mood to the first movement of no. 12, but with the trademark late Beet sense of timelessness and weightlessness. The ornamentation of the melody seems very Chopesque to me. And it’s another theme and variations, which again is something both Chop and Beet liked quite a lot. Some of the variations Chop would probably not like but too bad. Also I feel personally vindicated because while in the course of researching this I went on the Wiki page for this sonata and Wiki also points out the similarities between Chopin’s ornaments and this piece.
I decided to go in the vein of some sort of weird piano duel for 🔪... although unfortunately, I don’t know nearly as much of Chop’s music as I should.
Round 1: Signature famous pieces - Chop's Etude op. 10 no. 12, “Revolutionary.” I mean...what better boss battle music? I love it when historical Choppers is like “wow, that Beet, too emotionally explosive” and then goes and writes this.
Beet’s Sonata no. 8 in C minor, “Pathetique,” first movement. This is probably what Chopin didn’t like about Beet - those time he interrupts the second theme to bring back the desolate introduction. Too bad, Choppers, Beet likes to break the formal rules regarding theme placement more than you. At least you break more harmonic rules.
Round 2: Make your opponent play one of your most difficult pieces. Chop’s Etude op. 25 no. 11, “Winter Wind.” While mid-career Beet could handle this, and the expressive content is pretty up his alley, late Beet would just have a hard time getting his fingers around this mess since he let his technique slide a little for, uh, pretty obvious reasons.
Beet’s Piano sonata no. 29, “Hammerklavier,” movement 1. I’d actually never heard the Hammerklavier on a fortepiano until I was researching for this ask, so thank you for helping me find this kickass recording :o Chop obviously has the technique, but the expressive style is so foreign that it’d pose a real interpretive challenge. But he does have a secret weapon in that this was one of Liszt’s main repertoire pieces, so he’s certainly heard it a lot.
Round 3: Improv. Obviously no recordings to listen to here. Most piano duels of the 19th century included this, and honestly Beet and Cho were probably the two greatest piano improvisers of all time, so I’m gonna say the real winner here, and throughout this weird competition, is whoever gets to listen.
theartofmadeline
stormborns
discoholicmusic
tangentwithtanner
jacobvanloon
andulkaphoto
