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So before the grad school madness begins, I would like to take this moment to post something unrelated before I drop off the face of Tumblr. This is a paper I handed in last week comparing the Chopin recordings of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Raoul von Koczalski. I had a lot of fun listening to them critically, and I hope you will too (if you care to read!). (note: I got lazy and didn't make the footnotes all that neat, but please know there is no plagiarism to be found here! :) )

“HIP” Chopin: A Comparison of Two Interpreters

It is an understatement to say that technology has influenced the way music is performed. Recording techniques has had a hand in manipulating many performance practices, for instance the use of constant vibrato in violin or the use of Boehm system clarinet as opposed to Albert system. The idea that someone can be “immortal” was no longer reserved for composers; an isolated performance could be listened to for years to come. However, it is with the emergence of recording devices that musicians could finally know how to perform the way the composer intended.

Sergei Rachmaninoff was one of the early generations of these composers/musicians to place his mark on the way his and other composers’ works should be performed. A late-blooming Romantic composer, Rachmaninoff’s recording of his Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor Op. 18 with the Philadelphia Orchestra has set the precedent of how this piece should be performed. Similarly in the 1920s, Rachmaninoff took up the task of recording numerous works of Fryderyk Chopin. Pianist and grand-pupil of Chopin, Raoul von Koczalski, also recorded the Romantic composer’s works around the same time-frame. Koczalski’s records are credited as important “documentation” to how to perform Chopin’s works.[1] If this is the case, how does Koczalski and Rachmaninoff’s independent recordings compare and who did Chopin more justice?

To start with I listened to both Koczalski and Rachmaninoff’s renditions of Nocturne in F sharp major Op. 15 No. 2.[2] Rachmaninoff’s approach to the music is very steady and meticulous, allowing some rubato through the piece but not too much out of his control. His touch to the piano keys, at least from what can be picked up with the dated recording device, is delicate and soft, giving the impression of what one would assume a Chopinistic performance was. Despite this, it is incredibly to realize just how vastly different he plays when compared to Koczalski’s performance. The music immediately gives a different emotion right from the very start; he starts slower, and Koczalski also pushes and pulls the tempo a much more. While Rachmaninoff’s use of ornamentation sounded too careful and practiced, Koczalski made it an incorporation of the performance, sounding smooth and effortless. A surprising distinction between the two recordings can be found in the “Doppio movimento,” where Rachmaninoff was very mechanical with the monotonous rhythm progressions while Koczalski keeps it flowing just as the rest of the piece. Overall, the two recordings gave me the impression that Rachmaninoff was playing it casually as if in the comfort of his own home, while Koczalski made it emotional and nuanced.

The second piece is Chopin’s Mazurka in A major Op. 68 No. 2, which as a dance one would assume it does not have the same room for nuances and rubato as the nocturnes do.[3] Once more Rachmaninoff is very careful with the piece; he takes the tempo seriously and only executed ornaments when written on the page, and his dynamics are incredibly soft, never even approaching the concept of “forte.” Rachmaninoff once more gives what one would call a textbook Chopin performance. In contrast the grad-pupil of Chopin performs the piece much faster than Rachmaninoff. His dynamic levels definitely breech the realm of forte, and his nuances once more include aspects such as added ornamentation and varying the tempi on the repeated sections.

So it seems a pattern is set: while Koczalski gives the more interesting performance, his interpretations are not as “typically Chopin” as Rachmaninoff’s is assumed to be, considering how closely the Russian pianist follows the score. Once more, which one is the truer is the question. For Chopin, a piece of music should reflect the natural patterns of speech, as if it was the musician’s first language. Koczalski’s teacher, Karol Mikuli, described that incorrect phrasing of a piece would “relinquish all hope of his speech having any effect on the listener.”[4] This incorporates several aspects: the rubato; the fioriture both prepared and improvised; and the variations with each repeat of the melody. The rubato is probably the most important to incorporate, as Chopin was famous for it. It was the one aspect that Liszt sought to discover the secret; the way to inconspicuously steal time in the melodic line without the audience knowing was trick. However, Chopin specifically designated this technique to the right hand, while the left hand should always be “faithfully attached to the measure.”[5]

The much more complicated technique to explain is the use of the fioriture. Chopin did write many of the ornaments in the score for his students to follow, but it was through the use of rubato that seamlessly linked it to the melodic line. Exactly how is hard to define, since accounts of Chopin’s own performance practices are very flowery and reverent but never definite. For example, Berlioz wrote of Chopin, “He has created a kind of chromatic embroidery in several of his compositions, whose effect is so strange and piquant as to be impossible to describe.”[6] What is known, though, is that Chopin often urged his students to listen to “good singing” especially in the Italian bel canto style, and as this is the case his ornamentation would most likely be influenced by this style. In cantabile style, the ornaments would often end in a rallentando, which would definitely attention to the listener.[7] Once more, though, this would only be if it enhanced the melodic line, and if the opposite was true then the fioriture should follow as such. As for improvisation in Chopin’s works as Koczalski employs, I could find no primary support though it is generally believed that Chopin would make up fioriture not found in the score.[8] Chopin himself was a master of improvisation, and some people even thought his improvisations were better than his finished works; Julian Fontana even said, “Chopin’s most beautiful finished compositions are merely reflections and echoes of his improvisations.”[9]

The last aspect of Chopin’s pieces is the varied melodic returns. Each time the melody comes back it should have something different to say, if one was to make the connection to speech again. Through an understanding of rubato and fioriture, this can be enforced easily enough. However, Chopin still marks different indications for phrasing and articulation with each return of the melody.[10] Therefore it is a combination of all three ideals that create a true Chopin performance. From the descriptions of Rachmaninoff and Koczalski’s performances, it is clear who was more “accurate.” That being said, I took one more listening to their interpretations of the famous Nocturne in E flat major Op. 9 No. 2.[11]

Rachmaninoff is not as straightforward in this recording as he is in the other two; his tone is far more serious and lugubrious and he takes his time with the phrases with a more constant use of ritartandos. He still adds none of his own ornamentation, but this recording is still more daring than his other two, as the dynamics are fuller and the tempi push and pull a lot more. There is a particularly breathtaking moment at the climax when finally, out of all the recordings, Rachmaninoff breaks his use of piano and opens the chord in a full and beautiful forte, which makes the moment even that more special. Koczalski once more proves just how different one recording can be from another. With a slightly faster tempo the nocturne from the beginning sounds brighter than Rachmaninoff’s sullen tone. The tempo has a tendency to pick up with each return of the melodic line, though through use of rubato it still pushes and pulls. As for ornamentation, Koczalski creates many that are not in the score, although in this regard he may have had help as he played off Mikuli’s edition of the piece.[12] It does keep the performance very engaging, where at times Koczalski will improvise the entire measure. Overall the recording is much more emotional and there is almost a sense in urgency, and it is at the climax again that shows how different one interpretation can be from another musician’s. Where Rachmaninoff’s forte was sudden, Koczalski creates a large build up to it, making it quite grand. Personally, in this one moment I actually prefer Rachmaninoff’s interpretation, however overall Koczalski has a much more convincing performance in all the recordings.

In the end it seems as though the grand-pupil of Chopin can play the composer’s works in a way more similar to the romantic pianist himself. This, of course, does not mean that Rachmaninoff was misinterpreting Chopin’s works completely; Rachmaninoff most likely just did not have the resources that Koczalski did in order to execute the music in the “correct” way. This was coupled with a few of Rachmaninoff’s more personal feelings for the composers he admired, for example Chopin and Tchaikovsky, and his own fear of stepping out of his boundaries that lead to a much more conservative reading of Chopin’s works. Does this mean that Koczalski’s performance is somehow better than Rachmaninoff’s? Of course not; both interpretations give completely different emotions to any given composition and when it comes to Chopin there are endless possibilities. It is definitely interesting to see how two pianists who recorded the works in the same time frame could develop such different creations, as the nonexistence of such recordings would allow them to do. Now, though, the situation is overturned; we look to such recordings to tell us how a piece should be played, how someone “better” than us performed it so we can try and emulate the same. But the beauty of music, especially with Chopin, is the ability to portray different sentiments based on our own. It is all a matter of what we feel we can do with the notes on the page, just as Koczalski and Rachmaninoff has proven to us.

[1] Methuen-Campbell, James “Koczalski, Raoul.” Grove Music Online.

[2] Chopin Nocturne in F sharp major Op. 15 No. 2: performed by Rachmaninoff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrQ6yQTwmAo; performed by Koczalski http://www.youtube.com/user/gullivior#p/search/12/vhsArz6SpuQ

[3] Chopin Mazurka in A major Op. 68 No. 2: performed by Rachmaninoff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xuaax311aLY; performed by Koczalski http://www.youtube.com/user/gomanriquevideo#p/u/3/NdZk9jZjmrE

[4] Bellman, Jonathan. “Chopin and His Imitators: Notated Emulations of the ‘True Style’ of Performance.” 19th-Century Music, Vol. 24, No. 2, Special Issue: Nineteenth-Century Pianism. Autumn, 2000. p. 152.

[5] Landormy, Paul; Rothwell, Fred. “Chopin.” The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2. Apr. 1929. p. 164.

[6] Bellman, 154.

[7] Ibid, 155.

[8] Ibid, 157.

[9] Ibid, 158.

[10] Ibid, 155.

[11] Chopin Nocturne in E flat major Op. 9 No. 2: performed by Rachmaninoff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNBEb0LIN6c; performed by Koczalski http://www.youtube.com/user/Xqwrtz#p/u/5/VRmek8kADWA

[12] Bellman, 155.

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