Frédéric François Chopin (1810 – 1849) was a
Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic
era who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has
maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of
his era, one whose "poetic genius was based on a
professional technique that was without equal in his
generation."
Frédéric Chopin's published waltzes (actually valses
-- a subtle but significant stylistic distinction) fall
into two distinct categories: sparkling, highly
ornamented jew...(+)
Frédéric François Chopin (1810 – 1849) was a
Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic
era who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has
maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of
his era, one whose "poetic genius was based on a
professional technique that was without equal in his
generation."
Frédéric Chopin's published waltzes (actually valses
-- a subtle but significant stylistic distinction) fall
into two distinct categories: sparkling, highly
ornamented jewels suitable, to at least some degree,
for actual ballroom use; and more introspective, often
rather melancholy, miniatures that are far removed from
the fashionable Viennese waltzes of Joseph Lanner or
Johann Strauss I. The earliest of the published waltzes
(actually fifth in order of composition), the Grande
Valse brillante in E flat major, Op.18, is an example
of the former.
This aristocratic work presents its young composer in a
particularly extroverted mood; surely the main theme of
the work, introduced after a lively four-bar fanfare,
is one of Chopin's most famous. The composer toys with
a secondary, repeated-note gesture (marked
leggieramente) before making a happily-chosen move to D
flat major; the chromatic figure in parallel thirds
that runs throughout a good part of this central
section provides a good taste of the composer's more
mature style. An extended version of the opening
fanfare ushers in the reprise of the initial tune,
which, upon reiteration some forty bars later, is
broken up by the unexpected intrusion of two bar-long
grand pauses.
While some, including the famous musicologist Huneker,
have felt the (perhaps overly) effervescent quality of
the Opus 18 Waltz to be vulgar, others see a kind of
sly humor in the work's irrepressibly joyous tone.
Whatever the Waltz's true sentiment is, Chopin, having
visited Vienna and found the Viennese waltz to be
entirely foreign to his nature (declaring, upon his
return to Paris, that "I am still unable to play
valses), seems wholly determined to reinvent the form
in his own image.
Although originally composed for solo piano, I created
this interpretation of the "Grande Valse Brillante" in
Eb Major (Opus 18) for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola
& Cello).
PARTITION