5 Ways Chopin Nocturnes are Mini Operas (ft. Garrick Ohlsson) | Ep. 2 The Chopin Podcast

[@Daniel_Zalman]

It's quite a joy to have this overhead view of Garrick's playing. His movements are so graceful, such effortless coordination.

[@KRGruner]

Man, your content is reaching new highs, and that was starting from a pretty high bar! Awesome.

[@MicheleAngeliniTenor]

Excellent! Such important information and perfect examples why pianists/instrumentalists should be literate in vocal music and why singers should be literate in piano/symphonic repertoire.

[@Jolie_sailor]

Always a treat to hear Mr. Ohlsson’’s insight into Chopin’s music. Thank you both

[@nerrdinho]

I wish there was some mention of the A-flat major Nocturne of Op. 32. Might be the most underplayed and least popular nocturne but it’s my favorite. That middle section is so fun.

[@Camille_Hargraves]

7:00 Chopin: Hey, Geogre Sand, I don't know what to write next, any ideas? Sand: Freaking trills, Frederic, lots of trills!

[@dunkleosteus430]

I would enjoy a series with an episode/segment that goes in-depth about each nocturne. There's clearly a lot to appreciate in them.

[@emiliazietek8458]

I can recommend analysis of all Chopin's pieces by polish pianist Grzegorz Niemczuk on youtube (also in english version)

[@AaronDao]

I love your content so far! Your channel needs more recognition as the quality and information packed in this video is just superb!

[@RMPdude]

Excellent, as usual. Thank you.

[@RaineStudio]

I think I have a lot in common, speaking of artistic approach, with Maestro Ohlsson. Everything he says gets an instant nod from me! And he is right about the vibrato, much as I disdain its hyperbolic overuse in opera - to sound louder than the orchestra. It rubs me the wrong way like belting does.

[@margarethansen7480]

Thanks for this wonderful Chopin’s videos❤

[@dgmelvin]

I love this series. I'm a pianist that switched to voice before getting as deep as I would have liked with the piano. This all is both interesting and inspiring. Thanks for all you are doing.

[@pianoredux7516]

Ohlsson plays a Bosendorfer, beautifully. I kept wondering how his same fingerings, weightings, touch, pedaling, and dynamics would work on a Steinway in this repertoire.

[@EggMCMUFFIN-e4l]

Fuck Bosendorfer and Steinway… where’s the Pleyel at???

[@davecorry7723]

Marvelous.

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

Merci for these videos.

[@orenlevintal7666]

Very nice talk! I wonder if you can talk also about the sweetness of Chopin's melodies and how he achieves these effects, possibly comparing to Mozart, Schubert and others (maybe contrasting with Beethoven's melodies which usually lack this feeling)

[@trevjr]

Wonderful video. I have spent many a night at the piano reading through the nocturnes. I have my favorites and the ones I can't play of course. They are like old friends to me, each one a little different but such soulful music, I can't think of any other word for what I feel from Chopin. I started in my youth as a Scriabinist, playing those preludes over and over. I was about 22 or 23 when I saw the movie Impromptu and Chopin's music washed over me and I wondered why had I missed it. So I became Chopin crazy, reading through every note I could find. Still working on that 7 against 8 ending there.

[@bifeldman]

Gold.

[@Benjaminpeee]

Fascinating!

[@arturtelega627]

Wow! No words 🙂 also very nice grand!

[@TheRobyMann]

Garrick’s renditions of the codas from Op. 27 no. 1 and 2 are just.. they’re so magically soft and enchanting. The ending of no. 2 strikes me as being so correctly placed in time (the notes come exactly when your soul expects them to), it just sounds right (channeling the words of Leon Fleisher who always said that things that were in the right moment in time felt “inevitable”).

[@militaryandemergencyservic3286]

from 8:32 the pianist plays an ending which he spoke about in an earlier video (Tonebase I think) in which he suggests that this was an inventive ending but that Chopin wasn't the first to do it - or was he meaning that Chopin had already done it in a previous one of his nocturnes (eg the c sharp minor one op post)? He used words like 'well, someone had to have invented it' or something (i.e that 'someone' was either another composer or Chopin himself).

[@theoryman1]

Wonderful. But I thought it was funny when, talking about the third finger, he plays the example using his fifth finger on the g in the second measure that's marked 3 in the score.

[@benlawdy]

@@theoryman1all of Garrick’s fingers are 3rd fingers

[@cadriver2570]

Woah, is that really an 1860s Bosendorfer?

[@danilomartins9738]

🔥

[@peterectasy2957]

8:17 piano untuned or wrong notes ?

[@songadayguy]

Really great stuff. Thanks. When I was in high school, music appreciation was something that was offered and pretty much every student had to take. At minimum, it opened our eyes to theclassics. And I’ll bet all those grown up children today, at least at some level, have an appreciation. Even though I studied pop and enjoyed the great American songbook the most, as well as the rock ‘n’ roll of my era, my appreciation for Chopin and so many others is ingrained. Not sure how the Chopin elite feel about Liberace, but I was, and still am, a monster. I’m very appreciative that he brought Chopin to the masses television show as well as his concerts.

[@songadayguy]

Happy to subscribe!

[@Daniel_Zalman]

Is that a Garrick Ohlsson vinyl album cover in the background? I also see the Hyperion Complete Chopan recorded by him. Noice. Is that a disco-light behind you that's generating that purple light?

[@benlawdy]

Haha just a colored LED panel. Kinda tacky but better than the dreary off-white wall behind me. Also, I went though a disco phase in the 5th grade and even had a disco ball and strobe light in my bed room, so read into that as you will. Yep - that’s one of the Garrick LPs from ‘70 competition, plus the Hyperion box set sitting there. (By the way, the entire Hyperion set can be download on their website for like $50… total steal - and much of it not on streaming platforms or KZbin.)

[@Daniel_Zalman]

@@benlawdy Oh, I have all of Garrick's recordings. He once subbed for Pollini in NYC. It was the absolute best recital I ever heard in my life. It was sometime around 2011 or 2012. It was an all Liszt program featuring the Fantasie and Fugue on 'Ad nos, Ad salutarem undam', a Liszt work for the organ that Busoni transcribed for piano. I have never heard such a sonority coaxed from the piano in my life. Garrick Ohlsson is a legend!

[@Daniel_Zalman]

@@benlawdy I was teasing about the light. It's fine. From a color theory perspective, warm colors juxtaposed against cooler colors create a pleasing contrast. I'd try a sky blue or teal led light. It will be slightly more subdued but achieve a similar effect.

[@benlawdy]

@@Daniel_Zalman I will play with the light and see. My podcast preview video is especially upsetting color wise, so this is something I’ve been thinking about

[@Daniel_Zalman]

@@benlawdy it’s a process. I don’t know much about video. I’m into photography, as a hobby, so I read books and listen to lectures, occasionally, on composition, etc. In reality, as with most fields, theoretical knowledge helps, but you learn more from doing and experimenting. I thought that Garrick was lit very well. The colors were very natural.

[@ErnestSDavis1]

As regards the singability of Chopin's melodies: Chopin's friend, the great opera singer Pauline Viardot adapted some of his mazurkas for singing, with his approval. None of the nocturnes, though, as far as I know.

[@benlawdy]

I’ll be having a pianist/soprano on as a guest in the Mazurkas episode of the Chopin Podcast to discuss the Viardot adaptations and also sing (and play) them.

[@ErnestSDavis1]

@@benlawdy Wonderful! I look forward to it, Of course, I look forward to all your podcasts and videos.

[@BruceKlorfine]

👌

[@trevjr]

Wait, what is going on in Op 32 no 1???? the last note clearly says D#! He is not the first pianist I have heard to end in minor. What is the story behind this Ben????

[@benlawdy]

@@trevjr I shouldn’t have used that edition. It’s an editor’s misguided “correction” of Chopin that has led to many incorrect final chords, including Rubinstein’s. Chopin wrote B minor, as can be heard in most modern recordings including Garrick’s. What fooled the editor was how radical it was for Chopin to end a major key piece in minor. Schubert had done it before but otherwise it was basically unheard of.

[@INCR3DIBL3JMAN]

First

[@brianbernstein3826]

5:50 B minor instead of B major?!

[@benlawdy]

Wild! Schubert did it before him in the E flat impromptu, but still radical.

[@brianbernstein3826]

@@benlawdy Chopin wrote B major, Ohlsson played B minor

[@Aleksandr_128]

Only the German edition has this B major at the end. They loved editing Chopin's texts. What other B major could there be after such a dramatic recitative? It would sound ridiculous

[@benlawdy]

@@brianbernstein3826 Ah, then that’s my fault for using a score with an editor’s error. Chopin wrote B minor. Garrick was playing from memory, and he knows it.

[@brianbernstein3826]

@@benlawdy this is really drawing my interest now! I've only ever heard B major end this piece. Just searched this nocturne on youtube and Rubinstein came right up, with a B major at the end of it :)

[@radiokid2]

The jazz practice of "bending" notes should be mentioned here...I've never heard a classical pianist even come close to doing this. An example might be a real jazz player "bending" the pitch from an F up to a G: he would play the F loudly...then the F# only at mp and the final, main, "target" note G at only a whisper. It's that decay that simulates a voice or guitar string bending from the attack to the final note. Classical players keep playing all three notes the same volume, as if they were grace notes from Mozart or something. The great irony of music is that Europeans made an artificial, stylized artifact out of the human voice and jazz players made European artifacts...ie: instruments, into a human voice. It's a nightmare hearing a classical player trying out jazz! I wonder if these button pushers could even fake "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

[@happyfunguy01]

I would have thought Nikolai Kapustin would be a counterexample, surely?

[@radiokid2]

@@happyfunguy01 Oh yesss....he was an authentic genius...fundamentally inspired by jazz, not the Euro masters. I played and posted several of his things here on YT.

[@Seleuce]

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere quotes from contemporaries of Chopin, describing that he produced those (or similar) effects when playing, "whispering, sighing and murmuring". His music is also the closest thing to Jazz from that time period. Very interesting. I always liked to imagine that Chopin would have been a perfect Jazz pianist, with his improvisation skills and his free musical spirit.