F. Chopin - Sonata no. 2 op. 35, Movement 1 - analysis - Greg Niemczuk's lecture.

#allchopin #chopin #chopinproject #lecture
Concert pianist describes and analizes Chopin's Masterpieces for the piano.
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[@HofiAgilAghov]

I've been through so much with this piece in my life's journey. I feel it is infinite and I will always keep discovering my spirit and life's purpose through it. Your lecture made me cry, it is filled with genuine love and educated observations. God bless.

[@gregniemczuk]

Only people like you can really absorb the essence of this lecture... I'm so touched and obliged.. thank you for this sincere comment!!!

[@massud-8612]

Greg, I love your passion for Chopin and want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your marvelous work.

[@gregniemczuk]

Thank you so much dear friend!!!

[@Rose-zg9pu]

The second theme is literally the same as the theme in the introduction of Chopins fantasy on polish airs op. 13.

[@mickizurcher8450]

You were inspired in your Japan performance! Beautiful and powerful rendition and thank you for the beautiful analysis as well, you inspire me to play everything you teach. ❤💐❤️‍🔥

[@yoyichen4470]

I am very grateful for every leson you've given! I gain so much new.

[@gregniemczuk]

I'm so happy to hear that!

[@hsy7171]

I really enjoyed your the great lecture. If it is possible, could you please tell me the reference or book information that was used when you making this video? :)

[@samwang1115]

thanks for bringing music convatory lecture to mass, when i was younger, between piano and engineering career i chose latter. this stuff is let me live the learning i miss in young.

[@gregniemczuk]

My pleasure!

[@mralcina8726]

Never realised the battle at 41:15, even though it makes a lot of sense. Are you going to analyse sonata no. 1 after you finish this one? Even though it is considered as a lesser work of Chopin, I think it is great and very underrated.

[@gregniemczuk]

Thanks! I agree with you about the Sonata no.1. But this year I realize the huge project of analysing all the pieces published during Chopin's life, that's why this Sonata is not included. Maybe I will do it in 2022 to complete the cycle 😊

[@Balecatena6403]

Fantastic video

[@gregniemczuk]

Thanks!

[@beatlessteve1010]

Awesome awesome tutorial and discussion concerning this great sonata which I only listened all the way through for the first time when I was 49 years old (5 years ago)and it hit me like a freight train..during that time I was on the train and having some difficult times in my life and thinking about my own mortality..and I had headphones on listening to Horowitz 1951 performance of the piece...and I can honestly say I had never been moved so much by every note and chord of a piece of music...so yeah thank you for sharing your thoughts on this.

[@gregniemczuk]

Thanks for watching!! Yes, it's a masterpiece which always make us think deeper thoughts.....

[@s.n.b5511]

Nagoya is the nearest big city to my hometown. Glad to know that your recital was on there, too. I look forward to listen to you in Norway, though.

[@gregniemczuk]

I'm coming back to Nagoya in November 2022! Thank you!

[@brianlimachi7073]

When I read this sonata if I felt that in the development there is a struggle, a duality that includes the concept of No. 2, "sonata No. 2", the reason for the initial 2 notes, love and death, I don't know if there are coincidences or causalities, I will take the causalities option because it seems important to me that in just 2 days I have my concert including the bach fugue you mentioned (and I will also play the prelude). My teacher Juan Siles observed the same thing you saw in the fugue while we are so far away from you. This sonata marked my life in an international Chopin competition, my teacher did not want me to play it fragmented (for example the first movement alone) I have many memories with this work for love with my mother and now I understand that those memories were so beautiful because for the first time I was afraid that one day she would no longer be physically with me. Regarding the storm that interrupted your beautiful video, I want to tell you something: My teacher Juan Siles composed a work that has to do with a geographical location in my country, I traveled to that place so that in the place the work of my teacher Juan Siles could be listen because it is dedicated to that specific place, it was a sunny day without a breeze, when the work was played through a recording, the sky began to cloud and rain threateningly, it was a very interesting sensation (fear and amazement). I thank you infinitely for this masterful analysis and interpretation, my dear Greg. Greetings from Bolivia.

[@gregniemczuk]

Dear Brian, thank you so much for this touching comment!

[@Anonymous-zo2yx]

So glad to have stumbled upon your channel! This lecture is really eye-opening to me who has never really had formal music education

[@gregniemczuk]

Welcome! This is my goal! Feel invited to watch all my videos! Best wishes, G.

[@francescameda3003]

Sei un grande pianista ,ti stimo molto

[@fantasie13]

This is gold! Thank you!

[@gregniemczuk]

Thank you!!!! Feel invited to see my.other videos as well!

[@fantasie13]

@@gregniemczuk I definitely will! Found your channel while searching for the mazurka op24 no4. Heard it for the first time in the Chopin competition and immediately fell in love with it. Didn’t know it had such a sad love story behind it. Thank you so much again for making these videos.

[@gregniemczuk]

@@fantasie13 you know, this might not be true, it came from my imagination, but it makes so much sense!!!

[@fantasie13]

@@gregniemczuk yes it does 🤩

[@dancohenhemsi163]

Great gear great Video!!!! I am so happy that I decided to learn this Sonata. Pay attantion that the bridge is also the 5 notes motive,but in rhythmical augmentation (rèь dò, sìь sìь làь)

[@dancohenhemsi163]

Wow and I also take the repetition from the Grave, and not from the doppio muvimento!!!!

[@gregniemczuk]

👍👍👍👍

[@zamyrabyrd]

After so many years of off and on playing of this sonata, I must admit that I missed a few things, so I am grateful to you for pointing them out. One is the significance of the descending diminished 7th which must have a correlation to the opening of Beethoven's last piano sonata (and does reappear in the development). Chopin knew but apparently didn't play much Beethoven except for the Theme and Variations Sonata in Ab, Op. 26, which incidentally has a funeral march. You did convince me to play the whole opening again and not from the repeat mark as given in the Debussy edition four bars into the piece. Some older pianists such as Rachmaninoff did not repeat the exposition but usually that was due to available recording space. His own artistry put his own stamp on the music, with the 4th movement for sheer intensity is unparalleled. He doesn't make such a contrast between themes 1 and 2, as I don't either. I feel that there is a kind of desperation in the upward motion of the long phrases in theme 2 In fact, I did read a program of this piece which sort of corresponds to your own take on it. 1st movement: battle between death (or severe illness) and life (or love). In the 2nd movement there is the macabre dance of death which won in the end. Movement 3 is the funeral march and 4th, the ghostly wind over the graves.

[@gregniemczuk]

Thank you very much for this enriching comment!

[@zamyrabyrd]

@@gregniemczuk Hi Greg, thanks for answering me. I thought of a few things meanwhile because anyway I happen to be currently practicing this piece. For what it is worth, I find myself pedalling, though briefly, on the 2nd 8th of the the configurations in theme one. My Debussy eidtion has pedal for three measures on the average which to me is too top heavy covering, as the eighth notes begin from the top. It's interesting how Rachmaninoff interprets the stretto at the end of the exposition. He speeds up at first but slows down for the last three measures or so which help make the transition to the ritard in the development. His 4th movement is stunning but so is his 3rd. I don't know if he recorded the sonata more than once. Also, I love the sound of your piano. What make is it? Also on the wall in back of you, I think that the last character on the scroll is花, or "flower" (or maybe not).

[@MoiAussi18]

"And what happened next? It must be repeated." "Other recordings, including those of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Evgeny Kissin, and Garrick Ohlsson, exclude the repetition altogether." - Wikipedia Never thought of those guys as "sinful" before. You learn something new every day, I guess. I expect that they had their reasons and I would imagine that those reasons were excellent. Rachmaninoff and Horowitz in particular were sticklers for such things (Rachmaninoff loved Mahler for the obsessive care he took when conducting R's works at the New York Phil. Horowitz was legendary for his precision. Not so Rubinstein especially in his earlier days). Interestingly, I own a Horowitz version that does contain the repeat. I'll have to check the CD booklet to see when it was recorded. I found the following also in that Wikipedia article very interesting: "When the sonata was published in 1840 in the usual three cities of Paris, Leipzig, and London, the London and Paris editions indicated the repeat of the exposition as starting at the very beginning of the movement (at the Grave section). However, the Leipzig edition designed the repeat as beginning at the Doppio movimento section. Although the critical edition published by Breitkopf & Härtel (that was edited, among others, by Franz Liszt, Carl Reinecke, and Johannes Brahms) indicate the repeat similarly to the London and Paris first editions, almost all 20th-century editions are similar to the Leipzig edition in this regard. Charles Rosen argues that the repeat of the exposition in the manner perpetrated by the Leipzig edition is a serious error" Here's what Rosen actually says about this in his superb "The Romantic Generation" which I've recently been reading (available in Kindle format at Amazon.co.uk). Not up to this part yet: "In almost every edition (and consequently most performances) of Chopin’s Sonata in B flat Minor, op. 35, there is a serious error that makes awkward nonsense of an important moment in the first movement. The repeat of the exposition begins in the wrong place. A double bar meant to indicate the beginning of a new and faster tempo in measure 5 is generally decorated on both staves with the two dots that indicate the opening of a section to be played twice. A glance at the photograph of the manuscript in Warsaw will assure us that these dots are an engraver’s embellishment. (The manuscript is not autograph, but it has additions and corrections in Chopin’s hand. A facsimile of the first page is printed in the notorious “Paderewski” edition.) The mistake was made in one of the early editions. Chopin’s works were almost always published simultaneously in three cities-Paris, Leipzig, and London; the German edition is faulty in this place. The London and Paris editions of the opening of the sonata are, nevertheless, correct. All twentieth-century editions that I have seen, however, are wrong. One other nineteenth-century edition, reprinted in the twentieth, gets it right: the critical edition published by Breitkopf & Härtel late in the century and edited by Liszt, Reinecke, Brahms, et al. The sonatas were revised by Brahms, and he was too intelligent to perpetuate the error. We should not, however, need to glance at the documentary evidence. The faulty indication is musically impossible: it interrupts a triumphant cadence in D flat major with an accompanimental figure in B flat minor, a harmonic effect which is not even piquant enough to be interesting, and merely sounds perfunctory. The repeat is clearly intended to begin with the first note of the movement: the opening four bars are not a slow introduction but an integral part of the exposition. The performances I have heard that do not perpetuate the foolish misprint have omitted the repetition altogether. This makes the movement too short, but better that than musical nonsense. I am sure, however, that there are pianists who have discovered the right version from either the manuscript or the old Breitkopf publication edited by Brahms." He develops the argument further.

[@MoiAussi18]

It suddenly struck me that the absence of a repeat in earlier recordings (before the days of the LP) quite possibly might have been due to the necessary constraints in terms of length that were a result of the more primitive technology. I know that jazz recordings suffered from this quite badly. It's tough to improvise when you only have a very limited time in which to work. That's the reason why so many early bebop records are really woeful.

[@nicolasgoulet4091]

Thank you so much for this video! I am an amateur pianist and have been working on this piece for the past three years and it has really allowed me to grow as a pianist (I think). There is so much substance in your video, I will have to watch it many time. One think I would like to ask you: I have been tormenting myself in my spare time with trying to establish what was Chopin's intent about repeating the first bars. I have the intuition that it should be repeated; I've looked everywhere, letters written by Chopin around the time of the composition, books and the Online Chopin Variations Encyclopedia. I was thus surprised when you had a strong case for it being repeated. I can't remind your precise words but you seem to have a very strong stance about it but I don't remember you explaining the reasons for strong belief! Would you like to share more of your thoughts on ''why'' we should do the repeat? I will show my piano teacher some of the sections of your video... she will be delighted!

[@gregniemczuk]

Thank you so much! Yes please, share my videos with your piano teacher and everyone who might be interested. In the first bars Chopin is using a motive in the left hand which later in the middle section (development section) has a thematic importance (in the left hand). This is why I strongly believe that the beginning of the sonata is NOT an introduction but belongs to the theme and therefore should be repeated.

[@prokastinatore]

Greg found in his own words the description: " the diabolic Scherzo"- correct! That's wat it is! The great Vladimir Horowitz described Chopin's music "like red roses with bombs".

[@aidacabezas2153]

Se agradecen los subtítulos en español 😉👏👏👏

[@xrrainx823]

My interpretation of this sonata is that it is largely about Chopin’s health scare, the galloping horse is carrying him to the doctor, the dramatic bridge into the gentle theme is him falling out of consciousness or perhaps he is thinking of his life and his best memories and doesn’t want them to end. You can hear how in the development section the obsessive horse galloping quietly mumbles alongside that sweet theme, almost symbolic of him faintly hearing the sound of the horses while in that reminiscing state. Im not fully sure about the scherzo, but it is like he fights dying And then the third movement in my opinion is where he dies, you can hear how he reminisces about his life and accepts his fate, which perfectly explains why the sweet second theme doesn’t bridge into the march and so the march starts sort of abruptly, because suddenly he dies. And then the fourth movement is the unmistakeable sound of his soul leaving his body and spiraling down into purgatory and death.

[@gregniemczuk]

That makes so much sense!!!

[@dpetrov32]

why are some people so obsessed with these ridiculous pseudo interpretations and headcanon in regards to lyrical music? "music is sad here - minor key:(( - so that means Chopin is sad about his dead mother" ya ok bro

[@xrrainx823]

@@dpetrov32 It is not an obsession, it is an understanding that Chopin deliberately wove meaning into every bar of his music, he himself said so. I do not analyze any other composer in this way. To respect him - especially as musicians and composers like myself - we must try to understand what he was trying to say, especially given the context of events in his life and times. It is impossible to play his music properly without understanding, and it helps the listener to feel and enjoy the music too. The people of Chopin’s time knew this and they often interpreted his work this way too, and Chopin enjoyed it as he knew it meant people were truly listening to him. Franz Liszt himself calls Chopin a ‘tone poet’ and he also wrote this about a concert Chopin gave: “A grand piano stood on the platform, everyone sought the nearest seats and settled down to listen, telling themselves in advance that they must not miss a chord, a note, a suggestion, a thought that might fall from him who was to play. They were right to be so eager, attentive to the point of worship, for he whom they awaited, whom they were so desirous of hearing, admiring, applauding was not merely a skilled virtuoso, a pianist who was master of the keyboard, not only an artist of renown, he was someone far beyond all this - they awaited Chopin! Music was his language, a divine language by means of which he expressed a whole range of feelings which could be appreciated only by the few. The music of his homeland sang to him the songs and sad lays of Poland, lending to his art some strange and mysterious poetry, which for those who have taken it to their hearts, is incomparable.. Without an affected striving for originality, he has expressed his personality both in his style and in his ideas. For new ideas, he has adopted a new style. The hint of a wild and fiery nature, which is a part of his inheritance, finds expression in strange harmonies and deliberate discords, while all his delicacy and grace is shown in a thousand touches, the thousand tiny details of an incomparable fantasy….” - Franz Liszt

[@peev2]

You’ve got no idea how happy this video made me. Edit: I actually see a lot of the introduction material in the second theme, I see them as a whole and agree the repetition of the exposition should include the intro.

[@gregniemczuk]

Really??? Than I'm happy too!!!!

[@peev2]

@@gregniemczuk The “intro material” interval with the same rhythm is in the beginning of the development, so it makes lots of sense for the exposition to be repeated.

[@gregniemczuk]

@@peev2 exactly!

[@peev2]

@@gregniemczuk the same intricacies according to repetition are, btw, argued for Beethoven’s Pathetique. I loved your mention of the op.111 as an inspiration of this marvellous piece.

[@gregniemczuk]

@@peev2 it seems so obvious!

[@user-pb7kx2hq9w]

Between this Sonata and the Preludes, which do you think is “easier” for someone from 20 to 25?

[@gregniemczuk]

Depends on the technique. But I think this Sonata is easier

[@stankaplan7747]

Try my Sonata Militaire. My one and only. Didn't seem to fit anything else so I loosely went with 3 movements returning and ending going back to the first theme. Remember hearing once, I believe Rach's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini a commentary that it was really a piano concerto but ended with saying that a piece IS, what ever the composer says IS. Always thought that interesting!

[@bigl5343]

Have you listened to Marc-André Hamelin's recording of this piece? The clarity and precision in his playing is almost unparalleded. His performance of the finale is one of the best I have heard. Instead of just playing through it as fast as possible as many pianist do, Hamelin focused on the musicality of the complex chromaticism, and the rich 3 or 4 part harmony presented by the finale. Hamelin's slower tempo allows the listener to savor and experience the rich texture instead of rapidly performing it only to show off virtuosity.

[@gregniemczuk]

I agree! He is one of my favorite pianist by the way!

[@bigl5343]

@@gregniemczuk He is my favorite along with Yefim Bronfman and Mitsuko Uchida. The review "Yefim Bronfman looks less like the person who is going to play the piano than like the guy who should be moving it" always makes me laugh. Your performance of the first movement was superb by the way. Can't wait to hear the rest, especially the Funeral march and finale from you.

[@gregniemczuk]

@@bigl5343 thank you so much! Of course they are great pianist. I also admire Murray Perahia, especially for his Bach and Mozart. Thanks! This weekend there will be movement 2 ! Every week analysis of one movement.

[@bigl5343]

@@gregniemczuk Are you familiar with Kenneth Gilbert? His J.S. Bach, Henry Purcell, and other Baroque keyboard interpretations are exquisite. I prefer harpsichord for Baroque keyboard music. Fantastic performers like Angela Hewitt are great for Bach, especially on a Fazioli, but the timbre and clarity of sound produced by the harpsichord is the only proper way to play baroque music in my opinion. Gilbert executes Bach on harpsichord with character capturing the listener's interest despite unable to manipulate dynamic with touch. His embellishment in Bach's and Purcell's keyboard suites exactly embody the style expected from the era.

[@gregniemczuk]

@@bigl5343 I'll take a look definitely! Thanks!

[@matthewmichael3797]

I love ur analysis and how u tell a story in a piece but dontmind me but where did u get that statue of chopin.. i just rlly love that statue

[@gregniemczuk]

It was a gift from one of my fans! After my project about all the Mazurkas I just got it by post!

[@matthewmichael3797]

@@gregniemczuk oooo

[@matthewmichael3797]

Tq for ur kind answer❤

[@MoiAussi18]

"And now the bridge" The accepted wisdom is that the transition starts at measure 25 and ends at measure 39: "In m. 25, the transition starts, still in B-flat minor, with a return of the main theme’s presentation with a slightly different left hand figuration. The melodic-motivic material presented in the main theme is restated until m. 32. The continuation phrase of the transition modulates in m. 36 to the subordinate key of D-flat major, closing with a HC of D-flat major in m. 39. One might misconceive m. 40 as a HC, but due to the inverted dominant chord, m. 40 cannot constitute cadential closure. A similar issue to the inverted V chord happens in m. 24, which will be dealt with in section 3.1.2. The progression from the last beat of m. 39 to m. 40 serves as a lead-in to the subordinate theme in D-flat major, which occupies mm. 41-81." -- "A Performance and Analysis Approach to a Cadential Ambiguity: Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35, First Movement" - Yereum Kim B.M. M.M. (Dissertation prepared for the Degree of Doctor of Musical Arts)

[@gregniemczuk]

Thank you. Of course you quoted an academic work. But every musicologist and musician can see it differently. Chopin never called certain parts of his music. It depends on our knowledge and imagination how we do it.

[@ericrakestraw664]

The three themes in the exposition all take on their own character, so they could be interpreted as an overview of all the movements of a sonata. In other words, the stormy first theme takes on the character of the fast first movement or finale, the lyrical second theme correlates to the slow movement, and the third scherzo-like theme anticipates the scherzo movement. Also, with the Grave theme in the left hand, there is a faint hint of the dotted rhythm of the funeral march movement. Not only that, if you play the five-note motif in reverse, the basic shape of the funeral march theme is revealed. All these occurances can't have been coincidental. Chopin obviously spent a great amount of thought planning this sonata.

[@gregniemczuk]

Wow! Fantastic interpretation! Thanks!

[@brianlimachi7073]

Excuse me, there are errors in the google translator when I write long texts I hope the message has been understood, greetings once again my dear Greg

[@gregniemczuk]

Yes, but you can also write in Spanish. Hablo español.

[@hihihihihihi05]

Will you do lecture on chopin sonata no 1 ?

[@gregniemczuk]

Yes. But I can't exactly tell you when it will be ready

[@erggish]

I don't know, the first theme of this sonata always reminds me of a Beethoven's Tempest sonata (3rd mvt), but I don't know why... I even looked at the scores and I don't see much resemblance, but the feeling I get from both is almost the same.

[@gregniemczuk]

It's also dark, maybe that's why

[@DIDHEJUST]

24:10

[@alcyonecrucis]

Czy jesteś niemcem?:=P

[@gregniemczuk]

Nie, dlaczego?

[@bolek8457]

Jest gdzieś po polsku? Ja z rocznika, że j. obcy to tylko rosjski i niemiecki...;)

[@gregniemczuk]

Proszę spróbować na moim kanale znaleźć PLAYLISTY. tam będzie Pan miał WSZYSTKIE odcinki o każdym utworze. Są playlisty poszczególnych gatunków ale również wszystkich dzieł. Zaraz wyślę link

[@gregniemczuk]

kzbin.info/aero/PLXV2RLvTljMi7S-ROylaKFqyzUmn3o5in