Nocturne in c sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 1 | Frédéric Chopin | Charles Szczepanek, piano

I hope you enjoy my interpretation of this Chopin Nocturne, my personal favorite of all the Nocturnes, Op. 27, No. 1 in c sharp minor. There are two more videos coming up about this piece on the channel, a Masterclass very soon, and another video unlike anything I've tried here before... stay tuned!
➡️ Charles' full 2.5-hour Masterclass on this piece on Thinkific: pianist-academ...
➡️ Visit Charles on his performance channel: / charlesszczepanek
➡️ Visit Charles' Website: www.charlesszc...
Charles Szczepanek is an international prize-winning pianist, has collaborated with GRAMMY Award winners, and has taught music for over 20 years to everyone from his next-door neighbor to finalists on NBC's America's Got Talent. Through Pianist Academy, he now brings that wealth of knowledge to you: the beginner, the intermediate, the professional, or the fellow music teacher.
#chopin
#chopinnocturne
#chopinpiano
#pianistacademy
#charlesszczepanek

[@FrederickViner]

Simply stunning, Charles. You bring out so much subtle counterpoint in that expansive left hand, and paint a real fever dream in the middle section. A really moving and utterly original interpretation - bravo, my friend 👏

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks so much, Fred! I appreciate hearing the details that your very finely-tuned ear picks up on, and I also am grateful that you enjoy new interpretations of esteemed works. I feel it's difficult to be an artist with a "voice" today, because so many brilliant voices have been captured and recorded over the last nearly 100 years. It's difficult to be a listener and *not* compare a performance to "our favorite" or "x pianist," so thank you for your very open mind and ears. You approach all music as a current living and breathing thing, and it's obvious in the very thoughtful words you share!

[@rodrigolandaromero]

Such a beautiful, rich sound, contrasting a lot between layers. Thanks for uploading!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks for listening, Rodrigo!

[@serwoolsley]

beautifully played and beautifully recorded! i hope more and more can hear this

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks so much, Ser!

[@peterchan6082]

This is most definitely my favourite of all Chopin nocturnes

[@contributor7219]

One of our favourites, magnificently performed. Bravo!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thank you!!

[@nessieness5433]

Such relaxed hands!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thank you!

[@WSJade]

Words cannot express the inspiration you evoke. 🙏🏼 For me, it's played with feeling, and having heard the audio first, the visuals only further convey that. Chopin is not here...in a thoughtful and thorough performance like yours, I don't think it's really relevant to nitpick what some commenters think he may or may not have intended. As a composer yourself, I'm sure you'd agree he'd be proud and touched so many are keeping his legacy alive and offering their own valid interpretations along the way. 💕

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thank you so much! And yes, I agree as a composer... I'm thrilled when others enjoy my own music to the point of desiring to play it. Also, we know Chopin was a master improviser... it's very likely his own interpretations of his music varied considerably from day to day.

[@aBachwardsfellow]

@@PianistAcademy1 I most certainly agree! I find that I often play a piece with intentionally-varied nuances -- to the extent that it's almost like playing a completely different piece sometimes.

[@jessp9137]

So moving! Beautifully done. Thank you!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks for listening, Jess!

[@briandang5869]

Such nice piece and interpretation, id love to hear more chopin

[@thegreenpianist7683]

Stunning!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thank you!

[@kokoboko1441]

Hi man, Why I am waiting for op 27 nomber 2 , love it very much !

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thank you!

[@christopherzimmer]

Charles- hi! First, your response to Mr. Linux belongs in the “Textbook of Classy Responses”!! Epically “high-road” (of course!) response/explanation to- what I am choosing to believe was intended to be-constructive feedback. Second: just wanted to mention that the quality of the sound recording (previously: amazing ((of course!)) has taken a distinct step up in richness of tone and overall depth of bass/treble. Listening both on a SONOS Beam and a Bose Soundlink, I’m hearing sound quality that is at a whole new level of “yes!”!! This performance is a gift, Charles- we know that! And more than anything: thank you. 😊

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks, Christopher! Yes, I know "Mr. Linux" well enough to know it was intended as constructive feedback, but I also wanted to be sure that other readers of his comment would know that I have more than thoroughly thought through the interpretation I present :-). He wouldn't have "defended me" in one reply and simply bashed in another... communication between people is... interesting haha. I'm glad you're hearing the change in sound quality! I've only filmed a few videos (this is the first performance on this channel) since putting new hammers on my Kawai. That's the difference you are hearing... fresh, super high end Renner hammers today vs 23 year old stock Kawai hammers that had been practiced to death prior! Thanks for mentioning you enjoy the difference! I'm still getting a bit used to how dark they are in comparison to what I had for so long, but it's enjoyable and sounds like a much finer instrument than it used to.

[@Thedaniloza]

Excellent

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thank you, Daniel!

[@jasminethompson777]

OMG soooooo so good. I’m learning this song. You expertly performed this. ❤🎉

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks so much, Jasmine!

[@PianistAcademy1]

FYI, depending on how much extra learning about the piece you'd like to do, I have a course teaching the finer details of this one! You can find it here: pianist-academy.thinkific.com/courses/nocturne-op-27-no-1-masterclass

[@aBachwardsfellow]

Beautifully played! Nice to hear this one again -- I studied/played it in college. You played it almost exactly the same way I did! ;-) This is the piece that I cram-practiced for 18 hours one Saturday for an up-coming piano jury the following week ... And yes -- the new hammers and overall piano treatment is coming through *VERY* nicely!

[@PianistAcademy1]

And how did that cram session go?? I find that the musical cramming I could somewhat pull off at 20 years old just doesn't work anymore haha. First time I learned Rhapsody in Blue was for the finals of a competition I didn't expect to pass the semis of... my concerto round wasn't prepped at all. I had 3 days between semis and finals to learn, memorize, and rehearse it LOL.

[@aBachwardsfellow]

@@PianistAcademy1 well -- the cramming got me through the jury ok, but as with much crammed material, I cannot play it as well from memory as I can play other peices which were learned over a longer span of time - 😐

[@serwoolsley]

mmm I maybe tempted to start this piece and my teacher is not against it.. it's gonna be hard af i know it, following my teacher proposal i might start from the hardest part and see if in a month we get somewhere, otherwise i'll have to drop it for later, i'll definitely have a look at your masterclass, can't wait to start it, tomorrow the ekier version arrives!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Which Ekier did you purchase? There's the Chopin National Edition and also the Wiener Urtext... both are edited by him and are around 95% the same. A couple markings differ slightly. Let us know how it goes!

[@serwoolsley]

@@PianistAcademy1 the national edition

[@gus_cas]

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks for listening!

[@Bengraziano]

I’m working on this piece right now. The middle section is so difficult to play at tempo.

[@PianistAcademy1]

It's definitely a beast at tempo! I have a masterclass on this piece and you can watch the 20-minute free part of it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/kKbVaHeAlrOCb5o I hope you enjoy, and if you do, please consider the full class!

[@huruhooroo]

This C-sharp minor nocturne seems to be overperformed here on KZbin. I wish such a distinguished name like the PianistAcademy would venture out to interpret the underperformed nocturnes, such as Op 15 No 1 in F major. It's the ability to make them shine that makes someone the pianist's pianist.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks for the comment! Eventually, I will venture out into repertoire like that, but right now the channel is only a little over 2 years old and I'm focused on producing content of some of the most played repertoire to continue to build viewership. I resisted starting with Op. 9 No. 2, but this particular Nocturne (27/1) is one of my favorite pieces in all of the repertoire!

[@huruhooroo]

@@PianistAcademy1 That's great. Actually this one (27/1) is not a problem at all. I was thinking about the other C-sharp minor nocturne, which is No. 20 posthumous.

[@Janjan-vs9sg]

This is quite fantastic. Have thoroughly enjoyed listening to this revisited piece. Your live performance at Wheaton College was stunning and electrifying, especially 2:09 to the end. Here too just as great/memorable (more than comparable). The instrument and environment all contribute to the final/end result. Bruce Liu gave a very nice performance but lacked emotion.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thank you! And what a blast from the past with that Wheaton College performance!

[@JoeLinux2000]

The comment about Bruce Liu made me laugh. I've find him slightly vanilla myself, but I fully understand why he won the Chopin competition.

[@jowr2000]

Beautifully played. How's the first Ballade coming along? 😁

[@serwoolsley]

👀👀

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks! To be honest, I almost haven't had time to heavily practice anything "classical" since about April... I've been recording 3 to 6 of my original pieces for the PianoDisc library each week since then and that's taken up all of my practice time and then some. I just finished that huge project on Friday, but before I can really get back to piano solo work heavily, I have a handful of orchestrations I need to write for a release later this year. I really need to get those finished before the end of August so I can make the distribution deadline. I'm super grateful to have work as a professional musician, not just performing but also writing etc! But it sure does make finding practice time much more difficult haha.

[@jowr2000]

@@PianistAcademy1 to say your plate is full would be an understatement!

[@serwoolsley]

ehy charles, i've seen the relative parts in your masterclass and i haven't heard you talk about it, i'm seeing in the più mosso section, especially in the sempre più stretto but also a bit before, that you're not finger sustaining the right hand, i think you're doing this to allow your hand to be free and be able to keep the crescendo up ..now i'm sure my teacher will probably be against this, how does your way of performing this piece compare regarding other performances? is this a popular way of doing it? cause i really like the hammered feel i get from your playing, and need arguments to bring to my teacher lmao, also i'm pretty sure i won't be able to produce that much sound if i'm sustaining

[@PianistAcademy1]

Great question and the answer is both simple and complex. As you know from my streams, I’m not in favor of finger sustain when it’s not necessary. Teachers will differ on their approach to this as well. Teachers that I had that specialized in Bach and Beethoven were usually the ones that insisted that in all rep I physical hold pitches down. Teachers of mine who specialized in romantic and contemporary rep were usually in favor of releasing the fingers to accommodate other musical aspects. I personally view finger sustain as a necessary component only when the pedal cannot do the work for us. Hence, in the piu mosso here, at the beginning of the section less pedal is used and the notation itself is also different, hence I’ll use a bit more finger sustain. But after the opening I’ll go further and further away from that. Yes bits partially to accommodate the crescendo and it’s also, in my opinion, simply not necessary with the pedal we will employ. Attempting to hold will increase tension, allow less drop into the keys, and will have no positive impact on tone or legato. If you’re after a warmer tone with less crescendo, then perhaps… otherwise I’d always work with students to release and allow wrist to be free to increase ease of performing the crescendo as well as the repeated octaves. Let me know if you have other questions!

[@PianistAcademy1]

And one other note to always remember, notation is, at best, a mediocre representation of sound. It’s almost never a representation of the physical aspects of playing.

[@serwoolsley]

@@PianistAcademy1 yeah exactly as i thought, the tension doing the triplets with finger sustain at that increasing tempo would be too much for sure. Thanks 🙏

[@serwoolsley]

i'm just reaching the end of the B section and i have to say something about the "con anima" part, responding to the video in your masterclass: there is no arguing about the italian expression "con anima" that means "with soul", you can find parts of a masterclass about this piece with seymour bernstein here on youtube, where he says that most pianist wrongly interpret that section as "spirited" where in reality it should be "with soul" and he plays it much more calmly and with love, the meaning of the expression is there but i have to disagree with seymour this time, i can't seem to enjoy AT ALL that section played "with soul", i'm much more lenient to the expressive way you and most other pianists play it

[@PianistAcademy1]

Love this, Serwoolsley! Great job thinking and listening for yourself! Lisitsa is probably the only other example I'm aware of who interprets that section as "with soul" instead of "spirited." And I don't like her performance either. If the compositional material itself were different, I might be inclined to give "with soul" another try, but the notes Chopin wrote are very much in the dance-style of the Mazurka, so I think the more typical "animated" and "spirited" definition of con anima is much more fitting.

[@JoeLinux2000]

This one seems too tenuous to me in the opening. Are you using the soft pedal? If you are not, I think you should. It becomes very difficult to control an acoustic piano at extremely low volume levels. The other problem with this piece is it can sound muddy in places. I've never played it, but it seems pedaling is critical. It is easy to over do it. This actually may be one of the very most difficult Nocturnes. Ivan Moravec: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bqOlYmyOi7WejJo Ivan's classic recording: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r3m9lH6eq6hkd9E possibly digitally processed to a lower volume level. In general his melody is more unified. This is the definitive performance in my mind.

[@JoeLinux2000]

I think you should record this again in a year or so after playing it every day.

[@PianistAcademy1]

The choices here are all very purposeful, and I’ve performed the piece for around 20 years. I really don’t care for performances that are very straight and clean. To me, this Nocturne should evoke mystery, almost a fog-like quality, and the melody line should be inflected like a vocalist, and vocalists would never sing perfectly on the beat, beat after beat after beat. My visual that I try to represent in the opening is a siren, singing on a black night to no one in particular… her song of grief wafting to and fro, changing with the undulation of the water. I specifically choose not to soft pedal the opening so that I have it available for the echo in the melody around bar 14. I’d be curious to hear what you think of Bruce Liu’s interpretation. His is my absolute favorite that I’ve ever heard.

[@JoeLinux2000]

@@PianistAcademy1 I believe Bruce Liu is the most recent winner of the Chopin Competition. Obviously he has credentials. I just find the way you are playing this composition is slightly too timid and tentative. You are correct in stating a musical performance can be too perfect. When that's the case a performance can lose excitement. It's better to the have the feeling of someone walking a high wire that could fall off at any moment, but miraculously pulls it off without mishap. I think if you try the softer passages using the soft pedal it would be easier to deliver a more convincing final product. I will try to find a Liu performance. I fully acknowledge that I'm nowhere near the pianist you are, but I do have enough performance experience to understand how difficult it can be to reach an audience. As an aside I recently attended the Master Class at Schmitt's in Denver presented by Andreas Klein, where he coached 3 excellent young players. To predict the future, I think you are going to perform your own stylized version of this Nocturne. If that turns out to be the case, I'll be very interested to hear how well you pull it off. I'm a paying fan of your compositions, having purchased several. BRUCE (XIAOYU) LIU - Nocturne in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 1 (18th Chopin Competition, first stage) kzbin.info/www/bejne/hZ3aepuAg8h5jJY Looking at the position of his legs and feet in this video It appears he does have his left foot on the soft pedal during the opening. In the louder portions, he clearly does not, and it's unclear in the 2nd softer section. I really like the way he plays the louder portion. I'm sure the full sized Fazioli grand helps. What's nice about his playing is there is a feeling of complete clarity. This is true in the softer portions as well where there is no feeling of uncertainty or weakness.

[@antoniomaccagnan7200]

@@PianistAcademy1 Underneath the glasses and the scholarly appearance lies a subversive personality ahah. Bravo for going for your own interpretation. Nobody pleases everybody anyway. Hell, I just listened to Emil Giles--no less--playing Chopin 1st Piano Concert and didn't like it. Am I wrong? Of course not!

[@JoeLinux2000]

@@PianistAcademy1Bruce Liu Recital: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jobaontqrZ6fabM

[@antoniomaccagnan7200]

Perhaps not as good as my Misty, but still an accomplished, soulful, and poignant performance. I'd daresay say Pollinian, but I wouldn't want you to take umbrage. :D

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks, Antonio! You might change your mind about the Pollianian comment once I release another video I've filmed about this piece ;-). I'm trying to get some of the recordings I used cleared because of copyright issues so... fingers crossed!

[@antoniomaccagnan7200]

@@PianistAcademy1 I look forward to see where your musical journey will take us. By the way, congratulations for the always tasteful setting. I loved the dinky warmly highlighting the plate and providing a visual counterpoint to the purple background. The devil is in the details.

[@pod054321]

Chopin, minus the humanity

[@JoeLinux2000]

Not sure what you mean by this comment.

[@christopherzimmer]

⬆️ ummm…sorry: no. As in: you are simply flat-out wrong. And when I say “wrong”, I mean: not just a little bit, but “very”. Very very very wrong. And I might add: reckless, singularly unhelpful, and unnecessarily hurtful. I wish I could somehow spray paint over your words to cover them up because it really aches to read them.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Chris, I somehow just this morning saw your reply to this, thank you!