Prelude in E Minor: How Chopin Baffled Critics

0:00 Introduction with Loki.
0:28 Chopin and the advance of harmonic vocabulary
1:10 The Preludes, Chopin and George Sand
1:31 Chopin and improvisation
2:27 Improvisation and composition, a historical perspective.
3:07 The structure and key relationships of the Preludes
3:31 Simplicity and complexity
4:01 A huge compendium of Chopin’s virtuosity
4:20 A comparison with James Joyce
5:51 The E minor is a Lament
5:13 Dido’s Lament by Purcell.
5:54 The Passus Duriusculus
6:35 Bach’s Crucifixus
7:29 Beethoven’s 9th Symphony
8:29 Chopin’s lament breaks with tradition
10:03 The pedal note and the sigh
11:20 The chromatic descent in 3 parts
13:05 Chopin’s magical harmony
14:51 The first half: more and more poignant
17:16 The second half: faster and more turbulent
20:33 Contemporary criticisms of Chopin in the London Press in the 1840s
23:16 Chopin, the radical: new vistas, new colours, new harmonic possibilities.
24:17 Chopin’s E min or Prelude (with animated commentary)
This video is an introduction to Chopin’s Prelude in E minor: the quintessential Romantic lament, popular among virtuoso pianists and amateur players alike. Composed in the late 1830s, Chopin discovered new, unexplored harmonic possibilities in this apparently simple music, creating a wonderfully concise and poetic depiction of melancholy in just two ’sentences’: each one consisting of a sighing melody of fixed notes in the right hand over subtly shifting chords in the left hand. As it progresses in long, descending chromatic lines (in all 3 parts) from tonic to dominant, the music gives rise to a rich and labyrinthine pathway of magically coloured harmonies.
Apologies for the slightly fuzzy resolution on this video. Matthew had the camera on the wrong setting!
Chopin Prelude in E minor Op 28 no. 4.
Pianist: Matthew King.
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Alfred Cortot’s wonderfully evocative, almost improvisatory 1933 recording can be heard here: • Alfred Cortot, Chopin ...
Blechacz's recording of the complete Op.28 preludes can be heard here: • Chopin: 24 Preludes, O...
#Chopin #EminorPrelude #The MusicProfessor

[@themusicprofessor]

Just a general comment about tempo since quite a few comments have brought this up: Chopin's cut-time metre would suggest (beyond question really) that the tempo is quicker than the performance tradition suggests. I suspect that Chopin played quite a few of his pieces faster than the subsequent performance tradition (and this is true of almost every composer because the romanticism of the performance tradition tends to slow everything down as performers become more indulgent with the material). And even when you hear a composer perform their own work (Rachmaninov is a wonderful example) you're often surprised by the tempo and by the interpretation! So it's very important to remember that you simply can be over-fundamentalist about tempo. It doesn't work that way. There are no definitive tempi and there are no absolute ultimate performances. Music is much too fluid, and it can't be boxed in like that. Anyone who says 'this is the only tempo' is fundamentally wrong!. You can be convinced by one performance and equally convinced by another performance at half the speed, and Leonard Bernstein's famously slow performances of various pieces demonstrate that, FOR HIM, it worked that way, and that's fine, and its convincing but it doesn't have to be played that way. Glenn Gould had some interesting choices, and some of them are really very close to unlistenable (in my opinion) but I think he had every right to try it out that way!

[@guitarcoyote]

Your tempo discussion reminds me of the jazz standard Lil Darlin by Neal Hefti for the Count Basie Orchestra. Played too fast, it doesn’t work. Count Basie envisioned it at a medium tempo they say, but not a slow ballad. Seems tempo is as important as the notes themselves. All the best-Cheers.

[@jaydenfung1]

This really is one of the most common misconceptions. Every time I scroll down to the comment section of any classical music video, there is a pedantic troll who certainly knows the one way to interpret something-too fast and too quiet/loud amongst the frequent complaints. "Bach would never have done that!" How do you know, "SpoiledPotato078"? There are conventions that we should probably follow; it's not as though Chopin writes a D and we should feel free to play an E on a whim. But when people see "larghetto", they shouldn't think "within this BPM range". That's insane! Tempo is perhaps more an indication of how the time will make us feel, or maybe better, the way it will feel will influence the time. More ironic is when someone confidently states the tempo it has to be when the composer's recording is available...and contradicts them. Your choices in interpretation are clearly made with taste and knowledge together. If how you play is controversial, I feel confident knowing it was done with purpose. "Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist" is something I've taken to heart with music-or life in general, I suppose. Please keep doing what you're doing, Matthew King and Ian Coulter!

[@edwardleonard5350]

I like chromatic decent because of Chopin that I wrote this to play all 88 keys on piano. Hope you find it interesting. kzbin.info/www/bejne/ioHVnn5jqLdnnJYsi=Fzf6rtLgaIf-OK8m

[@themusicprofessor]

@@jaydenfung1 Thank you for your kind and supportive comment.

[@jaydenfung1]

@@themusicprofessor Of course! I love what you two (or three, counting Loki!) are doing.

[@pugsnhogz]

Sir, you have that ineffable quality all great teachers possess: to simultaneously make whatever you're explaining sound simple and intuitive, and also completely magical. I tip my hat.

[@themusicprofessor]

Thank you!

[@alanpotter8680]

@@themusicprofessor I fully agree.

[@themusicprofessor]

@@kinorspielmann4649Everything okay?

[@pugsnhogz]

@@kinorspielmann4649 for me it's not pretentious, just an indicator of respect. pretty standard in the culture i grew up with. maybe yours is different! that's ok too.

[@themusicprofessor]

It's not pretentious. It's nice.

[@VoicesofMusic]

"Hats Off, Gentlemen - A Genius:" a contemporaneous review by another genius, Robert Schumann.

[@sculptystudios4557]

love your vids!

[@VoicesofMusic]

@@sculptystudios4557 awww tx

[@DomFileoreum]

OMG IT IS MY FAVOURITE EARLY MUSIC EMSEMBLE HERE

[@williammcgreal4366]

Loved this presentation. I find it surprising that we did not highlight the fact that nowhere in the prelude did the e minor chord show itself in root position until the very last chord! But there were so many, many delicious points of musical brilliance that this observation does not detract from the great journey you afforded us. What a great marriage of music analysis, social context and emotional sensitivity. I am a new fan. Thank you.

[@ericmorris9477]

I remember when i first got a handle on functional harmony and went on a binge figuring out music and thinking the e minor prelude would be an easy piece to start with Chopin. Five minutes later I got frustrated and didn't have the nerve to analyze Chopin again for a couple of years. Definitely worth the work though.

[@ALF8892]

I analyzed it as him moving one voice chromatically mostly

[@NichtWunderkind]

18 & 19th century composers can't be analyzed with 20th century analysis. They learned music through pattern recognition and improvisatuon not "theory" like today that they give you a textbook and thats it. If you try with modern analysis, you are just going to waste your time because thats something that was invented for university students and for scholars to live off scholarships.

[@yoavshati]

The problem is that you have to ignore a lot of chromatic passing chords between the chords that are actually functional

[@kzeich]

Hahaha same experience here

[@pugsnhogz]

sh!t y'all are gangsta i'd settle for just playing it

[@singmysong4444]

I had a class at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois in 1965 that dissected Classical Music in much this way and as I look back on all my classes from there to UCLA Masters program in theater... that class was one of my favorite classes of my college life. It took the emotions evoked by music and attempted to make sense of that amazing art. But alas... I was pushed by my father to shy away from music and study business and accounting... I unfortunately pulled away from that class in which I was getting all "A"s... Now a lifetime later I wonder what might have happened if I had had the courage at that time to follow my love of music and stay in that class and yes, even Major in that field... I wonder where my life would have taken me. Later...I moved to LA... toured with Ike and Tina Turner with me playing sax... and just by chance bought a house and lived next door to Herbie Hancock for 19 years...and even had him perform on a song that I had written, "Tennessee Hitman" and later perform with another song I'd written with my Sister singing... "When Night Turns Blue"... and yet I still wonder what might have happened if I'd continued that path which is suggested in this amazing Study by "The Music Professor" and his very cool pup nearby. I drink a nice Chardonnay and listen to this very amazing dissection of a heavenly piece by this brilliant man... and wonder... and here even at this late point in my life is the "lament"... and I suppose a chance to attempt a 2024 composition of a lament using these secret Codes of that Masterful Chopin... who knows?

[@collinbeal]

That's a lot of whiplash for me, as I haven't heard Bradley University ever mentioned online before. I grew up in Chillicothe, some 15-20 miles from Peoria.

[@dojokonojo]

Chopin: Guess you guys aren't ready for that yet... but your kids are gonna love it

[@edgarsnake2857]

As a rock and pop musician who loves Chopin, I can only express appreciation and gratitude for the depth you have added to my understanding of the composer and his musical process via this wonderful analysis of this beautiful prelude. Thanks.

[@themusicprofessor]

Thank you!

[@BassGoBomb]

Me too .. although I learned classical music (clarinet, piano) then jazz guitar .. Yeah, master of none .. lol

[@MrDmorelli]

About that "blue note" in the middle of the piece: it's what in jazz is called "augmented harmony", where a dominant chord has both the major and the minor third at the same time (traditionally written augmented 9th, but it usually comes at the same time as the minor 9th, so it's not really a 9th in my opinion). I was quite astonished when I realised this for the first time. Listening for it carefully throughout history you can find it often as a device for "extreme sorrow", for example at the beginning of Mozart's Lacrimosa

[@donach9]

Yes, I think the Hendrix/Taxman chord, normally called the 7#9, should be called the 7m10. It's a minor 10th, not any kind of 9th

[@carterthaxton]

That phrase does have both the #9 and the b9. In that sense, the “D” should really be notated as a “C##”, then followed by C natural. A bit clunky to read, of course. It’s similar to the point made about how Bb should be an augmented sixth, i.e. notated as A#.

[@TavisAllen]

​@@donach9I, too, came to offer up the "Hendrix" chord. I'm glad you did first, as I can't recall (or at least not frequently enough to stick) it being named 7m10. To me, this defines (duh) too strictly the tonality of that note, which really only "works" when it's the top voice. I feel it doesn't give a 🤬 about resolving. Besides, 7#9 reads as being more "edgy", which this chord certainly is! That's my take; I'd be interested to read whatever else you (or anyone else) have to say on this.

[@mal2ksc]

Those are almost always some form of "sixth" chord, whether that's German, French, Italian, or otherwise. "Altered dominant" is a catch-all concept that envelops all of them.

[@MrDmorelli]

@@mal2ksc mmm... but augmented sixth chords have predominant function, and altered dominant has dominant function. The way I functionally "explain" altered harmony is that it maximises the tension by keeping the leading tones and altering pretty much everything else, creating a lot of tension. In jazz altered harmony is used as a device to safely play "outside"

[@Cre8tvMG]

You remind me of some of my favorite professors when I was a music major. Wonderful enthusiasm and knowledge combined.

[@xdcountry]

This piece, for myself at least, probably others too, emotionally jacks into my psyche unlike other works that need to pass through other gates or perception checks. It takes the fast lane to my heart every time no matter what state I’m in.

[@rezzer7918]

Huh? LOL

[@Bethi4WFH]

xdcountry. Me too. Chopin is my favourite composer, and this composition, in particular, I find very moving.

[@trafyknits9222]

As a youngster taking years of classical piano lessons, I loved Chopin's nocturns. They were hard to play with small hands, but worth the work. Chopin knew how to challenge any pianist's skill level; many times leaving us defeated.

[@mikesmovingimages]

@@kinorspielmann4649 Stop. Just stop.

[@nezkeys79]

One of the best pieces of music ever written tbh Proof it doesn't need to be incredibly virtuosic

[@observethemfdynamic]

There are so many music theory people on YT that seem to miss the point in their videos. The context of the music in its own time as well as its place in history, and not only what harmony is happening, but the much more important question of why it matters. You do a great job at this! Reminds me of being in the classroom with a passionate educator when I was in music school.

[@RobBrogan]

Played this piece for over 20 years and seeing it in a new light is such a thrill.

[@Cre8tvMG]

There are amazing Chopin passages that we will never hear because they weren't transcribed. Makes me think of Keith Jarret's greatest performances and what a tragedy if they hadn't been recorded.

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

Or worse, ordered destroyed by Chopin himself. All of the posthumous waltzes are gone save for the first few bars of each of them transcribed by someone close to Chopin and the Fantasie-Impromptu nearly got the same treatment had not for Julian Fontana disobeying Chopin's dying wish to have it destroyed...

[@Jantango]

I practiced this prelude when I studied during my teenage years. Playing the correct notes took lots of practice. Now in my senior years I appreciate the analysis of Chopin's genius. I wish I had a piano to practice Chopin again.

[@colinadevivero]

You were born to teach. I’ve played this piece for 40 years and I’ve always wondered about the source of its power. No ever managed to explain it until you did. Thank you. Please keep up the good work.

[@jhonwask]

If I was a reviewer 200 years ago, Chopin's preludes would have amazed me. He would have glowing reviews from me. The e minor prelude is my favourite of all of them.

[@carbonmonoxide5052]

My favorite thing to do when playing Chopin is to improvise but it doesn’t seem like anyone else does this even though it’s in keeping with the spirit of the music.

[@themusicprofessor]

It really is in the spirit of the music!

[@jeffrogers210]

Every musician should improvise! Too few classical musicians "dare" to, dooming them to being musical typists.

[@a.nobodys.nobody]

It's just you

[@pugsnhogz]

@@jeffrogers210 "musical typists" is surely a gross oversimplification, but I will take the spirit of your comment despite the hyperbole

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

It's an eternal debate between musical "purity" or playing it as what the composer would do. If I understand Chopin correctly, his pieces are very easy to play badly and difficult to play perfectly so it makes sense that many schools and teachers opt to teach students how to play Chopin as written in the score...

[@anatomicallymodernhuman5175]

Marvelous. I wonder if sounded like noise to them partly because of the way pianos were tuned then? It wasn’t quite equal temperament yet, because that’s almost impossible to achieve without electronic help. On the mainland, I believe Valotti tuning was in fashion at the time? But in England, the piano may well have been in an earlier tuning that was a bit further from equal, causing some of the chromaticism to be more dissonant than it is for us. Especially, certain perfect fifths may have been, not quite wolf fifths, but impure enough to interfere with chord function in such a highly chromatic work. Years ago, I recorded an orchestra in Tomsk, Russia. There was only one piano tuner in town, and he showed up with a 440 tuning fork and a tuning wrench. He started with the As and worked outward in pure Pythagorean fifths, leaving a wolf of 22 cents between the D# and the Bb. Some of the pieces we wanted to record were simply unplayable.

[@BassGoBomb]

Interesting, and, I believe, salient point.

[@mikesmovingimages]

Interesting observation. In those days keyboardists had to tune their own pianos - the instruments could not hold a tuning like today's instruments. Constant tuning was required. It is likely the English heard the pieces while Chopin himself was sojourning there, perhaps even with the composer at the piano. I don't recall tuning systems ever being an issue in Chopin's biography and thought, but I have not read every last one of his letters, either! If it had an impact on his music, good or bad, he cannot have been oblivious to it, and if performed in his presence or by him personally, I would think he would have done something to mitigate it. Or maybe we are hearing the pieces today with LESS dissonance than he intended, and the impact the piece had on that critic is exactly what he wanted. Wouldn't that be wild! That is certainly the case with some earlier composers, especially in the Baroque and early classical, who used the increasing dissonance of unrelated keys to create tension in their keyboard works (JS & CPE Bach, Mozart, maybe even Beethoven).

[@johannesbrahms1655]

9:32 I don’t know if this counts since it’s a V6 but the Beethoven Sonata in D minor Op. 31, No. 2 starts off with a A major chord with the C# in the bass.

[@jubb1984]

There is something with this composition that makes perfect sense to me, and it couldn't have been composed any other way, much like a lot of Chopins music. This must be as you say, his music being so intervowen into the lives of people in the west that we don't recognize it in the same way, as when it came out. Thank you for this in-depth lesson about one of the things i love.

[@davidhowe6905]

I remember this being played by Jack Nicholson's character in 'Five easy pieces'. I must listen to more Chopin, a composer I've neglected for too long.

[@CloudCoderChap]

Oh man I wish I could discover Chopins brilliance again for the first time. So emotive.

[@tomlabooks3263]

It takes a peculiar kind of “genius” to deliver a lecture like this. Congratulations and thank you.

[@themusicprofessor]

High praise! Thank you!

[@PwnySlaystation01]

Re: Improvisation and notation... We're really lucky to have the tools today that we have... I'd love to go back in time and give Chopin a recording/playback device

[@Chrismacleod777]

What a beautiful piece! Chopin reminds me of Bach! He sounds rhapsodic but is extremely disciplined in choosing harmonies! Thanks for posting! 😻🌹🦋🤡🎹🎶🍀💐🍁🎈🌺🥰😀👍

[@mavtheo]

I was very pleased with this presentation of yours. I am a composer but not a pianist, but beauty of this piece, forced me managed to play it. I am speaking literally when i am saying that the beauty forcing me playing It. It is not the technique that allow me to play it, because i do not have any kind of technique (i never was on a music school or had a piano teacher). The unbelievable beauty of Chopin's music in this piece force me to find the right movements on my hands, in order my ears listen the beauty. It is a kind of a miracle...

[@acousticarchivefortwayne930]

The way you illuminate the concepts in this piece of music is simply fascinating. Your use of the score inset while playing and the music theory associated with each measure is so well explained that even an amateur like me can begin to grasp the true depths being explored by Chopin. I love descending bass lines and the transitions they create in music. Thank you so much for your presentation.

[@themusicprofessor]

Thank you!

[@liul]

It's a great piece, because it's technically easy for children or beginners in general, who can then focus in the interpretation

[@puffballbk2186]

Also because it sounds good

[@pigslam]

the visualizations you use for the score are amazing. simple, yet so effective and informative. you are an amazing teacher.

[@jazzrat2000]

As a retired college music theory teacher of 35 years, let me say this is just marvelous. Love to see your harmonic analysis of the Crucifixus and about ten other pieces I loved to look at when I was teaching. Another is the Erlkonig...

[@theironherder]

An excellent analysis which is quite complementary to Benjamin Zander's equally excellent analysis on a TED video on YT.

[@philippajoy4300]

Interesting reference to historical expectations and the contemporary reviews. I've played this for 45 years - I felt the emotive qualities and form - everything you describe - "intuitively" at the age of ten - remarkable how our historical context changes what our ear is prepared to accept.

[@Snardbafulator]

As a 20th-century music fan, I like how you framed this historically, how challenging to sensibilities were all those seconds banging together, although the harmony is all perfectly functional. And this is how dissonance begins to slip its bonds ...

[@user-oy3rb6bt4f]

The historical reviews were apparently read from Nicolas Slonimsky’s fabulous book (one of many), “Lexicon of Musical Invective - Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven’s Time", available in paperback from W. W. Norton & Company. Highly recommended, especially to anyone who ever got a negative review. Until you have been raked over the coals, you have not walked among the great ones.

[@RichardStClair-bo4ns]

Very nice discussion. I've played the piece since I was a teen some 60 years ago. The professor has done an admirable and at the same time engaging job of conveying the subtleties of the e minor prelude but comparing it to the chromatics of earlier composers, Purcell and Bach. Applause.

[@JesseDavis7373]

I love the way you have analyzed this prelude in E minor! The information is so much more than just music history and harmonic analysis!

[@alhfgsp]

With the final e minor chord, almost never has tonic resolution felt so deserved.

[@MartinVanBoven]

Agree! With all the preparation towards that moment, the effect is immense. It is the last chord, but it is the first and only moment in the whole peace where you get to emotionally rest.

[@racine09]

This tune was used as a basis for the Bossa classic "How Insensitive " (Insensatez ) by Jobim . Very good presentation - I like the Revolver T shirt !

[@rocketpost1]

I've always loved Chopin's music and your explanation here was just enthralling. I've never watched your channel before but I knew all would be good as soon as I saw your Revolver T-shirt. Thanks.

[@PleaseNThankYou]

In my mind, I contract beautiful and complex pieces. When I sit down at the piano, I screw up Chopsticks. Thank you for entertaining me with your abundant knowledge and superb delivery. 🎉

[@nintendianajones64]

"Chopin is the greatest of them all, for with the piano alone he discovered everything." - Claude Debussy

[@StringPlayerGamerOfficial]

Brilliant analysis! The lament is legendary and Chopin is THE BOSS. Really interesting perspective to know that music critics at his time did not view his music positively and that artistic chromaticism is seen as excessive. Just a funny thing to know. Just another proof that critics really don't know what they're saying.

[@talamioros]

What I enjoyed most about your exposition as a pianist was how you were able to just SKETCH out pieces with like top note and bottom note and/or points of interest where relevant, just the artistry of a pencil line without needing full shading etc

[@georgio2]

Such an easy piece to play BADLY. I memorised it really quickly only to be told by my tutor to find a modicum of expression. I must have sounded like an errant robot. After 40 or more years I'm still not confident. Great lesson. I love the spontaneous feel with your delivery. Many thanks.

[@bigol7169]

A masterful analysis. Your ability to describe music with language is rare (being a futile pursuit). Thank you!

[@AndrewWilsonStooshie]

The best short description of this piece I've heard is the B want's to get back "home" to the E but the C wants to stop it.

[@Arycke]

16:19 that #9 is great. Chopin was a jazzer. Great video, sir. A great video you would like is Nahre Sol's video "Is Chopin Jazz?" Chopin was an amazing composer and improviser.

[@postmodernrecycler]

So much jazz! The B minor scherzo, in the middle section in A major, is uncanny as a jazz piece 100+ years ahead of its time.

[@briseboy]

"Jazz" happens to be a colloquial early 20th c. word meaning to have sex with. I never had the heart to tell my sister that, when she says " he [or it] jazzed me!" because the action really does inspire positive valence, emotional creativity.

[@postmodernrecycler]

@@briseboy Yikes, now I have to quit saying "I'm jazzed" about something! 😆

[@Arycke]

@@postmodernrecycler for real!

[@Arycke]

@@briseboy maybe that's why some of the artists didn't like the name "jazz." RIP haha

[@waywardtycoon]

The musical 'expose' here is very well done! This Chopin prelude fascinated me as a teenager studying piano many years ago. It brings back to vivid memory the struggle I had with it harmonically trying to figure out the magic behind it's emotional impact. Thanks for downloading.

[@briseboy]

He did upload. To download is to extract it FROM internet for your sustained personal use

[@ValentinKovshikMusic]

I was working on my arrangement of the prelude and here is your video :) Just in time. Thank you for the interesting video! I had no idea that Chopin was criticized like that.

[@dragnflei]

Wow, this was fantastic! E minor is my favorite key. I played this piece years ago and loved it but you’ve really helped me understand so much more about *why* I loved it.

[@bonuebonue]

Excellent lesson!!! I agreed on all what you said, and learned a lot new things too!! Chopin is for me, together with Bach and Debussy the most incredible and wonderful composer! Thank you! (and I immediately subscribed!)

[@themusicprofessor]

Thank you. Welcome to the channel!

[@clavichord]

Mastering these preludes is definitely on my chopinliszt

[@moistmike4150]

Simultaneously LULZ! and also, Oof!

[@user-qb1sm3rk9r]

I made a liszt too but I can't find it, where's it haydn? In the words of Arnold Schwarznenegger "I'll be bach"

[@clavichord]

@@user-qb1sm3rk9r I really can't Händel all those puns.

[@user-qb1sm3rk9r]

@@clavichord I'm sorry. Have you been under a lot of strauss lately? If so did you want to tallis about it? Or are you too bizet?

[@clavichord]

@@user-qb1sm3rk9r I read your comment just as I was about to catch Debussy 😁

[@pillettadoinswartsh4974]

First time I heard jazz in a European composer's music, was Chopin.

[@cucamongaphilips]

I watched the movie "Impromptu" in the theater and fell completely in love with his music.

[@TheQuickBrownFoxTV]

This was fantastic. Wow. I’d forgotten I played this once upon a time.

[@pianodancebandkentcounty]

Fantastic video! The late Bill Evans, jazz pianist, has been called "the Chopin of Jazz." In studying Evan's approach to harmony, I've noticed that this idea of progressively altering the left-hand chords by single semi-tones (in any one of the voices, as you describe here), was a common thing for Evans. When used, this drives the harmony in a direction that often defies the classical chord progressions that focus on the circle of fifths (functional harmony), as with Bach, et al. (However, Bach himself did things like Prelude No. 1 from Well-Tempered Clavier, which seems to focus on "changing shapes," more than a standard chord progression). You will often see transcriptions of Evan's music that try to fit his harmonic language into classical harmonic movement, and you feel the transcriber struggling to do that (in the chord names on the chart). I think that chromatically descending voicings almost needs its own descriptive language, outside of the I, VI, IV, V, etc, realm. Slash chords, such as Em/G, work pretty well here.

[@themusicprofessor]

Yes, Bill Evans was a marvellous musician!

[@tymime]

Imagine if Chopin had been able to record his improv onto tape or something

[@themusicprofessor]

That would indeed be something!

[@lettersquash]

Except it's a common experience that starting to record can inhibit the improvisation (that's my excuse, anyway).

[@donach9]

​@@lettersquashthing is your can keep it recording constantly, especially with modern digital techniques. Most DAWs have a feature where they can be constantly recording the last however many minutes and so you can improvise and once you've done something good, grab it before it gets overwritten

[@fletcherejames1]

Look for a set of recordings named "Pupils of Clara Schumann." The recordings were made around 1951. The pianists were nearing their 80''s, and had studied with Clara Schumann during their teen years, in the 1890's. She taught them how to play in the true tradition of Schumann and Chopin. The approach to interpretation & technique is a revelation.

[@lettersquash]

@@donach9 Yeah, I just mean that if I know it's recording, I don't improvise as well. So there might not be bits to grab at all. But this is a good idea, and the more I record, the more used to it I get. Cheers.

[@stevehinnenkamp5625]

An intelligent, inviting introduction to Chopin. Thank you, sir, your passion is quite contagious !

[@Iceland874]

Ha! I love the London review. This video is marvelous and full of so much fascinating information and analysis. My piano teacher studied with Alicia de Laroccha and my favorite composers for piano all wrote 10ths. So he had me doing stretching exercises and never said no to my choosing Chopin or Rachmaninoff for recitals. I enjoyed your video today immensely!.

[@themusicprofessor]

Thank you. Alicia de Laroccha is one of my favourite pianists of all!

[@NeilBarham1]

I love your analysis of this piece! I would really like to see you do a comparison and contrast between the compositional techniques and styles of Chopin and Rachmaninoff.

[@Kinda___Happy]

Wow the algorithm is on point, so fun to hear you explain and analyze 🙏

[@themusicprofessor]

Thank you!

[@ganazby]

A most enjoyable analysis, presented with infectious enthusiasm for this superb piece of music. Thank you!

[@juliao8428]

I'm in tears. This is a wonderful, wonderful presentation. Thank you so much.

[@Jim1971a]

Too bad he didn’t have the technology to record his improvisations.

[@SpaceMalakhi]

Music Professor, I love you. Very informational channel, the analysis are always great, full of history and anecdotes and easy to follow. Much love to Loki

[@themusicprofessor]

Thank you! And Loki says thank you too.

[@davidgalemusic7447]

Very nice presentation. Now it's time for the A minor prelude. In my opinion one of the most unusual pieces of the 19th century.

[@themusicprofessor]

Several people have requested it.

[@zdzislawmeglicki2262]

Chopin experimented ceaselessly. The harmonic and melodic complexity of his music was "unimaginable," meaning that it could not be just conceived in the mind then written down on paper as Bach and Mozart did. Chopin had to have an instrument in front of him upon which these novel, unusual harmonies could be tested. At the same time he always strove for beauty and elegance without compromise. This explains his relatively small output and almost exclusive focus on piano music. From his letters we know how hard it was for him to compose his cello sonata, doubtless because his ability to improvise, experiment, and test was limited in this case of two instruments engaged in a complex dialogue.

[@briseboy]

Such a great insight! Chopin was famed , playing for friends in salon, for beginning a piece, with all its drama, then segueing into hilarious improvisations. Impulsive creativity is a hallmark of active minds, which are called "genius" (itself a word originally meaning the "spirit" that inhabits an infant guiding an individual to learn and fulfill. The wprd "gene" was chosen due to that ancient latin meaning, and you see generate and generativity. No matter that brutish culture, parents , attempt to suppress, we are each infused with creativity. This is the evolved nature of all organisms, as it creates the ability to adapt to any new, unknown, habitat or world of experience. It's through the magic of Chopin and the unbound, that we gain inspiation - breath, eexuberance, life.)

[@lucastornado9496]

as someone who improvises a LOT (probably too much) I can confirm that when I write down what I improvise it is often less enigmatic than the original improvisation, and it is a memory issue. I find actually recording my improvisations to write down later works much better 😆

[@AndrewWilsonStooshie]

He starts on complete uncertainty (5th in the treble and 1st position chord) and ends on complete certainty (with the added lower octave tonic) but makes the journey so convoluted and rich that the final chord, very strongly, has that "arriving home" feeling, so much so that it takes the breath away when it finally happens.

[@nezkeys79]

The end is so final 😢 I wonder what the piece was inspired by. Death?

[@Jhymnbeau]

It is comforting to know that others we're as confused by how to receive this piece as I.

[@jakeredshade]

Suberb descriptions of the physics of note interplay - Thank you!

[@YoshiNishio]

Chopin loved 3rd for major and 5th for minor starting notes.

[@davefaulks]

For a first viewing of this channel, I was enthralled by the analysis! Chopin is one of my favourite composers, and I never tire of his music. I'll be back..!

[@2Hot2]

Great job making me wince at the dissonances I had become used to by force of habit. I kept imagining some half-frozen Napoleonic soldier stumbling (half-way?) home in the retreat from Moscow, leaving bloody footsteps in the snow.

[@spicken]

Wonderful, it seems incomprehensible that it wasn't much liked at the time. Now, it sounds quite natural, all the notes in a perfect place.

[@themusicprofessor]

That's a recurring pattern in music history!

[@rikk319]

@@themusicprofessor In art history...heck, history in general. Visionaries tend to be derided in their own times.

[@pugsnhogz]

@@rikk319 we fear that which we do not understand... or at least, we write rude reviews of it lol

[@topquark22]

Thank you for this wonderfully explanatory exposition of this Chopin work. Classical music is so much more enjoyable when it's explained, as to its context, meaning and emotions.

[@paulkoop7042]

Wonderful analogy with Ulysses.

[@callmeal3017]

Thank you for the great analysis! This piece in brief explains Chopin as grandad of jazz. That flat 3rd over dominant 7 chord is simply blues,but that "excessive" harmony informs other jazz forms. (McCoy Tyner has recorded this prelude as a bossa nova) and Jobim's Insensatez parallels this prelude almost too closely.

[@quistunes]

I'm thrilled YT recommended this video. LOVE this musical analyses! Thanks! Subscribed.

[@ALF8892]

Great job, you had two great moments in the video. I watch all KZbin analysis of Prelude in E minor.

[@It9LpBFS37]

I LOVE this. This is the type of content I could listen for days on end!

[@willo7734]

I’m really glad I found your channel. Love the discussion so far!

[@lisaharvey9940]

An artistical non- entity like Chopin😮😅😅😅! These people! If only they knew how the world LOVES CHOPIN today..and this piece is FANTASTIC!

[@LL-bl8hd]

I love hearing the old reviews!

[@Acoustic-Rabbit-Hole]

Keep in mind, also, the key of E-minor lends itself to the tragic tone of "struggle" in this prelude. This mood, in fact this very composition would not have happened in another key. Mabye B-minor, but even that key would have changed the mood entirely. I always thought of the E-note as yellow, and also triangle in shape. I later realized this makes sense because E has a very bright, flashy, but also temporary sound to it; It's the note that doesn't fade-out. E hits you like flash and then it's gone. The flash is the realization--the inner light of consciousness. And, incidentally I see E-FLATt, as golden yellow, and a coming-to-awarness. And this note leads to the full bright yellow of E-natural:The light of Conscious. The Light of Christ. (Meaning that the textural coloring of the E note is bright. Probably the brightest sounding of all the notes. A-flat (blue) is also bright, but it sounds distant, like a twinkling star (See Paganini's "La Campanella." The bell. The twinkling BLUE bell! This is not a co-incidence, people! I have a whole channel one this topic. (Also, beware of the music "teacher" out there, uTuber Adam Neely. Not only does he not understand key choice, he rejects it openly. I am finishing a video, actually, which shows him making fun of Pablo Casals writings with were explaining how E minor feels so tragic. Neely is a real stinker. Maybe because he's so young. And entitled. Also, with E-minor, consider Judas Priest, Slayer, Iron Maide--the veteran Death Metal guitar bands who would write some of their epic songs in E-minor. A bleak key which matches their lyrics of human suffering and political awareness. A final clarification on the E note as Major vs. Minor. In Major E is optimistic, and very mental. Compered to D (orange) which is happy (Beethovens 9th, "Ode to Joy), E then moves that feeling forward into full-consciousness, new ideas, new perspectives. // However, in the minor mode the optimism of E major suddenly becomes and drudgery: E minor. I also want to say that if the prelude were played in C# minor (red-orange) it would be more about physical struggle, as if slowly climbing a difficult mountain, or being whipped by your master to work harder. Whereas E-minor (the light of the mind) is more about personal struggle. Dealing with ones demons. Facing them, and going thru the work to figure out the problem. I hope this this ass some some further insights into this stellar coverage of the Chopin E-minor Prelude, and thanks so much to The Professor for the loving devotion that was given to this documentary of the Prelude. My own Theory of Pitch Psychology and my Musicolor Matrix Keyboard can be found here on the uTube forum here at _The Acoustic Rabbit Hole._ Be well! Your, _Acoustic Rabbit Hole_

[@themusicprofessor]

Thank you. Very interesting ideas about the symbolism of keys.

[@StoneChords]

A beautiful analysis with historical context. I certainly knew the 'sigh' tradition this work falls in, but the harsh (and hilarious) criticism by his British peers was news. On a personal note: I was 13 when my grandma (herself a wonderful pianist, and who had -- apart from being a teacher and silent movie pianist -- been a host to composers from Europe during and after WWII, including Stravinsky and Tansman) died. I played this prelude at her funeral, and have associated it with her and her memory ever since. I'm glad you spent as long as you did discussing that unexpected chord German 6th chord toward the end: what a marvel, and what a treat to play before the pregnant pause... Thank you.

[@Iceland874]

My favorite performer of Chopin is Adam Harasiewicz. I found him a few years ago and it seems he plays Chopin’s music like Chopin would have intended. There is a newly found nocturne he recorded that I purchased sheet music for about 8 years ago. I need to find it. Its very beautiful. Its Nocturne 21 he recorded in 1974 so maybe not newly discovered.

[@cesimone2009]

So true. My teacher introduced me to Adam Harasiewicz and how he plays Chopin's Mazurkas.

[@gerhardprasent3358]

Agree reg. Harasiewicz, his LP of the Nocturnes was the 1st Chopin I ever heard, still love it.

[@virginiaorganbuilder]

Mazurka 13 starts and ends on on a first inversion chord. Fabulous!

[@themusicprofessor]

Yes!

[@StephenDem]

Beethoven's Piano Sonata Op. 2 No. 3 (beginning of the concluding movement) uses the 1st inversion of the C major chord and each ascending chord thereafter.

[@fireballninja01]

i grew up playing piano, depression and anxiety took me out of lessons as I just wasn’t able to bring myself to practice, but on my own, I kept playing onto college, and in that i so slowly added new songs to my repertoire. I don’t have easy access to a piano now, it’s been years, i would struggle to play it. But I know. The single note that begins it would instantly transport me, as it always does. 20 minutes, an hour would go by as i devote myself to the piece, relearning how to make my hands mourn. I’m going to try to make that a reality next time I’m at my dad’s, thank you.

[@HPD1171]

9:53 this vocal characteristic is what really draws me to Chopin's music, particularly in his nocturnes and sonatas. One of Chopin's greatest desires was for his piano to sing so you end of up these very beautiful melodies where the right hand part really wants to sing out as if it were in an opera.

[@danieldevine8588]

Incredible video. Happy to discover your channel. Appreciate your passion and mastery and look forward to learning more

[@gloria.]

Great video. Subscribed. Didnt realize this was the exact type video i needed to watch

[@Dognacity]

I’ve been an improviser for over half a century. Primarily jazz, but also pseudo classical and electronic. I was taught by my teacher, Connie Crothers, to get into the nonjudgmental zone where my ego is not responsible for what happens musically. Of course, Chopin could access this space at will and explains why he had difficulty recalling what he did exactly. And, also, why he moved forward, so easily into new harmonic territory. Thanks for your contribution to understanding this aspect of music creation and the irony of analyzing it all after the original creative acts untethered to the bonds of musical theory.

[@marjieestivill]

This is my new favorite Chopin lecture and demonstration. What a range of emotions put to sound.

[@endodouble6691]

I‘ve been working on this piece, I can play it pretty well now and I really look forward to revisiting it in a year or two and really making it shine. Absolutely beautiful

[@rwdestefano]

Thank you, Professor. Your explanations and references to other works to demonstrate your points made watching and learning very easy. I was also delighted to learn of Chopin's forgetting what he'd just played. My engineer has learned to start recording as soon as I sit down at the piano as grew very weary of hearing, "Tim, what did I just play?" It's comforting to know that those better than I have struggled in a similar way.

[@mikebozik]

That was a beautiful and inspiring breakdown of Beethoven's music. I played this stuff as a child. Wonderful memories.

[@themusicprofessor]

Thank you - I think you mean Chopin's music!

[@mikebozik]

Yes, schadenfreude.

[@TavisAllen]

​@@mikebozikWell played?! 😉

[@mikebozik]

@@TavisAllen Not really, but it was the best I could come up with in my moment of embarrassment.

[@TavisAllen]

@@mikebozik To your credit, Beethoven was certainly mentioned and made an example of, so I get it. Plus, I got to make a horrible double entendre!