Chopin Rubato - Both Hands Or Melody Only? (Op28. No 4)

Hi, I am studying Chopin's prelude in E minor and I was wondering what kind of rubato should be applied there and why. I have read in some places that both Mozart and Chopin were quoted saying that the right hand melody fluctuates around a steady strict time left hand accompaniement, but at least for this piece it doesn't seem to be the commonly performed style. Here are 2 sample performances that I really like: Argerich (including the score): Kissin: (Prelude 4 starts at 4:02) Another thing I noticed regarding their Rubato is the extra leaning on the quarter note at the end of each bar. This seems to be going against Alan's recommendation of "long notes longer, short notes shorter". I realize that there are no real rules for interpertation in music, but I was wondering - why is leaning on the shorter notes effective in this piece and leaning on the longer notes is more effective in others? The answer I get from most advanced players that I talk to is: "I can't really explain, I just feel it", and I am sure that to some extent this is true, especially in live performance - but I am also sure that there needs to be some underlying understanding of the music before you can "feel" it and perform it in a convincing way. I am hoping we can start some discussion here about the specifics of the rubato in this piece, what is tasteful and what is not, etc. I will eventually post my own performance of it Zack

"why is leaning on the shorter notes effective in this piece and leaning on the longer notes is more effective in others?" It's a sigh. The entire piece is almost solely constructed of descending intervals. Why on earth would you want to feel the low note as an arrival, rather than as an extended sigh? If lose that, you remove that sinking feeling from the piece. Plus the first note is chromatic and the B is a resolution. Play the whole chord and listen for the interesting interval. Try playing different combinations of sounds within each chord, until you find it. In the first, it's the minor 9th of C against B that generates the most interest. The C is the chromatic note (but only in the context of the B that occurs within the chord, so attention needs to be paid to both). So, the following B is the resolution, hence it makes sense to play it softer, rather do the boring thing of playing strong first beats (which virtually everyone but Cortot does). However, Chopin changes the harmony on the resolution, so that's actually a clash too rather than a true resolution (where the E is now the chromatic note, before it resolves to D sharp, creating a B7), which is why there's so much tension throughout the entire piece. It's all about the harmonies and which intervals hold the musical interest. Why should the accompaniment have to perfectly follow the melody? Just because virtually every professional pianist is so uninspired in their use of rubato today, it doesn't mean that you have to ignore what Chopin so explicitly described. "The answer I get from most advanced players that I talk to is: "I can't really explain, I just feel it", and I am sure that to some extent this is true, especially in live performance - but I am also sure that there needs to be some underlying understanding of the music before you can "feel" it and perform it in a convincing way." Yeah, that's a poor excuse that they give. Check out Konrad Wolff's book about Schnabel. Perhaps a little over the top, but it's a fantastic way of starting to see how analysis can inform interpretation- not necessarily in terms of the boring nonsense that passes for 'structural cohesion' or other such snake oil though. There's plenty about how expressive interpretation and analysis can go hand in hand. Personally I actually find Schnabel a little cold for many things. But his style of thinking and identifying musical interest is as worthy for informing how to exploit things in a ultra-romantic style, as for in his own more understated way. By the way, not sure if it's on youtube, but the Cortot recording of the E minor prelude from the masterclasses set is incredible. The poor sound quality possibly makes the climax come across as being even more explosive, but its as earth shattering as anything I've heard from Nyiregyhazi. It's even more remarkable than Cortot's various other recordings (all fo which are good).

Andrew, thanks for the detailed answer. Why should the accompaniment have to perfectly follow the melody? Just because virtually every professional pianist is so uninspired in their use of rubato today, it doesn't mean that you have to ignore what Chopin so explicitly described. I think you have given one good reason why - all the interesting harmonic clashes in the various points of the piece. It doesn't mean that they have to perfectly aligned, but you would want to make sure that you spend enough time in each "clash" to let the listener enjoy it. Would you attempt to highlight the interesting note in each LH chord in this piece, or play them rather evenly, or always emphasize the bass a bit more than other notes? When the chord repeats, would you change it's voicing, or does that take too much attention away from the melody? I don't believe I will personally be able to develop such accurate control over my voicing in the short term - I am still struggling with just hitting all the notes of the chord at the same time and keeping it soft overall, but I am curious about what I should aim to achieve. BTW, is this the Cortot recording you mentioned? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-0_7J-n9qQ Zack

"I think you have given one good reason why - all the interesting harmonic clashes in the various points of the piece. It doesn't mean that they have to perfectly aligned, but you would want to make sure that you spend enough time in each "clash" to let the listener enjoy it." I see your point, certainly. You could definitely look at it that way. However, personally I'd say that a minute delay makes more of the expressive nature. Togetherness can help put a dissonace to the forefront- particularly when play loudly as well as squarely together. This is great for a really stark, twentieth century kind of biting dissonace. However, personally, I'd say that a marginal delay or spread makes for a more expressive way of highlighting a dissonace. I wouldn't advise a full arpeggiation here, but arpeggiating every individual note of a chord can sometimes make it even easier to show the listener which notes are significant. When it's struck together everything merges into a block of sound that either tends to mask interesting intervals in quiet dynamics, or put them too much in your face in louder ones. You certainly wouldn't want the latter here and I find that the former tends to happen all to easily- masking the interest, rather than allowing the chromatic intervals to register. I think the tension is much more evident from a slight delay, personally-especially as the chromatic note itself is the delayed one. It's like in the first Ballade. On the first page, many people spread the D, G E flat so the minor 9th lands with the B flat. I never understood that. I even heard one person claim that makes more if it. I have no idea how that could even begin to make any sense. I find there's far more tension if the B flat comes with the bass and the clashing E flat arrives last- so it grows into the dissonace- leaving it room to interact against your expectation of the 'pure' harmony being continued. With the note that it clashes against already established in the ear, it's far easier to hear the tension in the newer note (and without it even needing to be very loud for that to register). Also, it's natural to feel a tiny breath between the units of short notes to long notes. Assuming you do conceive it as a downward sigh (after all, how tragic does an upward sigh really sound- and in a piece that is clearly constructed around the idea of descending 2nds?), it makes no sense to commence that sigh as a continuation of a long note. You couldn't sing through the long note and start a sighing effect without some form of slight breath or hesitation. Vocally it makes more sense to have a tiny hesistation. But nothing about the logic of the accompaniment suggests that any hesitation should occur there too. It's absolutely crying out for the style of rubato that Chopin and Mozart described. "Would you attempt to highlight the interesting note in each LH chord in this piece, or play them rather evenly, or always emphasize the bass a bit more than other notes?" It's worth running through and playing every single descending interval, to notice where all the voices occur Obviously this could be overdone in performance, but you need to know where they occur. Personally, I'd definitely reveal a lot of them- especially the moment where the left hand first goes up instead of down, but also many of the left hand descents too. "is this the Cortot recording you mentioned?" Not that one, although they are all good. There's one in the masterclasses. He stops halfway through for a little to talk in that one.

Hi I wasn't sure whether to add this to this particular thread as it's not directly related to Chopin. However, this thread caught my attention because I was listening to a masterclass from Maria Joao Pires which relates to rubato Vs space given in a time framework of a phrase or structure. About 1:19 Maria plays to show the guy how he might breathe in the music If you go on to the rest of the Masterclass the 2 girls respond very well to her teaching. It's all about playing the phrase through the bar line but also adding some inflections that make the music breathe. Something I learnt in my performance studies lectures years ago was actually from the teaching of Schanbel... knowing where the phrase begins and ends. There are alot of critisms in this youtube post from people who I think are missing the point about her teaching. And you may think it's a little ethereal the way she describes the space and freedom, but how do you describe poetry? It's so difficult. I watched this masterclass and actually felt what she was saying relating to the sound of the music and felt enlightened! Then doing it is another thing when you are on your own! I think eventually we pick up the sound patterns that we think are successful through listening and practicing different ways. The problem is then some people make "blanket" use of these patterns without also applying the analysis of where the phrase begins and ends and also what is it that's interesting or touching about the harmony - the alto an tenor parts especially get overlooked for prominent melody and bass. Personally I don't seem to keep my head out of playing unless I'm performing - when the nervous energy overrides the thinking! I wish I could engage it in practice then I would stop mimicking myself and be better prepared. Part of it also is being in control of your apparatus so much that you become the piano... something else I don't seem to have grasped yet consistently. Hope you found this of some relevance. I find it a fascinating subject - engaging the soul from the music - hopefully the composer's soul - but then who knows. We all have a different make up, rhythmic pulse and heartbeat and a personality that's difficult to not mix with the music. cheers

Here are 2 sample performances that I really like: Argerich (including the score): Kissin: (Prelude 4 starts at 4:02) Both really uninspiring performances that make the amateurish mistake of accenting the downbeat, thus neutralizing "the sigh that could have been..." because they do indeed create the potential for a sigh by leaning nicely on the 4th beat. But then they screw it all up, repeatedly, consistently, and disappointingly... And Kissin's rubato of the left hand is cheap, affected and ineffectual... It really makes you wonder, doesn't it! About Chopin's definition of rubato, the left hand creating rhythmic stability while the right hand is free to go off the beat: I had a fascinating experience listening to some CD of my mom's last summer, one of those 99-cent classic compilations, where this approach to rubato seemed to be stood on its head! This CD had a really great performance of the immortal "On the Beautiful Blue Danube," and the accompaniment REALLY rushed into the 2nd beat and than WAITED, poised in midair, FOREVER, before swooping on down through beat 3 into the next bar. I thought to myself, "OK, this will be interesting, what will they do when the melody has regular, flowing 8th notes?" When it happened, the accompaniment blithely continued to play their nicely distorted waltz rhythm and the melody flowed smoothly! Thus on the attacks of beats 2 and 3, melody and accompaniment were nowhere near together! They simply coexisted in 'parallel universes,' and it was a very nice dovetailing. We can learn a lot from that! By the way it reminds me of another story: Johann Strauss was invited to give a tour of America. His reply: "I will come, as long as I can bring my second violins with me." He would conduct American orchestras but he would NOT trust them to "get" the waltz rhythm! A true story! AFF

Thanks for all the opinions. This is a very interesting discussion and I just love the way Maria speaks about the music in the master class. Both really uninspiring performances that make the amateurish mistake of accenting the downbeat, thus neutralizing "the sigh that could have been..." because they do indeed create the potential for a sigh by leaning nicely on the 4th beat. But then they screw it all up, repeatedly, consistently, and disappointingly... I have watched some other performances on youtube including the cortot link and I agree that avoiding downbeat accent is more effective to project the sigh. However, I didn't find any performance that treats the rubato of the left hand and right hand independently. I have tried it myself and I wasn't pleased with the result. I tried playing the right hand's high note slightly before the 4th beat and prolonging it slightly after the first beat of the next bar and letting the left hand play on the beat. I think that in this case keeping the hands relatively together might be more effective. One of the things my piano teacher mentioned is that in this piece it's hard to distinguish melody and accompaniment. So many interesting things happen in the left hand and we want to give it the same rubato treatment that we give to a melody, rather then the strict time we would give an Alberti pattern for example. What is your opinion regarding this statement? Zack

The l.h. chords are actually three voices in chorale, constantly shifting but never at the same time. To give them the same kind of rubato as the expressive melody ignores their character. There are so many harmonic colours, so many twists and turns, an almost infinte number of voice leading choices to be made. Playing the left hand with an expressive rubato effectively destroys all these possibilities. These harmonies are like the Northern Lights in their subtle shifting of colour, and you need to use VOICING in an unbelievably rubato-free rhythmic context if you want to access this mystical, shimmering, haunting, inner-emotional-life quality... If you do a more 'normal' rubato, it distracts the ear from these subtler qualities and they disappear. AFF

Alan, Can you point me to a recording (hopefully publicly available on sites like youtube) where this piece is played with this manner? As far as I have listened, the left hand and the right hand are always together in this piece. Also, I have not heard anyone playing the left hand metromically - when leaning on the 4th beat in the right hand melody, the left hand seems to be waiting for the right hand before continuing the chords for the next bar. Perhaps some level of seperation does exist between the hand but my listening skills are not good enough to notice it, so I would be happy if you can point out a specific performance that you believe brings out those qualities you are describing. Another question I have relates to practice suggestions. I am still struggling with hitting all the notes of the chord consistently at the same time while keeping the overall dynamics soft. This also varies a lot depending on the specific piano I am playing on. Eventually (maybe in a few years) I would like to develop this voicing ability that you are talking about, and then maybe INTENTIONALLY play some notes of the chord earlier or later to highlight them, but at this point I think the uneveness in my playing doesn't come from intention but from inaccuracy of touch and lack of structure in some hand position. This piece has many combination of black/white key and fingers for the left hand. Can you point me ot specific excercises in the book or DVD that you think would be helpful? Thanks, Zack

However, I didn't find any performance that treats the rubato of the left hand and right hand independently. I have tried it myself and I wasn't pleased with the result. I tried playing the right hand's high note slightly before the 4th beat and prolonging it slightly after the first beat of the next bar and letting the left hand play on the beat. I think that in this case keeping the hands relatively together might be more effective. Actually, come to think of it, have you tried playing the r.h. fourth beat late but then stretching out the first of the two quavers, before connecting the final quaver more through to the next bar? This is Arrau, who I find shamefully poor, personally. I don't mean that kind of stop between beats 4 and 1. However, there's a way of playing the left a little before the right and then slightly stretching the first of the fourth beat's quavers, so you still have a chance to linger a little on the upper note of the sigh-but the 2nd quaver bonds the bars together. With a phrased off 1st beat, instead of the strong downbeat, it's much easier to avoid the hideous effect that Arrau gets. If you still feel a sense of connection from the fourth beat to the first (rather than a lumpy restart) it's possible to make the music still feel pretty rhythmically continuous without being 100% literal about the left. I think there's an issue of continuity that is the most important thing. For me, the left hand shouldn't feel like it stops in exact tandem with the right hand hesitation before the fourth beat, but it needn't be totally literal either.