Chopin's Birthday: Mystery and Confusion

I read recently several posts offering birthday greetings to Chopin. At first I felt really guilty that the date had come and gone and I had forgotten to notice, not that I had noticed in the past, but it occurred to me that the act of noticing can be a way of participating in the composer's legacy.  But then there it was in black and white, or rather back-lit on my computer screen, the following: "I love Fred but he is rather overrated."  I really don't understand this. What is overrated? Surely not the B minor sonata or the set of ballades, which were completely original at the time; surely not the collection of noctures, an  imaginative development of John Field's opera in the same vein. Well, okay, don't get me started. Chopin wrote music that was startlingly original, music that advanced the level of piano playing and created new ways of thinking about sonority. It seemed at the time (almost) to come from nowhere and there was no Chopin school to follow, so he remains unique to this day. I think Schumann was right in his initial review of Chopin's debut: "Hats off, gentlemen, a genius." Even those who call his work high-class salon music are mistaken. There is considerable depth to be found in those shimmering sonorities if you just listen past the surface. There ensued much discussion on the topic of offering birthday greetings to a dead person. I believe the word inane was used.  Well, of course, if that were all there is to it, it would be just so much silliness. The act of remembering, though, is what is at issue and that is for the living. The music is very much alive and a part of our collective consciousness. To pause and reflect on this and the work of a great artist is how we grow, how we live. The following is from an article I found at the Chopin Society Uk and helps to explain, if not resolve, the mystery of Chopin's birth: "The mystery of Chopin's birthday The Manor of Zelazowa Wola Fryderyk Chopin was born at Zelazowa Wola in Mazovia, in the Warsaw region of Poland.  His father Nicholas had been born in France in 1771 in Marainville, a village in Lorraine – a area which at that time was ruled over by the Polish King Stanislas Leszczynski. Nicholas, of humble origin, but very able and intelligent, had accompanied the Polish agent of his village to Warsaw in 1792, and from then on identified totally with Poland, preferring to speak Polish rather than French. In 1802 Nicholas Chopin was engaged by Count Skarbek to be tutor to his four children at his estate of Zelazowa Zola, and in 1806 he married a poor relation of the family, Justyna Krzyzanowska, then living with the Skarbeks and acting as their housekeeper. The couple had a daughter in 1807 and then moved out of the main house into a thatched cottage close by, where their only son was born on possibly the 22nd of February and possibly the 1st of March 1810. The child was named Fryderyk after Fryderyk Skarbek, the Count’s eldest son, who was to be godfather. Actually they had to wait some time to receive the 18-year old Count’s consent, as he was studying in Paris, and when the christening eventually took place on the 23rd April at the parish church of Saint-Rock in Brochów, a proxy stood in for young Fryderyk Skarbek. The date of the birth was duly entered as the 22nd of February in the baptismal register. (It is interesting to note that Chopin’s godfather was to become a distinguished economist, historian and writer, and that he and Chopin became good friends in later life). Despite the date in the parish register, Chopin’s family always celebrated his birthday on the 1st of March. To complicate things further, Jane Stirling – his Scottish pupil and benefactor – said that Chopin had told her she was the only one who knew his real birth date. She wrote it down, put it in a box, and this box was apparently placed in Chopin’s grave in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Some sense can be made of this. In the nineteenth century people were much more vague about actual birthdays than we are today, and in a Catholic country such as Poland the name day would have been just as important, if not more so. However, in Britain it is the birthday which counts, and one can imagine Jane Stirling asking her beloved Master when his birthday was, so she could give him a present. He may have told her, adding that she was not to tell anyone else, as he did not want a lot of fuss. Whether the writing in Jane’s box would even be legible now is dubious, so even if it is the real date we may never know the truth. The Chopin Society celebrates the 22nd of February, as our Founder, Lucie Swiatek, favoured that date, though generally the 1st of March is more frequently regarded as correct." I am absolved of guilt. Since the day is in question, it matters little if I observed the correct one. What matters is that I remember, which I do as I play and teach his music.

On Competition

It's Not a Competition:

At J. conservatory, the students of Mme. L. always won the concerto competition. It was expected; it was the norm. The student contestants expected it. Mme expected it. The entire school expected it. Yet, all of the teachers entered their students, pressing them into this futile exercise. X., a friend of mine who studied with Mr. F., prepared the concerto du jour, Mozart Coronation, to the exclusion of virtually all of his other repertoire. He was an obsessive/compulsive personality, as it seems many of the students were in those days (probably still are) and prepared as if his life depended on it. He told me he didn't want to disappoint Mr. F, but I know from other conversations that his unsupportive parents figured in the mix. His mother once visited his room near the school and pronounced it the product of a sick mind. Well, X. told me, maybe this time a different teacher would produce the winning performer. Wouldn't that be an upheaval. Maybe Mr. F. would get the respect he deserves.

The piano faculty assembled, along with Maestro J.M. and his conducting staff. The students congregated in the corridors, where they waited for their time to audition. Some, of course, would be in the practice rooms up to the last possible minute; X. was one of these. As a graduate student, I was somewhat above the fray. I'd lived enough to know that life didn't depend on only one performance, or on any one event, unless that event included being run over by a bus.

X. appeared on the scene just seconds before his appointed time. I was there to listen from outside, as he had asked, and gave him by best thumbs-up smile. He played like an angel. They let him play the entire concerto through, including the cadenzas, which I took to be a good sign. I waited by the stage entrance to congratulate him but when the door opened X. ran right past me muttering "I missed a note, I missed a note" over and over all the way to the men's room, where he vomited violently. X. played like an artist, suffered terribly and the winning contestant did not come from the studio of Mr F. that year. X. was last seen on a Kibbutz in Israel. In this case, the jury lived up to its pretrial publicity.

Producing Synchronized Chords

A student wrote to me complaining of "wobbly" chords. He meant that in accompaniment passages of repeated chordal figures he often broke the chords
unintentionally. His solution was to rigidify his fingers, lifting the unneeded fingers away from his hand, in order to force the correct fingers to play simultaneously. This is no solution at all, but rather a prescription for disaster.


In order to accommodate different finger lengths, it is better to allow the hand to be slightly flatter and avoid gripping or locking the hand into a fixed position in order to force all the fingers to be the same lengths. No matter how hard you try, I promise you that the fingers will always be different lengths. By flatter I mean that the hand should maintain its normal curvature, not curled into a claw.


The manner of depressing the key, then, is downward, of course, but also slightly in the direction of out toward the torso. It is as if the intention is to move outward, but at the point of key contact there is a tread on the end of the finger that prevents an extreme slide outward. It is not necessary to leave the surface of the key. In fact, it is in most cases better after depressing the key to ride it back up just beyond the point of sound in order to repeat it. This has the effect of allowing the participation of the forearm, ever so slightly, in order to control the downward weight. It is a mistake to think of this as either just a finger movement or a wrist movement.


Try this in various combinations of white and black keys.


Happy chording!

Off Topic: Photography

Well, gentle reader, if you'll allow a digression here is an example of HDR (high dynamic range) photography. This is a new passion of mine, something to get me out of the piano studio once in awhile, which we solitary practicers must do in order to maintain our sanity.

HDR is a process of combining images taken at several exposures from very over-exposed to very under-exposed. It is a way to capture (and interpret) more of what the eye sees; cameras resist extreme value contrasts, flattening out most images.

Eventually, I hope to post in a separate site a gallery of photos, some of which will be of interest to lovers of pianos and their auras.

This is a view of the desert garden at the Huntington. Click on the photo to enlarge.

If you have interest in learning more about this process, click on the "Lost in Customs" button and you will be taken to an information site containing free tutorials.

Forearm Rotation

I once gave a lecture-demonstration to a group of piano teachers. When I asked for a show of hands in response to the question, "How many of you use forearm rotation," no one responded. Admittedly, it was sort of a trick question because not everyone is familiar with the terminology. But it's a good starting point for this topic. It is, in fact, not possible to play the piano without using forearm rotation.

If you you don't believe me, try raising your arm up to the keyboard. No, raise it straight up. Your forearm and hand will be in a karate-chop position. In order to place the hand on the keys in a playing position, it is necessary to rotate the hand in the direction of the thumb. Playing up and down the keyboard requires constant rotation toward the thumb. But this is only a starting point.

One clear example of rotation in music is the so-called Alberti figure, in which the music changes direction with each note. In this example it is called single rotation; when moving both to a given note, in a scale for example, and away from it to the succeeding note, it is called double rotation, except the thumb-crossing. Change of direction is always a single rotation and this concept is uniquely important in facilitating passage work. The nomenclature is not important, though a thorough understanding of the application of this underlying tool is essential to a well-coordinated and efficient technique.

This video of Edna Golandsky gives a very nice introduction to the principle. I highly recommend these videos for the serious pianist.

Golandsky Demonstrates Rotation in a Scale

Left Hand Octaves

If you are interested in the magic of fast octaves, have a look at this performance by Rubenstein of the A-flat Polonaise. This is a rare opportunity to observe octave shaping in action. Notice how he starts the passage using two hands (saving himself?) then switches to octaves. Notice also how in the first section, E-major, he starts out on the white key and moves in to the black keys in a continuous circular motion. Though difficult to see in speed, there is a slight under shape from the low B back up to the starting E. The movement is continuous and rounded, no sharp edges, and describes something like an ellipse. (I recommend fingering quick octaves one/five.) The shape is reversed when the passage repeats in E-flat.

I heard him play at Carnegie Hall and again later for a pension benefit concert with the New York Philharmonic. On both occasions the audience would not let him leave without playing the Polonaise, which was a signature piece.

Rubenstein Plays Chopin's Polonaise in A-flat