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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Interesting Talk on Chopin's Nocturnes, Their Meaning and Interpretation,
Which Should be of Interest to the Army of Admirers of the Great Polish
Composer in the Player Piano Field—Chopin the Creator of the Nocturne
It is an interesting fact that, in spite of the del-
uge of popular music which has inundated the
music roll catalogs far lo! these many moons,
there has always been, apparently, a certain dis-
satisfied minority who have insisted on something
else, perhaps from mere contrariness, perhaps even
because they actually don't like the raggification
of all their musical taste. Every music roll manu-
facturer and librarian will tell you that there are
certain numbers of what is called "classical" music
which constantly are in demand, of which the sale
in any community in a given time can be almost
certainly predicted, and which are not in the least
affected by this, that, or the other current craze.
Some of these are the Tannhaeuser Overture,
Liszt's Second Rhapsody, Suppe's "Poet and
Peasant" overture, the Intermezzo from Mascag-
ni's "Cavalleria Rusticana," and, last but not least,
the eternal Chopin Nocturne in E flat (op. 9, No.
2), the one nocturne which everybody knows, al-
most everybody plays, and which is commonly re-
ferred to as "'Showpan's Noctern," or articulations
to that general effect. Amazing as it may seem to
the uninitiated, the fact remains that of all the
nineteen nocturnes listed among Chopin's works
the only one generally known to the public is cer-
tainly not the most beautiful, not even the most
"tuneful," certainly not the easiest to play, and not
even the most interesting to the untrained ear. It
would, on the whole, be much less surprising if the
lovely, warm-colored piece in G major (op. 37, No.
2) were the public favorite. Yet, in fact, one does
find that the latter is not perhaps unknown, but
certainly unfamiliar to the majority of those who
call themselves amateur music lovers. Among
those owners of player-pianos who form the art-
loving minority spoken of above the same facts
apply: Chopin, as a writer of nocturnes, as in-
deed the true creator of that form, is known by
one or, at most, two of the nineteen works to
which he gave that title. Yet we find, upon study-
ing the lists of music rolls, that one catalog, any-
how, shows no less than eighteen of the nineteen
published, ready and available for the use and
behoof of the player pianist.
•Now, probably the reason for this ridiculous
condition of affairs is the well-known antipathy of
the human mind to fresh thought of any kind.
Most of us hate to get out of the ruts in which we
contentedly run. Music, it should be remem-
bered, does not appeal to all people in the same
way. To some it appeals mainly as a narcotic, as
a sleep producer to lull their minds into a condi-
tion of even more profound inactivity than usual.
To most people, in fact music dulls rather than
stimulates. To very few do its dynamic creative
powers begin to appear. But to the real enjoy-
ment of music must be prefixed an understanding
of the fact that it is not a mere sea of sound in
which to float, but the greatest means of expression
known to the human race.
In the hope that some of those who read t'nis
page are music lovers of the second or smaller
group, by which is meant dynamic music lovers,
the following notes on some of the less known
Chopin nocturnes, their meaning and interpreta-
tion, are set forth below. If the present article
accomplishes no more than to cause some ambi-
tious player-pianist to study more than the E flat
Nocturne it will have done as much as can be rea-
sonably expected.
It is not possible, or even desirable, to classify
the Chopin nocturnes into periods or groups based
on dates of composition. In point of fact these
pieces show no definite graduation in quality from
earlier to later dates of composition. Chopin was
a mind which began to set forth its poetic ideas
very early in life and was as profoundly influential
in 1835 as it was in 1848. Mendelssohn, too, flow-
ered early and developed little. How different from
the titan Beethoven!
The word Nocturne means, of course, a "night
piece," a composition intended not exclusively for
performance at night (as we once heard a con-
fused music lover inquire), but to convey thoughts,
ideas and sentiments associated with the night.
Thus it follows that pieces to which this name
is given are usually of a pensive, dreamy, romantic
cast, thoughtful and introspective, but never noisy
or bombastic. A serenade, which is also a night
piece, but contrived to represent the singing of a
lover under his lady's window, is thereby a noc-
turne, but every nocturne is not necessarily a sere-
nade.
The very nocturne which has been the subject of
our. irony (at least we like to call it irony) in the
early part of this article is a true serenade. The
accompaniment suggests, in fact imitates, the tin-
kling of a guitar, and the gently undulating melody
brings irresistibly to mind the gentle swaying of
the boat as it swings to its moorings in some canal
of lovely Venice, the voice of the singer and the
soft radiance of the moonlit night. In spite of the
fact that it has been sweetened and candied and
melted down into emotional jelly by three genera-
tions of silly schoolgirls, this nocturne, when rightly
understood, as the song of a lover to his lady, sung
from a Venetian gondola with a guitar accompani-
ment, becomes noble while remaining sweet.
But the sweetness and even the nobility of the
E flat Nocturne do not save it from being sur-
passed by many of the others. There is the really
wonderful piece in G minox (op. 37, No. 1), prod-
uct of those days spent in the Balearic Isles,
washed by the blue Mediterranean, when, with the
help of George Sand, poor Chopin tried to beat
down the spectre of consumption. Here we have
reproduced marvelously the thoughts of a sick
man, confined to his room in the old, half ruined,
half inhabited monastery which sheltered the Cho-
pin party during that winter of 1831; thoughts
which, beginning in vague musings on the past
glory of the place, on the legends that clung
around its dismantled chapel and refectory, take
visible form and shape, till the vast apartment in
which he sits is again peopled with monk and ab-
bot, novice and brother, and the pavement of the
cloister below once more echoes to the slow tread
of a religious procession winding in measured
pace toward the doors of the sanctuary, chanting
in solemn unison a mode of St. Gregorius. The
Nocturne is a perfect tone-picture of this sick
fancy, even to the wonderful change into G major
on the last chord, like the sudden glancing of west-
slanted sunshine into the room, lighting up its re-
motest corners, and revealing that in truth all has
•been fantasy. This Nocturne is no mere bit of
graceful tone-weaving, like the one in E flat; it is
great art.
So,, too, though in what a different vein, is the
companion to the above, the wonderful Nocturne
in C major (op. 37, No. 2). No wonder Pade-
rewski loves it, for it is the warmth and chivalry
and the love and passion of Poland, and nobly ex-
pressed, and yet how calmly, how gracefully, how
restrainedly! The whole thing makes one think
of a rolling country, with gentle declivities and
equally gentle ascents, without a flat space any-
where, but lacking in a precipice. The graceful
undulations of the opening theme and the lovely
charm of the middle melody are justly prized by all
music lovers. This nocturne is neither objectively
dramatic nor moodily introspective. It is the
thought of a man who broods over his country,
partitioned and crushed, but who broods in thought
unemasculated by fear, unchanging in defeat. It is
Chopin at his strongest and Chopin at his best.
To play the G minor Nocturne well one must
devote every 'resource of the player-piano to the
one object of gaining good singing tone, with calm
flow of the melody, without any hurrying and with-
(Continued on page 10.)
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