Changing perceptions in the performance of Chopins piano works

In essence, he captured the souls of many, even after his death, with his wonderfully composed piano repertoire. The composer and great virtuoso pianist’s fame increased during the romantic era as his composed songs and keyboard plays directly affected the manner in which people related with their partners to bring about romance effects on the audiences he played for. Unfortunately for him, he was always thought to be sickly and one of the reasons for his early death at the age of 39 was tuberculosis, which at the time was a highly contagious disease, and with the limited medical knowledge of tuberculosis treatment, many people had already died of the disease. Chopin’s parents were from different nationalities; his mother was a Polish woman whereas his father was a French bookkeeper as well as a tutor in Poland’s Warsaw town.

Frederic Chopin started to study and practice to play piano at the age of 6 years, under the supervision and direction of Wojciech Zywny and Jozef Elsner. Etudes Op. 10 was the piece that lay laid the foundation for technical innovation in the music industry at the time. His focus on producing musical effect on the listeners by carefully varying the tone of the music has been applauded by all music researchers and composers. The perception on the effect of tone variation has not significantly changes for a long time because the real effect of the music on the listeners can be measured by keenly analyzing the tone of the music (Chopin, 2012). A major attribute of Chopin that let him focus on the music he crated was that he was not very much concerned in creating music for the purpose of pleasing other people, but rather, created music that could make him happy and help him to express his feelings.

Due to his objective to adequately and precisely express himself using the piano, Chopin though that the damper pedal was the most powerful and versatile pedal to do the job. Even though this is true, the focus on the damper pedal has progressively shifted to two new other pedals namely the Una Corda and the Sostenuto pedals. Nevertheless, the importance of the damper pedal has not been ignored as it has the sweet effect of prolonging the sound produced by the piano on every stroke and allowing the strings to vibrate sympathetically. Musicians have increasingly started to employ the sostenuto pedal in their works as it has the effect of providing selective damper effects (Sorabji, 1940). Instead of lifting all the keys to provide the damper effects, like the damper pedal is designed, the Sostenuto pedal allowed the piano to only provide a damper effect on those keys that had been pressed; this greatly reduce the mechanical processes of the piano since only the target keys could be used to produce a dumper effect.

10 in A flat minor are some of the greatest pieces that this research will delve into finding its influence on the perceptions of music. Etude No. 6 in E Flat Minor: This Etude was composed by Chopin with the main objective of achieving expressivity and the chromatic structures of a melody by a musician. This piece was important because it helped to study and to reveal the texture of the voice in 3 – 4 approaches. The E flat minor key was used to achieve a desired mood of an inward and introspective look of an individual, and to create a melody of expressing pain by employing a sluggish base between a winding a voice of the singer that is motivated from the singer’s inner agitation (Belkhadir, Capdeville and Roques, 1988).

At three particular points, mm. 7, 15, and 47 seemed to be identical or similar whereby they all begun at F flat major but proceeded differently on other chords. For example, m. 7 moved to a C-flat with a diminishing chord. This Etude helped the musicians to focus on how well they expressed their feelings, thus changing the perception on Chopin’s Piano Works as important and indisputable. It is sometimes, advisable to play with the fingers than the forearm as they all have different effects on the sound produced by the piano. This particular work by Chopin has been majorly studied to understand the positioning of the fingers in the keyboard and to understand the effect of employing the wrist and the arms in creating musical effects.

Etude No. 10 in A flat major: this is one of the most applauded works of Chopin that sought to demystify the technical skills of varying a single pattern by relying on the ability of the pianist or the singer to vary the touch and accent of the music. According to Thompson (2013), a person who could play this piece perfectly and in a real finished manner, could be compared with a man who had climbed to the highest point of the pianist’s Parnassus; he deserves rewarding and praise. The main driving factors for playing music and the piano should stem from emotions, which can be expressed through the piano and music itself. Anyone equal or close to Chopin’s music genius is yet to be born! Works Cited Belkhadir, R.