This Chopin Sonata Is Cleverer Than You Think... 

He was busy using his right hand the way you use your right hand on the computer keyboard. 😮

Maybe he did, and this was the trigger for all the doubled up Chopin studies.

I'm sure many have guessed at this. With common progression in common practice period you can't often go wrong.The Chppin etudes don't follow old progressions closely and putting 2 or even 3 pieces together is really more than just pianistic imagination. Like Taneyev Rach et.al.Godowsky knew a lot.

can u pls elaborate,😅 i didnt quite understand the joke

@@hardiksharma7230 theres like a variety of very different sections that make up the piece not just in technical terms but also in musical ups and downs that goes from the extreme highs to the extreme lows

Just what I was thinking!!

Great comment lmao

yes i love all those 7ths created

Rather Scriabin meets Chopin..

I'll have to take a closer look at the scherzo...Another example is the beginning of the 1st Ballade which contains several of the motis used throughout. I love the Liszt sonata (was playing it this afternoon), but there are already some great analyses out there. If I can think of something unique to add then I'd certainly have a go.

Tonal schematics are awesome. Chopin's Op.1 contains that very thing in his Op. 31 but with an augmented triad for each section. (C,E,Ab,C) The internal workings of spontaneity and logic really meld together when one embarks on a composition. The sostenuto section in the 2nd movement of the Op. 58 has a similar embellished arpeggio section, like the first subject, contributing to the logical thread of this work. (Chopin had a very particular way of displacing each arpeggio note with the note just above it, a lot of his music has this. alongside his titular 3,7,2,1 melodies, which we see all of the time, absolutely littered everywhere in his repertoire!!)

I think so too!

It is more like Chopin still would sound like Chopin, and Scriabin would, in whatever way, be further inspired by him. ;) Saying he would have gone where Scriabin went would imply that Scriabin was the continuation of Chopins specific genius. I don't think Scriabin was. That's like speculating that Mozart would have developed into Hummel. I like Scriabin, but don't think he had the same level of original genius, adventurous sense for exploration and thinking outside the box as Chopin had. Scriabin sounded Chopinesque, similar to most talented composers during Chopins lifetime sounded Beethovian. Chopin never did, however, sound like any other composer that influenced him (if we ignore the obviously Field inspired early Nocturnes for a moment). Although greatly inspired by Bach, Mozart and Bellini, even by Hummel, he discovered his very own original path almost right at the start. We can only guess, but will never know where Chopin would have gone if he had lived longer and remained mentally stable. Because genius is not foreseeable for any of us mere common mortals or it would not be genius. He may have gone to Rachmaninoff, or have another madly genius idea a few years later to revolutionize the musical world 100 years ahead of his time, or just be a burned out wreck. Though, the latter is not as likely because his creative progress was never really broken and constantly advancing, even with the later Sand years crippling his productivity.

In his last interview, given just before his death in a plane crash (October 29, 1953), William Kapell was asked if Chopin was a romantic. Kapell's answer was: "Chopin was first and foremost a purist". And that is the basic truth about Chopin. By the way, the three most outstanding interpretations of the Third Sonata are those of Kapell, Lipatti and Arrau.

*two piano sonatas, the other one is for cello and piano

@@loganm2924 it is three he wrote a piano sonata in c minor

@@openendedthinking4033 No he didn't

@@loganm2924 Yes he did. It's opus no. 4

That would be a challenge!

Thank you! I'll try!

for me too,it is ballisticosmic for me.

Will you upload that sonata to your channel?

@@FrederickViner I thought I replied with a MuseScore link, but that comment isn't here I uploaded it to my channel now

Denis, dorogoi, privet moj uchitel'.

Very good point.

Cheers, Adam! Will add it to the list...

I didn’t know he wrote a first sonata

@@Charlie-vf8hw chopins 1st sonata is quite good actually

Thank you!

Thank you, Charles!! It's funny - I actually asked 3 pianists if I could feature their recordings but they never got back to me...so I figured I'd have to brush up my Scriabin 3/Beethoven Appassionata etc. It's been a fun project! On a separate note, I've been attempting Liszt's sonata for years now. Have you ever played it?

@@FrederickViner it was the program closer on my final graduate recital 😁 it’s a great and beastly piece.

Any tips for the double octaves? Aside from praying...?@@CharlesSzczepanek

@@FrederickViner Are we talking about the 3rd or 4th page where the 2 hands are outlining chords, or near the end where the hands trade off the octave passages?

Both tbh. My LH octaves are much weaker - I struggle to keep a loose wrist and end up with tension. And with the double octaves on p 3-4, my accuracy will depend on which hand I watch: keep an eye on the RH and the LH misses; keep an eye on the LH and the RH misses...Maybe I'll just play the 2nd subject over and over instead :)

My poor wife having to listen to me practice...

Thank you, Alexander! Hope they enjoy it too!

I absolutely love that Prokofiev - definitely worth a video on its own. Is there a recording available for your sonata? I'd be very interested :)

Do you mean the 2nd movement?

​@@FrederickVineryes, 2nd movement

Good spot!

Ironically, I have heard (and read) musicologists who disparage this first movement as just a collection of disparate melodies. I agree with you that it is an exceptional movement, but it does not wear its motivic unity "on its sleeve"--you have to dig a bit to find the connections that make it sound right together.

Great choices! How about Scriabin 5?

Glad you think so!

The theme's major-minor relatedness certainly has a lot to do with their compatibility. But Chopin most certainly did think motivically too. If you just take the upbeat to the 1st subject you'll find that it's absolutely everywhere.

Well perhaps that is more the case in his sonatas, but in the rest of his works he rarely constructs music by using repeated motifs. Even in this sonata he does not repeat motifs within the initial statement of the subject. (He is the complete opposite of Beethoven in this way.)

I can't lay my hands on the reference right now, but Liszt wrote something about Chopin's struggle to write works that worked by means of motivic development - he attributed it to Chopin not being naturally a "logical" musical thinker, and rather more a composer who worked by mood and feeling.

Great choices! Have you heard the Grieg sonata? Thinking of covering that in a video soon

​@@FrederickViner I haven't really listened to it [at all], but I've heard some great things about it.

​@FrederickViner Also I forgot to include Medtner's Night Wind on the list

Scriabin does this in his development section but only with small fragments of the themes.

Thanks for the kind words, Christoph! What do you make of the later Scriabin? No. 5 perhaps?

Where does Scriabin 3 rank for you?

​@@FrederickViner Scriabin 3's 1st subject is breathtaking. As a whole, I'm not sure.

Great choices! Any Schubert?

@FrederickViner Schubert is not bad but I don't have much time playing him as an "amateur virtuoso." Absolutely love his B-flat Sonata D.960, though.

The Waldstein was mostly in there for laughs...and you'll find that I have in fact included several minor-to-major sonatas in this video (Haydn, Beethoven 23, Chopin 2, Mozart 8). I checked a few dozen other sonatas (including minor-to-major) and found that it largely doesn't work. I agree though that diatonicism plays a large part in these themes' compatibility. Others have mentioned Scriabin's extended harmonic language, which allows more 'wiggle room' for themes to slot together (i.e 7ths, 9ths and 13ths are permitted in a way that would sound odd in the Chopin)

@@FrederickVinerOh yes, I know you did include plenty of minor-key pieces too! and I believe that plenty others wouldn't work too, either because one or the other theme is too chromatic, and/or just because the way their harmonic functions line up are too different to be convincing (though the Mozart A minor wasn't bad, as you mention!). I wonder if one likely way for it to work out is if one or the other theme is largely over a pedal? The second theme of the Chopin puts its first three bars all over D, which surely helps to make it more amenable to combination.

Top 10?

@@FrederickViner Alright. Mozart's 331, Haydn's Hob.16/23 in F, Beethoven's Nos. 8,11, 31; Schubert's D. 894, 960, Liszt's B minor, Scriabin's 2nd, Prokofiev's 6th...will have to do for the moment. Though, I feel like I have forsaken many other dear favorites.

I'll have to check out that book!

What are some of your favourite sonatas, Bethany? :)

@@FrederickViner Hmm… at opposite ends of the spectrum, Scarlatti K 380 in E major, and the Scriabin sonata fantasie in G# minor. Also a couple duets - I love what Grieg added to Mozart K 545. There’s a wonderful recording with Lugansky as one of the pianists. And I recently discovered Carl Vine’s sonata for piano four hands. Intriguing stuff!

I'm coaching a duo at the moment so I'll have to check out that Mozart! Not sure if they'd be up for the Vine though... What do you make of late Scriabin?

@@FrederickViner the Mozart/Grieg is lovely; light and spring-like. The Rondo, especially, is just bouncing and happy. I believe it’s for two pianos. The Vine recommended itself to me on RU-vid and I couldn’t stop listening; really cool rhythms in the prelude section. I’m less familiar with late Scriabin; do you have any recommendations?

My favourites from mid-late period would be sonatas 4-5-9, Poem of Ecstasy/Fire and Vers la Flamme@@bethanywakim6175

Yes he is.

Thanks for the comment. I wasn't trying to make any broader point about Haydn; rather, I was using the Haydn (along with the Beethoven) to illustrate one small point within the video. I don't think it's weird - as it's a very sprawling, overview kinda video - but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless!

See 'Educational Abominations' :)