Just what did Chopin mean?

[al1432]

First a word of hello!
My name is Al...I live in the NYC Metro area. I've read many posts on here, but this is my first...
::drum roll::

Charles Rosen, in "The Classical Style", quotes Chopin as saying: "Beethoven turned his back on eternal principles". Now that's quite a sweeping statement, and really could apply to any number of things. Anyone here care to try and elaborate for Mr. Chopin? I do not have the entire quote, much less Chopin's context, so it is a mystery to me.

Al

[Peter]

First a word of hello!
My name is Al...I live in the NYC Metro area. I've read many posts on here, but this is my first...
::drum roll::

Charles Rosen, in "The Classical Style", quotes Chopin as saying: "Beethoven turned his back on eternal principles". Now that's quite a sweeping statement, and really could apply to any number of things. Anyone here care to try and elaborate for Mr. Chopin? I do not have the entire quote, much less Chopin's context, so it is a mystery to me.

Al

Yes this is an extraordinary remark reported in Delacroix' diary. I suspect that the late Beethoven works were abhorrent to Chopin (as they were to Tchaikovsky, who nonetheless greatly admired the middle and early works) - If you think of these two composers they both shared a love of Mozart and all things French. Therefore Chopin's refined elegant almost aristocratic music was obviously at odds to the brusque harsh sounds of Beethoven's later music. Chopin frequently played Beethoven's Ab sonata (with the funeral march - did this give him the idea for his own sonata?) so I think it was the late works that must have inspired Chopin's comments. Mendelssohn by contrast was greatly inspired by Beethoven's late music which was extraordinary in one so young at a time when the reaction was generally unfavourable and perplexed!

[gardibolt]

I'm not sure Mendelssohn's attitude is that extraordinary---the young are more willing to accept the new and different than the elderly (a fact I find to be more and more true every day myself).

I am having difficulty parsing what Chopin possibly could have meant, though. Yes, Beethoven broke the molds of the classical sytle. But it's not as if Chopin were somehow composing in the style of Handel or something. I guess in sum it's not clear to me whether he meant that as a compliment or an insult, so we really do need the context of the statement.

[Peter]

I'm not sure Mendelssohn's attitude is that extraordinary---the young are more willing to accept the new and different than the elderly (a fact I find to be more and more true every day myself).

I am having difficulty parsing what Chopin possibly could have meant, though. Yes, Beethoven broke the molds of the classical sytle. But it's not as if Chopin were somehow composing in the style of Handel or something. I guess in sum it's not clear to me whether he meant that as a compliment or an insult, so we really do need the context of the statement.

Well Mendelssohn turned out to be a very conservative composer so is there some irony there! Except that Beethoven's late works were classical and even Baroque rather than Romantic so perhaps that is why they appealed to Mendelssohn and not Chopin who was more influenced by the early Romantic composers such as Field, Hummel and also Italian opera.

[al1432]

Chopin frequently played Beethoven's Ab sonata (with the funeral march - did this give him the idea for his own sonata?)

There's no doubt in my mind that Chopin drew upon this sonata for his own "Funeral March". It was one of Chopin's favorite pieces, and he frequently told his own students to learn it. In addition, his own funeral march simply sounds very similar to the funeral march from the Ab sonata.

[al1432]

I am having difficulty parsing what Chopin possibly could have meant, though. Yes, Beethoven broke the molds of the classical sytle. But it's not as if Chopin were somehow composing in the style of Handel or something.

I fully agree with you, gardibolt. Chopin was not always the model of refinement (his scherzo #2 could sound a bit jolting from that perspective), nor was late Beethoven always the bull in the china shop (string quartet #15, piano sonata #31, to mention just two examples of relative refinement and order). All of which, I think, somehow skirts the point: it's one thing to find a piece "harsh", quite another to say it violates "eternal principles", and that is the part that throws me. What principles did Chopin have in mind? Or was it a matter, as Charles Rosen suggests when quoting Chopin, that he was simply provincial?

[PDG]

I fully agree with you, gardibolt. Chopin was not always the model of refinement (his scherzo #2 could sound a bit jolting from that perspective), nor was late Beethoven always the bull in the china shop (string quartet #15, piano sonata #31, to mention just two examples of relative refinement and order). All of which, I think, somehow skirts the point: it's one thing to find a piece "harsh", quite another to say it violates "eternal principles", and that is the part that throws me. What principles did Chopin have in mind? Or was it a matter, as Charles Rosen suggests when quoting Chopin, that he was simply provincial?

All very interesting. Chopin, I suspect, knew very well that Beethoven was the greatest of all composers, and yet he loved Mozart. A quandary. He had to criticise Beethoven in order to justify his own preference. Whereas Lizst knew the mountain had an even higher peak...

[atserriotserri]

In my humble opinion, we may not know what Chopin wanted to say, or if he was praising or criticising. You can find this kind of “passionate” quotes in Chopin as in other composers.

It is famous also a quote of him asking if God was Moscovite or had left him alone when the Russian occupation of Poland (I’m sorry, I’m “working” and don’t have the book ), or other sentences of him asking God to give him health, otherwise his music will become horrid. As I said, one can find this kind of language in composers, such as Scriabin, who sometimes referred to his music as a struggle between light and darkness, and so on.

On the other hand, Chopin (as far as I know) was quite frank in showing admiration to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. But once again we cannot presume Chopin’s tastes from quotes, because you would affirm that he loved above all:Mozart, because he said that he wanted Mozart to be played in his funeral, Bach because when he dared to give a concert, he did not practised the pieces he wanted to play until the last moments, he started playing only Bach, or because he said that when he could not compose, he spent time correcting some editions of Bach’s works, or because the only music score the took when travelled to Majorca only with the Well Tempered Clavier, Or Beethoven, for whom he felt admiration and supposedly after listening to a trio, he said he hadn’t listened to anything so great and that Beethoven snapped his fingers at the whole world.

This has reminded me a book of conversations between Robert Craft and Stravinsky I’ve read recently. There is a passage I’ll try to translate today to share it with you all, in which, a grosso modo, Stravinsky recognized the genius Beethoven is, after having criticised it when he was young, as other avant-garde composers, since it was “trendy”.

[al1432]

In my humble opinion, we may not know what Chopin wanted to say, or if he was praising or criticising. You can find this kind of “passionate” quotes in Chopin as in other composers.

You're point is well taken, that one must look at the broader horizon and not focus on one quote. When any iconic figure, be it Beethoven, Chopin, or whomever, is quoted as having said such and such, there is a tendency to give to it a sense of authority that it is probably not wise to do, since all humans make statements both profound and silly throughout their lifetimes. Charles Rosen is quoting Chopin on Beethoven here in the context of pointing out that with the change of generations after Beethoven's death, he came to be regarded as "out of style", although he was at the same time universally revered. It wasn't till much later, Rosen goes on to say, that his music began to have a direct impact on current composers (Brahms, Wagner). Chopin, being an immediate successor to Beethoven's generation, may have been reflecting this "out of style" sentiment.

[Peter]

It wasn't till much later, Rosen goes on to say, that his music began to have a direct impact on current composers (Brahms, Wagner). Chopin, being an immediate successor to Beethoven's generation, may have been reflecting this "out of style" sentiment.

Yes this is true, but there are exceptions with Mendelssohn and Schumann, whose attempted Beethoven imitations were generally unsuccessful. This proves to my mind that Beethoven was not a 'Romantic' composer - he was very much classical and looking further back to the baroque in his late works. Running alongside Beethoven was the rise of Romanticism in music personified by composers such as Weber, Sphor, Field, Hummel and it was from them that Chopin's style developed. This is why Beethoven was considered 'out of style' - he was firmly rooted in his classical heritage, but he took that style to its ultimate summit.

[atserriotserri]

When any iconic figure, be it Beethoven, Chopin, or whomever, is quoted as having said such and such, there is a tendency to give to it a sense of authority that it is probably not wise to do, since all humans make statements both profound and silly throughout their lifetimes.

Precisely: Quotes are brought to a conversation or mentioned in writings as if the precise moment when those words were told (leaving aside issues concerning the source of the quote), the author was aware of the authority in which was speaking, articulating a deep reasonment fruit of a long meditation and choosing carefully his words... and in the particular case of Chopin, if he left something clear is that as his disease was getting worse, his mood was more than unstable with more pronounced ups and downs.

[al1432]

Running alongside Beethoven was the rise of Romanticism in music personified by composers such as Weber, Sphor, Field, Hummel and it was from them that Chopin's style developed.

Indeed...I just listened to Hummel's Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 85, it's quite lovely.

[al1432]

Precisely: Quotes are brought to a conversation or mentioned in writings as if the precise moment when those words were told (leaving aside issues concerning the source of the quote), the author was aware of the authority in which was speaking

Hence the expression "say what you mean, mean what you say". And all joking aside, it's probably not a bad thing to be sober in one's statements, especially where they regard another...and this applies to relatively "unimportant" persons such as myself as well as to the "greats".

[Peter]

Indeed...I just listened to Hummel's Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 85, it's quite lovely.

Yes as are many of his neglected piano concertos - however you realise when listening to them that Hummel and Beethoven were quite clearly coming from a different approach despite their common Mozartean heritage.