Sunday Classics Quiz-Contest: Belated happy 200th, Frederic! (Now name our Chopinistas)

by Ken

I've been mulling some sort of Chopin "project" to go with the anniversary year (March 1 was our Frédéric's 200th birthday), and one obvious possibility might be to work out work through the 24 preludes, the one group of his piano compositions that actually were conceived, and intended to be played as, a set. (Difficult as it may be to believe, he really didn't expect us to sit down and listen to 53 mazurkas -- or, even more fatiguing, 19 nocturnes -- all in a row.)

So I thought we'd give it a test run tonight. The Chopin preludes are all short works, of course (No. 1 ranges from 0:31 to 0:52 in the performances we're hearing; No. 2, from 1:52 to 2:09; you'll notice that Pianist A gives both the shortest performance of No. 1 and the longest performance of No. 2), so I though pairing them might be the way to go, even apart from the structural logic -- the same as the preludes and fugues in the two books of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, encompassing all 24 major and minor keys by going through the "circle of fifths," starting in C major and its "relative minor" key, A minor (the keys with no sharps or flats), and going up a fifth each time, so that the next preludes are in G major and E minor, respectively. How strong the musical connections are between the nominal "pairs" is something you can decide for yourself.

It seems to me more that Chopin was most concerned with imagining a "good piece" for each of the 24 keys, with great concern for variety (or perhaps that came automatically?) and not so much regard to the major-minor pairings, but one of the glories of music of this precision, concentration, and depth is that it's meant to last the listener a lifetime. In the Prelude No. 1, for example, you're going to hear four very different ideas of what the basic rhythm of the piece is, and by extension the basic mood. Prelude No. 1 also demonstrates the fanatical concision of which Chopin was capable, ending almost before we've had a chance to get to know it. Which again is what makes this music to live with. On this rehearing, a couple of these performances within seconds brought tears to my eyes.

The four pianists we're hearing have two things in common: They're all seriously important artists, and I happen to have their recordings of the Chopin Preludes on CD. The age range, by my calculation, is from 25 to 73, which makes me wonder whether we shouldn't also be trying to see if we can hear the relative ages of our four pianists.

Our contenders are all on this list:

Martha Argerich
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Ivan Moravec
Maurizio Pollini
Arthur Rubinstein
Rudolf Serkin

(You'll notice the mix of nationalities here -- Brazilian, Russian, Czech, Italian, Polish, and German -- which ensures that the four pianists we're actually hearing are similarly diverse.)

CHOPIN: Preludes, Op. 28:

No. 1 in C major

No. 2 in A minor

A


B


C


D


Don't feel limited to guessing the pianists. In fact, don't feel you have to identify any of them. Feel free to comment on any aspect of the music (either or both pieces) or any one or more of the eight performances. If you do want to identify any of the recordings, maybe you'd like to explain how you arrived at your conclusions or guesses. If you've never heard the music and would like to share something that strikes you about either the music or any of the performances, possibly better still.

If your comment seems likely to add somehow to other listeners' experience of the music, you could be the winner even if you don't identify any of the artists. Multiple entries are not only allowed but welcome, provided you've got something to share.

Speaking of people who may never have heard this music, or may be still relatively unfamiliar with it, I would love to have some of you sharing it here. And I hope nobody will be put off by the printed music. Even if you don't read music, I think that especially with such brief, concentrated pieces you can pick up some strong visual clues about the pacing and textures of the music. Again, if you have responses you'd like to share, there are people here who'd be interested to hear them.

One obvious last question: Might this be a project worth pursuing? If so, would you rather hear the same pianists carry through all 24 preludes, or would you want to hear some others? (I think we've actually got a pretty interesting foursome here, so much so that )(We could also introduce "guest artists" along the way.

A SUGGESTED LISTENING TRICK

A trick I might propose, especially with such a wonderfully diverse group of performers, is to listen to all four performances of one prelude and then go back and rehear at least the first one you heard, to see whether, and how, it sounds any different.

Believe it or not, this time there are no tricks (or at least none that I can think of). There's even a built-in clue (and points to be had for guessing what the clue is, though the points don't count for anything -- don't let that stop you), and that's in addition to the already-divulged age range of our performers at the times of these recordings.


IN TOMORROW NIGHT'S PREVIEW AND SUNDAY'S POST

In the Saturday night preview we dip farther back in recorded history, and Sunday we identify all the pianists and make some observations about the two preludes.

SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

The current list is here.

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