Eva
Peng, soprano
Anthony Olson, piano
This lecture/recital presents the vocal arrangements of Chopin mazurkas that were made by Pauline Viardot (1821-1910), using the arrangements to discuss 19th century performance practice. These unique works provide a “window” through which we can see how Chopin himself may have played the original piano solos.
Numerous contemporaries of Chopin (performers, historians, his students, music critics, etc.) wrote about his playing. Nearly all of them noted how Chopin changed his pieces with each performance. Examples of how Chopin may have played his works appear in his famous Nocturne in E-flat Major, Op. 9, no. 2. While teaching this piece to his own students, he left three different cadenzas and radical changes to the main theme on each repetition. In performance, Chopin improvised changes such as these in all of his works.
The arrangements of Pauline Viardot provide wonderful examples of how Chopin may have improvised when playing his mazurkas. Viardot lived during the height of 19th century romanticism. She was a singer of great reputation and knew nearly every famous composer of her day – many of whom created operatic roles especially for her. Viardot also studied piano, her primary piano teacher being Franz Liszt. After considering a career as a concert pianist, she settled on one as a singer and on her first concert tour, performed her own songs – accompanying herself at the piano. She became a composer of some repute as well, writing operas, choral works, songs, solo piano pieces and chamber music.
At George Sand’s invitation in the early 1840s, Viadot spent numerous summers with Chopin and his mistress at their summer home in southern France. Pauline studied music with Chopin and sang several concerts with him at the keyboard. She began arranging Chopin’s mazurkas for voice and piano during these visits. Chopin was enthusiastic about these transcriptions and collaborated with her in performance of these works on at least one occasion.
Viardot made similar transcriptions of waltzes by Schubert and of Hungarian dances by Brahms, works that provide an important source for understanding performance practice in the 19th century. The diverse changes she made to the melodic lines as well as the addition of full-length cadenzas are wonderful examples of how performers may have varied the repetition of themes when playing the original solo-piano versions.
To show how Pauline Viardot changed Chopin’s notes, both the original piano solos and the transcriptions are shared.
This program
has been presented at
* European Piano
Teachers' Association, international convention, November 5, 2007.
*
Virginia Music Teachers' Association, state convention, November 2, 2007.
* California Association of
Professional Music Teachers, state convention, February 9, 2007.
* Tri-State
Music Teachers' Conference (Missouri/Kansas/Nebraska), regional convention,
November 1, 2003.
* Iowa Music Teachers' Association,
state convention, June 1, 2003.
This topic has been expanded into a feature article for Clavier Magazine. Slated for publication in Fall 2008.
For further
information on this and other programs call or visit us online:
Website: www.lyricduo.com
Phone: 1 (888) 838-1612 or (660) 562-1318