Posts Tagged: piano

One of the most frequent and well loved of Chopin’s Études is the third Étude in E-Major from the Opus 10. In fact, it perchance considered that Chopin thought this himself as he is cited “In all my life I have never again been competent to find such a finelooking melody”. Furthermore, this queer Étude has melodies which are many times used or influenced in other pieces from other musical genres. There have been a lot of popular songs which use the melody or a matching as their main melody.

The Étude itself is basically an A-B-A structure and is in a cantabile style, which means song like, and is occasionally referred to as “Tristesse” which translates “sadness” in French. The right hand maintains the singing melody allround as well as assisting with the accompaniment, altho it is written for the left hand.

One of the noticeable characteristics of this queer Étude is an almost significant lessening of the required almost virtuoso performance, though to play the Étude you are still required to be of a sure proficient standard. That is not to say that the Étude is peculiarly easy to perform. For an accomplished performance of the Étude, there are still things that have to be considered.

Technically, the Étude appears to concentrate on necessary phrasing and legato atmosphere’s, and has been referred by a lot of to be a “tonal poem” for the piano which becomes more evident with the subtle playing of the overall melody in Section A and C., with a lot of critics in regards to this Étude as showing strong characteristics of Chopin’s attraction for Romantic Opera and patriotic sentiments to his homeland, Poland.

Overall, this Étude is very ordinary in structure. As said before it is made of A-B-A. Section A is the main theme or melody taken in the right hand, with Alberti bass, with Section B acting like a variation, returning in the end back to Section A to finish. Arguably, the most technical part of the Étude is Section B. There is a sense of “pushing forward” at a more immediate pace with the goal being the repeat of Section A, with Section B using diminished 7th’s and Tri-tone intervals with regular accidentals to achieve it is chromatic almost aggressive nature. There is a definitive almost unsolved Coda which yearns to go back to the root, in the end taking us back into Section A.

One of the main remarks regarding the performance of this Étude is the ‘musician’s licence’ with regard to the performance of Section A. It has been cited in some recordings of this Section from the Étude that this is the most varied in it is interpretation. Variations subsist in tempo, acceleration, pauses and pedal control, nevertheless the dynamics of the division appear to stay continuous in the respective interpretations.