Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21 (1830)
Maestoso
Larghetto
Allegro vivace
During the first half of the 19th century it was still very much the norm for performers to be fully rounded musicians, to the extent that the leading virtuosi would be expected to compose their own music for inclusion in their concerts. In fact, the tradition has persisted well into the 20th century – notably with composers such as Rachmaninov, Messiaen – and Shostakovich, of course; except that more recently we find that many of them just happen to be fine performers or conductors as well: the opposite scenario would seem to be increasingly less common, to the point of near-extinction. Chopin was no exception to the norm: born in the village of Zelazowa Wola, but growing up in nearby Warsaw, his serious musical education began at the Warsaw Lyceum in 1813, and thence at the Conservatoire from the age of 16 – during which time he first became absorbed in the folk music of his native country. 1829 (the year following his graduation) saw him giving concerts in Berlin, Vienna – and eventually Warsaw itself on 17th March 1830, when he presented the F minor piano concerto (actually the first of the two to have been composed). Less than eight months later he left Poland for Austria and Italy; on arriving in Paris the following September he found himself stranded by the eventual crushing of the Polish uprising that had broken out soon after his departure, and so never again returned to his homeland.
Despite debilitating homesickness Chopin quickly became absorbed into the richness of Parisian artistic circles, making the acquaintance not only of such great musicians as Berlioz and Liszt, but also the poet Heine and the painter Delacroix (whose portrait of him is one of the most famous). However, with this piano concerto – plus other solo works which quickly followed in Paris – he gave early notice of his distaste for the prevalent stile brillante, with its characteristic virtuosic extravagances as espoused by such popular pianists as Moscheles, Herz, and Hunten. In the concerto he is already revealing a more bel canto manner of pianism, whose melodic arabesques seem to look further back to the improvised embellishments of the baroque – as observed by Liszt himself when he wrote of “those small groups of chromatics which fall like many coloured, glittering dewdrops on the melodic figure”. It may even come as a surprise to learn that the composer most at the centre of his thinking and playing was none other than Bach – and the formal mastery we find in the concerto bears witness to his devotion to a previously neglected master, and one who had already aroused the passion of his great contemporary Mendelssohn. And while on the subject of his contemporaries we should remind ourselves that those four years from 1809 to 1813 gave us perhaps the most extraordinary package of collective genius in musical history, with the birth not only of Chopin, but also of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, and Verdi! As if instinctively aware of what all these highly innovative musicians would go on to achieve, we find in this early Romantic piano concerto of 1829 a composer fully conversant with the new harmonic language emerging with these visionary men – yet if we examine the chronology we find, to our astonishment, that it was in fact the teenage Chopin getting in there first and calling the shots himself!
Before the advent of the phonograph and the crystal set it was still common – and necessary – for composers to make their larger scale works available for domestic consumption: Mozart was a past master at this, preparing versions with string quartet of four of his piano concertos. Chopin was not slow to follow that precedent, although no material from his own chamber version of Concerto No.2 actually survives. However, we do have an extant contemporary arrangement, published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1836 and later revised by Paul Waldersee. Unfortunately, this was undertaken in somewhat careless manner, amounting to little more than a reprint of the orchestral string parts, with the missing wind music simply allocated to the soloist. So, for the present performance, we have taken it upon ourselves to scatter various flute, oboe, and clarinet melodies around the available string quartet players – with attention being especially drawn to a famous bassoon solo and a horn fanfare…..
© Alan George
