Frederic Francois Chopin (1810-1849) was a composer of piano music in the 19th century who reached the supreme stage by using his own unique techniques. He developed various types of the piano music through the subtle tones of the piano as if he expre...
Frederic Francois Chopin (1810-1849) was a composer of piano music in the 19th century who reached the supreme stage by using his own unique techniques. He developed various types of the piano music through the subtle tones of the piano as if he expressed it through a vocal effect. In the contents of the musical structure, he took a progressive role and thus contributed much in elevating the piano as the representative musical instrument of the Romantism.
By expressing his emotional feelings through the piano, he was able to compose many beautiful pieces and one of them was the ballade. The ballade was a type of music through which he showed his musical ideals which make us think of a picture and thus was called the most creative music he composed. He wrote four ballades after he received inspirations while he was reading Adam Michiemicz's poems. However, he expressed his feelings neither regarding the contents of the poems nor being restricted by the formality.
However, he combined his unusual nature character with harmony and fresh change of forms and he expressed a system of triple time with the free form of three steps: suggesting, developing, and reappearing in a short movement.
I focused my study on one of his favorite works, "Ballade Op.23 No.1 In G Minor" and tried to find out his unique musical style. To study Chopin's intentions through reviewing his works will help me open the horizon toward the better understanding of his music as a pianist.
The characteristics shown on "Ballade Op.23 No.1 In G Minor" as a result of my study are as follows: Among the four ballades he composed, No.1 took the closest forms of sonatas, but in the reappearing part the second theme appears first, the length of each measure is not the same, so it is called a type of a transformed sonata.
In addition, he proceeded one given motive with successive modulations and developed and transformed them. He took typical Romantism musical instrumental types. Instead of tying himself to one style of form, he expressed himself by mixing various types together and had his own impromtu and free music of Chopin.
The melodious characteristics are the use of chromatic-scale, tuneful progress
progression and impromtu musical elements. For theme melodies Chopin used beautiful and lyrical melodies similar to the bel canto vocalism in the Bellini Opera and decorative melodies frequently.
The characteristics of the chord are shown in the forms of arteggio along with the 7th and 9th chords. He made the composition unclear by using cacophony, discord and progressing chromatic scale, and changed the scales using chromatic scales and a different name of the same sound. He also used chromatic-scale progressing of the 12 scales.
In the rhythm he used an agogic accent which provided a change with a strict tempo or rhythm, making it diverse by using complex rhythm, and gave a sense of tension through using commas. He also transformed the ballade through extension and reduction and expressed the themes in various ways.
Through ballades Chopin implied and expressed more poems and words than any other program music and contributed a great deal to the development of the piano music based on his romantic feeling.