Sketch for a portrait of Kalkbrenner and Chopin

• Authors: Danuta Jasińska
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

PL

In this article, the author sketches a portrait of Kalkbrenner and Chopin against the background of musical practice during the 1830s. On the basis of sources, including Chopin’s correspondence and the opinions of his contemporaries and of Chopin scholars, an attempt is made to distinguish characteristic features of the two composers in their mutual relations. Their contacts are outlined, as well as their artistic activities, with particular emphasis on Chopin’s first concert in Paris and the role of pianistic virtuosity linked with the style brillant. Attention is drawn to the properties of the Pleyel piano which Kalkbrenner and Chopin both preferred and to the differing playing aesthetics and artistic images of the two composer-virtuosos. Chosen for the purposes of stylistic comparison are their methods of piano playing, with the accent on the schematic nature of Kalkbrenner’s “finger technique”, whilst most crucial for Chopin was to bring out the beautiful quality of the sound. In the closing remarks, it is stated that the two musicians, in their pianistic, compositional and pedagogic activities, represented the distinct antithesis of one another and two different schools. Prominent in the portrait of Kalkbrenner are distinct connections with the convention of the style brillant, whilst the portrait of Chopin, who broke through those conventions, is marked by features more profound and individualised.

Keywords

PL

Friedrich Kalkbrenner; Fryderyk Chopin; piano; virtuosity; style brillant; variations; piano concerto; piano playing method

• Publisher: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
• Journal: Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology
• Year: 2010
• Issue: 9
• Pages: 83-100

Dates

published

2018-10-17

Contributors

author

Danuta Jasińska

• professor on the Department of Musicology of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Gained her habilitation in 1997 on the basis of the work Styl brillant a muzyka Chopina [The style brillant and the music of Chopin] (Poznań, 1995). From 1999 to 2005, she was Head of the Department of Musicology at Adam Mickiewicz University. The main area of her academic interests and work covers the history of music and of Polish music in particular during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the analysis and interpretation of the musical work and its contexts. Her published articles have treated of issues concerning instrumental and vocal music, virtuosity, the music of Chopin and its tradition, as well as stylistic idioms, including the poetics of neoclassicism. She has also been source editor, lexicographic editor or co-editor of Contexts of Musicology (Poznań, 1997), Henryk Wieniawski. Composer and Virtuoso in the Musical Culture o f the XIX and XX centuries (Poznań, 2001), Henryk Wieniawski and the 19th Century Violin Schools. Techniques o f Playing, Performance, Questions of Sources and Editorial Issues (Poznań, 2008) and Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology 7 {Music as a Medium of Communication) (Poznań 2008).