Chopin Ballade No.1 in G Minor Tips, Resources, Tutorials, and Masterclasses (how to play) Opus 23

Overview

Score (Everynote.com)

Chopin's Ballade #1 in G Minor (op.23) is a LRSM (Licentiate Royal Schools of Music), LTCL (Licentiate Trinity College of Music) level piece which is the same graded virtuoso level as Liszt's La Campanella, or equivalent to the final year recital for a Bmus degree in a specialist music convervatoire. I've found a collection of masterclasses from the Internet as well as academic resources as well as broad resources on how to approach and analyse this particular Ballade.





Before the masterclases, let's first listen to the Ballade by the great Krystian Zimmerman, winner of the 1975 Chopin Competition



Josh Wright from Utah giving suggestions for the Coda of the Chopin Ballade #1


Josh's tips - (Coda section) Presto con fuoco (fast with fire)

• Don't just focus on the technique, focus on the artistry and the artistry will help the technique.
• Voice the top hand melody and stay light
• Feel the phrasing
• Don't play too fast but focus on producing the artistic resolutions, colours,  images you want to portray.
• Keep sensitivity at the core of your practice.

Oleg Stepanov Masterclass, who studied under Lev Vlassenko at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, won the Liszt International Competition in 1956 (Stepanov has dedicated a piano competition in his memory) gives a masterclass starting off with the Chopin Ballade #1

Masterclass with Oleg Stepanov

• Chopin Foundation: How to Play Chopin's Ballades by Professor Regina Smendzianka (Chopin Foundation, USA)
• Chopin and the G Minor Ballade by David Björling, Luleå University of Technology Abstract The purpose of this work is to make a general presentation of Chopin, the age in which he lived, his G minor Ballade and selected editions of the Ballade. I will also compare five recordings of the G minor Ballade, and make a presentation and a recording of my own interpretation of the G minor Ballade. This work discusses his life up to the time the Ballade was published, Chopin’s development as a composer, and the period in his life when the Ballade was composed. Background material on the history of the Ballade as a genre and its development is included to give the reader an enhanced contextual understanding. The issue as to whether Chopin had a literary model when composing the G minor Ballade and his relationship with the Polish writer Adam Mickiewicz is discussed. This work considers the issue of form in the G minor Ballade, Chopin’s personality, how Chopin played, his use ofthe term ‘tempo rubato’, and how he used improvisation and composition.
• Chopin Ballade #1 in G Minor Opus 23 Sheet music (IMSLP) -
• Wikipedia overview of the Chopin Ballades
• Descriptive analysis of the Chopin G Minor Ballade (La Folia Online Music Review)
• Brief Music Analysis of the Ballades (ourChopin.com)
• Full text of the translated text of Konrad Wallenrod, poetry by Adam Mickiewicz, which is said to have inspired the Ballades.(Gutenburg Project)
• Frederick Scott on the Chopin Ballade in G minor (Thetutorpages)

Master Piano Technique: Pearly Sound - a lesson from Utah

Utah's Josh Wright has some great piano tutorials for advanced pianists on Youtube. For such a young pianist he is very aware of technique and getting a great sound. In this Youtube tutorial, Josh discusses Pearly sound. Josh's inspiration's for this Pearly Sound is the playing of pianist Murray Perahia.  I think this term is fairly common in North America, I don't hear this term used in the UK that often, only by my previous Canadian teacher postgraduate from the Royal Academy of Music.

 Josh defines Pearly Sound as a light, clear, beautiful, fleeting sound as opposed to a heavy and muddy sound. Josh demonstrates this concept with a Chopin nocturne, and illustrates the difference and technical approach to achieve Pearly Sound. Enjoy, practise and share!

Dear Mozart...reading composers' private letters online

The Gutenburg project puts free out of copyright books in a digital format available to view online or download as an ebook (to your kindle perhaps). Books range from the works of Jane Austin, the Bible, Sun Tzu's Art of War, to Machiavelli's The Prince.

It is indeed a fabulous resource for the music scholar and student. A look at the music bookshelf of the Gutenburg project reveals many composers letters that have been translated into English.

Mozart's Signature

The following letters are available from the following composers:

• Beethoven
• Franz Liszt
• Mozart
• Haydn

Tips for your research

• Perhaps cross reference the year of the composition of the piece you are playing and look for any mentions of the piece by the composer himself.  
• If the composition was dedicated into someone in mind, are there mentions of that name? 
• What was he thinking at the time? 
• What major life events occur within the context of the piece in question?
• Is there an insight into the personality of the composer? 

This may help breathe some of his personality into your performance! Summon the presence of the composer in absentia.

Free Sheet Music! Out of Copyright and in the Public Domain

Who says you can't have something free in the age of austerity. Can't afford sheet music? Well no problem as a lot of it you can get for free! Just check out the Music International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) It's a great resource if you're away from your sheet music and need your score quickly to practice with. Granted, it might not be the exact arrangement you've bought already but it'll be close! As of 19 November 2010 it holds 78,000 scores. You can see for example - Elgar's Salut D'amour - piano solo version, piano and violin, piano and clarinet, and even the orchestral version too!
I recently performed the piece. I couldn't wait to get started so I used the free version from the website to practice with until I bought the Peters edition version..


Read about the International Music Score Library Project's history on wikipedia