page_title: Frédéric Chopin
section_title: Form and harmony
hierarchical_section_title: Frédéric Chopin / Music / Form and harmony
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Muzeum Fryderyka Chopina w Warszawie. Ostatni fortepian kompozytora wykonany przez firmę Pleyel (nr 14810), na którym Fryderyk Chopin grał i komponował w latach 1848-1849 English: Frederick Chopin Museum in Warsaw. Composer's last piano made by the Playel Company (no 14810). Chopin played and composed on this instrument in 1848-49
context_page_description: Frédéric François Chopin, born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era, one whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation."
  Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola in the Duchy of Warsaw and grew up in Warsaw, which in 1815 became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he completed his musical education and composed his earlier works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. At 21, he settled in Paris. Thereafter—in the last 18 years of his life—he gave only 30 public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon. He supported himself by selling his compositions and by giving piano lessons, for which he was in high demand. Chopin formed a friendship with Franz Liszt and was admired by many of his other musical contemporaries, including Robert Schumann.
context_section_description: Improvisation stands at the centre of Chopin's creative processes. However, this does not imply impulsive rambling: Nicholas Temperley writes that "improvisation is designed for an audience, and its starting-point is that audience's expectations, which include the current conventions of musical form." The works for piano and orchestra, including the two concertos, are held by Temperley to be "merely vehicles for brilliant piano playing ... formally longwinded and extremely conservative". After the piano concertos (which are both early, dating from 1830), Chopin made no attempts at large-scale multi-movement forms, save for his late sonatas for piano and cello; "instead he achieved near-perfection in pieces of simple general design but subtle and complex cell-structure." Rosen suggests that an important aspect of Chopin's individuality is his flexible handling of the four-bar phrase as a structural unit.
  J. Barrie Jones suggests that "amongst the works that Chopin intended for concert use, the four ballades and four scherzos stand supreme", and adds that "the Barcarolle Op. 60 stands apart as an example of Chopin's rich harmonic palette coupled with an Italianate warmth of melody." Temperley opines that these works, which contain "immense variety of mood, thematic material and structural detail", are based on an extended "departure and return" form; "the more the middle section is extended, and the further it departs in key, mood and theme, from the opening idea, the more important and dramatic is the reprise when it at last comes."
  Chopin's mazurkas and waltzes are all in straightforward ternary or episodic form, sometimes with a coda. The mazurkas often show more folk features than many of his other works, sometimes including modal scales and harmonies and the use of drone basses. However, some also show unusual sophistication, for example Op. 63 No. 3, which includes a canon at one beat's distance, a great rarity in music.
  Chopin's polonaises show a marked advance on those of his Polish predecessors in the form (who included his teachers Żywny and Elsner). As with the traditional polonaise, Chopin's works are in triple time and typically display a martial rhythm in their melodies, accompaniments, and cadences. Unlike most of their precursors, they also require a formidable playing technique.
  The 21 nocturnes are more structured, and of greater emotional depth, than those of Field (whom Chopin met in 1833). Many of the Chopin nocturnes have middle sections marked by agitated expression (and often making very difficult demands on the performer) which heightens their dramatic character.
  Chopin's études are largely in straightforward ternary form. He used them to teach his own technique of piano playing—for instance playing double thirds (Op. 25, No. 6), playing in octaves (Op. 25, No. 10), and playing repeated notes (Op. 10, No.  7).
  The preludes, many of which are very brief (some consisting of simple statements and developments of a single theme or figure), were described by Schumann as "the beginnings of studies". Inspired by J.S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, Chopin's preludes move up the circle of fifths (rather than Bach's chromatic scale sequence) to create a prelude in each major and minor tonality. The preludes were perhaps not intended to be played as a group, and may even have been used by him and later pianists as generic preludes to others of his pieces, or even to music by other composers, as Kenneth Hamilton suggests: he has noted a recording by Ferruccio Busoni of 1922, in which the Prelude Op. 28 No. 7 is followed by the Étude Op. 10 No. 5.
  The two mature piano sonatas (No. 2, Op. 35, written in 1839 and No. 3, Op. 58, written in 1844) are in four movements. In Op. 35, Chopin was able to combine within a formal large musical structure many elements of his virtuosic piano technique—"a kind of dialogue between the public pianism of the brilliant style and the German sonata principle". The sonata has been considered as showing the influences of both Bach and Beethoven. The Prelude from Bach's Suite No. 6
caption: Chopin's last (Pleyel) piano, on which he composed in 1848–49. Fryderyk Chopin Museum, Warsaw
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "4146", "Image ImageLength": "3020", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D5100", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2021:02:04 13:20:14", "Image ExifOffset": "284", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1006", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6852", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "2500", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:11:09 18:32:16", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:11:09 18:32:16", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "4906891/1000000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "12", "EXIF SubSecTime": "20", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "20", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "20", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4146", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3020", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "18", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "6010244", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[12, 24, 4, 4]", "EXIF LensModel": "12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0"}