The First Movement of Chopin’s Sonata in B[Flat] Minor, Op. 35 Charles Rosen 19th-Century Music, Vol. 14, No. 1. (Summer, 1990), pp. 60-66. Stable URL http: flinksjstor-org/sici?sici=0148-2076% 28 199022% 29 1473 1%3C60%3A TFMOCS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4 19%h-Century Music is currently published by University of California Press. Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at bhupulwww.jstororg/about/terms.hunl. JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of « journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial us. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hutp:/wwww jstor.org/jounals/ucal html, Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission, JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to ereating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @jstor.org, hupsvwwjstororg/ Mon Nov 13 10:23:25 2006Rehearings The First Movement of Chopin’s Sonata in Bb Minor, Op. 35 CHARLES ROSEN, Inalmost every edition {and consequently most performances) of Chopin’s Sonata in Bb Minor, ‘op. 35, there is a serious error on the first page that makes awkward nonsense of an important ‘moment in the opening movement. The repeat of the exposition begins in the wrong place. A double bar before the beginning of a new and faster tempo in m, 5 is generally decorated on both staves with the two dots that indicate the opening of a section to be played twice. Aglance at a photograph of the manuscript in (© 1990y Charles Rosen. 0 Warsaw! will assure us that these dots are an en- graver’s embellishment. The mistake was made in two of the early editions. Chopin's works were almost always published simultaneously in three cities, Paris, Berlin, and London, and both the French and German editions are wrong. Unfortunately modern editors rely mostly on these two editions—somewhat irra- tionally, as Chopin did not like to read proof and "The manuscript isnot autograph, but ihascorections in ‘Chopin's hand, A facsimile of the rst page sprinted in the notorious “Paderewski” edition (Fryderyk Chopin. Com Plte Works 6 Sonatas for Piano, cl igacy Paderewshi, {adwik Bronarl, and ose Truczysks [Warsaw 1983}Example 1: Sonata in Bb Minor, op. 35, first mvt. ‘Reproduced from edition of Wessel (London, 1840). often left the correction of even the Paris ver- sion to friends and students. The London edi- tion is, nevertheless, correct (ex. 1a). Alltwenti- eth-century editions, however, are wrong. One other nineteenth-century edition (reprinted in the twentieth) gets it right: the critical edition published by Breitkopf & Hartel in 1878-80 and edited by Liszt, Reinecke, Brahms, et al. The so- natas were revised by Brahms, who was too in- telligent to perpetuate the misprint? We should not, however, need to glance at the documentary evidence. The indication in The edition of Ignaz Friedman, published by Breitkopt & Hartel in 1913 [spt 1984] 1s also correct at this pace, Bu it ‘was evidently based on that of Brahms, ast perpetuates an ‘error in the last movement of two extra bas. ‘most editions is musically impossible: it inter- rupts a triumphant cadence in D} major with an accompanimental figure in B} minor, a har- monic effect which is not even piquant enough to be interesting, and merely sounds perfunc- tory. The repeat is clearly intended to begin with the first note of the movement: the open- ing four bars are not a slow introduction but an integral part of the exposition. The perfor- mances I have heard that do not perpetuate the foolish misprint have omitted the repetition al- together. This makes the movement too short, but better that than musical nonsense. I am sure, however, that there are pianists who have discovered the right version either from the ‘manuscript or the old Breitkopf edition. The openings a shock, beginning witha sug- a REHEARINGSExample 2: Scherzo in B Minor, op.20. gestion of the wrong key of D> which tums quickly to Bb. When it comes back, it is now the right key, as the exposition has closed in D+ (ex. 1b). The opening four bars have a double func- tion: a dramatic beginning, and a transition from the end of the exposition back to the tonic. The left hand, unharmonized, resolves the cadence a measure before the right. This is a de- vice used with equally astonishing effect by Chopin a few years before the sonata, in the Scherzo in B minor, op. 20, written in 1832. It ‘occurs in m. 569 at the beginning of the coda ex. 2), The effect here is perhaps even more star- tling because it is not prepared rhythmically as in the sonata. ‘The opening of the sonata is exactly twice as slow as the rest of the exposition. (Chopin's direction for the new tempo is Doppio movi- mento, and the usual concert performance of the first four bars as three or four times as slow isabsurd, a thoughtless attempt to make the be- ginning more pretentious.) Two bars of the quick tempo equal one of the slow (marked Grave), and at the end of the exposition Chopin retums to the original slow tempo with long notes two bars in length so that the transition is wonderfully smooth. A phrase that is both an initial dramatic motto and a modulation from the secondary to- nality of the exposition back to the tonic is a re- a ‘markable conception: even more significant is the carefully worked-out realization in terms of the rhythm, harmony, and texture. When we reflect that the misprint in almost all editions has gone not only uncorrected but seemingly unnoticed for more than a century, I think we may reasonably decide to give very little weight to the standard critical opinion that Chopin's ‘treatment of the sonata form is uninteresting. The Sonata in C Major, op. 24, of Carl Maria ‘von Weber, one of the few composers of his time that Chopin admired, provides a precedent, if not a model (ex. 3a). The first movement starts, like Chopin’s, with a four-bar motto that begins outside of the tonic harmony and then resolves into the tonic. On its retum when the exposi- tion is repeated (ex. 3b], the motto now appears as a clear extension of the final bars of the expo- sition. Chopin's version is tighter and more dra- matic, as the beginning of his motto is the reso- lution of an unfinished cadence at the end of the exposition. Weber's movement has a further af- finity with Chopin's work, as the opening tonic harmony returns in the recapitulation not with opening bars, or even with the main theme atm, 5, but with the new material of m. 20. In his three mature sonatas—those for piano in Bb minor and B minor, and the undervalued masterpiece that is the late cello sonata—Cho- pin found a scheme that compromised neitherExample 3: Weber, Sonata in C Major, op. 24, first mvt. his sense of style nor the energy of the form. He retumed to an older eighteenth-century tradi- tion of eliminating most of the first group from the recapitulation and placed the definitive mo- ‘ment of resolution with the return of the second gzoup. In compensation, he made the develop- ment section largely an elaborately contrapun- tal working-out of the first theme alone. The de- velopment is the traditional place for chromatic harmony, but Chopin outdoes any previous composer in richness, complexity, and an al- most bewildering variety of surface change. What holds this variety together is Chopin’s unsurpassed feeling for a long line. This is shown by the development of the Sonata in Bb ‘Minor, the most tightly organized of the three sonatas (ex. 4}. The Wagnerian character is eas- ily remarked, and it is due not only to the har- mony but to the treatment of rhythm and motif. In 1838 Chopin has anticipated the creation of a ‘web of Leitmotivs that Wagner was to find only with the Ring (Lohengrin in 1848 associates Leitmotivs with characters and ideas, but does not combine them into a complex network|, 6 REHEARINGSiors CENTURY MUSIC Example 4: Sonata in Bt Major, op. 35, ist mvt,, development. Reproduced from edition of Breitkopf & Hartel (Leipzig, 1880 The development of the sonata uses two mo- tives, both from the first group of the exposition (ex. 5), and there is hardly a measure from 105 to 160 that does not use one or both of them. [A correct reprise of the exposition with the open- ing motif is clearly an aid to comprehending this development.) The motives begin by alter- nating and finally combine in a relentless se- quence. eS aS Example 5 ‘The unity of the different textures is provided bya chromatic line that rises from m. 108 to m. 137 and then falls back to a pedal point on the dominant, The structural skeleton is skillfully transferred from voice to voice (see ex. 6, in- tended not as a Urlinie but as an attempt to indi- cate the voice leading}. This large-scale rise and fall clarifies the rhythm. The phrase structure seems irregular at the opening—three bars, 64 three bars, five bars, three bars, two bars. Not only, however, does this add up to sixteen, but the basic harmonic line enforces the sense of a four-bar structure with a downbeat at mm. 105, 109, 113, 117, and 121. The underlying har- monic movement not only organizes the com- plexity of texture, it also overrides the melodic symmetry. Measures 121-24 are apparently parallel to 129-32, but the first phrase has a ris- ing tenor over a pedal G, and the second a dy- namic bass line that rises from E to A with a much greater energy. ‘Measures 121-24, freely derived from the second group of the exposition, round off the Tristan-like harmonies of the opening with a melody that recalls to our ears the music of Am- fortas in Parsifal. The change in phrasing as the development proceeds is remarkable: the ir- regular movement of the opening gives way at 1m. 121 to distinct four-bar phrases, and then toa lengthy and stormy climax of two-bar se- quences [mm 137-52), in which both motives are combined throughout. This is the apex of the form: the chromatic line has reached the tonic Bb, but is harmonized as a G-minor sixPoC oO FSO = Example 6: Sonata in Bb Minor, op. 35, first mvt., development, voice-leading reduction. chord, and it is the beginning of the descent. This climax on a B> bass note but not on a Bb harmony demonstrates the preeminence of con- trapuntal line over harmony in Chopin’s art. The two-bar phrases come like a series of waves of continuously renewed force. Itis inter esting, however, that Chopin's deployment of his motives is subservient to the harmonic and contrapuntal structure as it was to be later with Wagner): the first motive disappears from the bass line in mm. 149-50 at the only place where the bass is forced to move within the two-bar group in order to establish the arrival at the dominant F, After this arrival, Chopin broadens the rhythm, dovetailing the phrases in mm. 153-61, so that each phrase finishes within the beginning of the new one. From mm. 151 to 169, Gh is suspended over F and then resolves into F repeatedly: this is the grandest dominant prepa- ration in all of Chopin. ‘What makes this development so powerful is, the sense of line that organizes the changing thythm, the supple phrasing, and the radically inventive chromaticism. The line controls the climax, and on it are hung the incessant appear- ances of the motives. The foundation for the technique is Chopin’s ability to shift line and ‘motif from one voice to another over the entire range of the keyboard (note the way the Dé in the tenor of m. 135 is transferred up to the Eb in the alto which then guides the harmonic move: ment} The development may make one of Chopin’s most disconcerting statements less paradoxi- cal, Delacroix, in his diary, reported that Cho- pin protested against the school of musicians ‘who believed that the charm of music lay in its sound, its sonority.’ This was evidently aimed at composers like Berlioz, butit upset Delacroix who took it almost as an attack on himself: he copied it out twice and tried to answer it. It is true that Chopin admired Delacroix personally but disliked his painting, In the contemporary battle in the visual arts over the importance of line as opposed to color, Delacroix was seen as the leader of the colorists. He tried weakly to answer Chopin in the diary by commenting that Chopin wrote only for piano and was not inter- ested in orchestral color. Nevertheless, Cho pin’s mastery of tone color is incontestable: his works reveal a range of sonorities unsurpassed before Debussy. The opposition between structure and sonor- ity in music is almost as misleading as that be- tween line and color in the visual arts. Baude- laire insisted correctly that Delacroix was one of the three greatest draftsmen of the century and emphasized his mastery of line. In the same way, a study of Chopin demonstrates the inti- mate relation between line and color in music. In a Bellini opera, the sentiment that brings tears to the eyes of listeners depends on the composer's mastery of the long sustained line. The poetic force of Chopin depends similarly on his control of all the lines of a complex poly: phonic web. On this was based the subtly shift- ing phrase accent and the astonishing experi- ‘ments in harmony. The wonderful sonorities of Chopin's writing—the exquisite spacing, the "Entry of 16 May 1857; see The Journal of Eugene Delacrox, ced. Herbert Wellingeon, tans. Lucy Norton [lthaca, 1980) pp. 363-88. 65 REHEARINGSiets CENTURY ‘MUSIC vibrant inner voices—spring from an abstract structure of lines. The listener is conscious, as, he is in Bach, both of the way an individual line is sustained and of the passing of the melody from one voice to another. It is not only in small details that Chopin displayed this art but in the cism and the dramatic shock in his music are equally indebted to this craft. This is the true paradox of Chopin: he is most original in his use Of the most traditional technique. That is what made him at once the most conservative and the most radical composer general outlines of the larger forms. The lyri- of his generation. IN OUR NEXT ISSUE [FALL 1990} ARTICLES TimoTHy Jackson: Bruckner's Metrical Numbers ALLAN ATLas: Crossed Stars and Crossed Tonal Areas in Puccini's Madama Butterfly Exaine R, SisMAN: Brahms and the Variation Canon Jou Roeper: Pitch and Rhythmic Dramaturgy in Verdi's Lux eterna REVIEWESSAYS —_ RICHARD KRAMER: Posthumous Schubert Lron Borstew: Brahms and Nineteenth-Century Painting We regret that in Dolores Pesce’s article, Liszt's Années de PBlerinage, Book 3: A Hungarian’ Cycle?” in the Spring 1990 issue (XIIU3}, some measure numbers were misaligned over chords in example 6 (p. 215). We reprint that example here as it was originally intended. ert te Example 6: Aux Cyprés de la Villa d'Este J, melodic and tonal reduction. 66