Chopin Studies 2

This second volume of Chopin essays contains Chopin research by twelve leading scholars.

This second volume of essays in Chopin Studies contains Chopin research by twelve leading scholars. Three main topics are addressed: reception history, aesthetics and criticism, and performance studies. The first four chapters investigate certain images associated with Chopin during his lifetime and after his death: Chopin as classical composer, as salon composer, as modernist, as 'otherwordly', as androgyne. The next four essays contextualize and define aspects of his musical language, including narrative stuctures, baroque affinities, progressive tendencies and functional ambiguity. The last four deal with analysis and source study as related to performance, structure and expression, tempo rubato and 'authentic' interpretation. The book ends with a thumbnail sketch of Chopin as revealed in a recently discovered diary for 1847–8.

Preface; 1. Chopin reception: theory, history, analysis Jim Samson; 2. Chopin as 'salon composer' in nineteenth-century German criticism Andreas Ballstaedt; 3. Chopin as modernist in nineteenth-century Russia Anne Swartz; 4. Small fairy voices: sex, history and meaning in Chopin Jeffrey Kallberg; 5. Chopin's Ballade Op. 23 and the revolution of the intellectuals Karol Berger; 6. The Polonaise-Fantasy and issues of musical narrative Anthony Newcomb; 7. Placing Chopin: reflections on a compositional aesthetic Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger; 8. Ambiguity and reinterpretation in Chopin Edward T. Cone; 9. The Prelude in E minor Op. 28 No. 4: autograph sources and interpretation Carl Schachter; 10. Performing the F# minor Prelude Op. 28 No. 8 L. Henry Shaffer; 11. Chopin's tempo rubato in context David Rowland; 12. Authentic Chopin: history, analysis and intuition in performance John Rink; Appendix: encounters with Chopin: Fanny Erskine's Paris diary, 1847–8 Jeremy Barlow; Index.

This second volume of Chopin essays contains Chopin research by twelve leading scholars. Three main topics are addressed: reception history, aesthetics and criticism, and performance studies. The essays explore Chopin as classical composer, modernist and androgyne.