Chopin Piano Concerti

Hey guys,

My teacher and several others always really heavily critisise Chopin's two piano concerti.

I can understand where their points of views are coming from, but I really enjoy listening to both of them (the second movement of the 1st concerto is one of my favourite pieces of music). I was wondering if anyone could possibly explain to me why the pieces justify such a heavy critique? I understand that it lies predominantly in the orchestra rather than in the piano parts, but my knowledge of music isn't great enough to completely put my finger on what makes them not comparible to other piano concerti.

Just wondering what all your thoughts on this are,

Ferret

That's basically it. The orchestra parts of Chopin's piano concerti make Paganini's orchestral parts sound like a Mahler symphony,

Well, yeah, it's mostly the orchestration. I never listened much to them, let alone study the score, but what you hear clearly is that the orchestra generally doesn't have a very strong part on its own. Mostly it just seems to follow the piano along in an "orchestral cloud", which gives the piano a nice bed to lie on, but that's about it. Know that setting some keyboards have, called something like "Romantic Piano", consisting of a mix of a piano and a string orchestra sound? That's what Chopin piano concertos often remind me of :P

(Of course that's an overstatement. Obviously the orchestra does some things on its own, but it always seems to stay secondary to the piano, not an equal partner.)

There are also some very weird handlings of the orchestral instruments from time to time. I once played horn in the second concerto and there was this one passage where both horns had a strange jumpy, chromatic passage in legato which, while not actually hard, was quite awkward and unnatural to play, because the voice leading seemed rather arbitrary and you immediately got the feeling that it was not a voice actually written for that instrument. I just got the feeling that the notes that were written down weren't actually necessary, but just there to add some more notes. I never get that feeling in, say, a Beethoven piano concerto. There, I always feel that every single voice is important and needed for the piece. Chopin seems more like: "Hmm, let's add some orchestra to that piano piece".

That being said, I don't actually dislike his piano concertos. I just think that for the most part, they would work just as well without the orchestra :P

No Tomas, the orchestra parts for the Chopin concerti are WORSE than Paganinis... like ew.

That was my point. Paganini's might be simple, but they work. Chopin's are just crap.

i never like chopin's piano concerti.

i whole-heartedly DISAGREE with whoever said: if mozart lived during chopin's time, he would have composed piano concerti like chopin.

the way mozart made the orchestra and the piano work together is 100 times more brilliant than chopin.

the orchestra of chopin's piano concerti remind me of those people who just kind of stand on the side of the stage, dancing and singing occasionally while the stars sings.