Chopin, Ballade No. 4 in F Minor We are in a daydream: the openest space of C Major, floating on inertia, not set in motion, but rather already there, an idyll built into the structure of things... No. It cannot last. The dream was only making ready the reality: a melancholy song, arriving like a reproach to our first joy. This tune is as wayward as feeling itself, unstable as hearts desire, making every unexpected turn into a harbor of possible repose: first the release into major key, then the further tightening into a darker minor, whose harmonic pull is so strong, it effectively cancels out the memory of the idyllic opening. Chopin can let nothing rest. As a Pole, he knows full well that a home is not a home for long, but always sets one wandering for safer haven. As a Frenchman, he knows wherever he hangs his hat might serve as home, as long as something or someone is there to love and be loved. Wave after wave of departure and return, a wild range of feelings, both delicate and enraged, the piano burrowing its way down through thicker and thicker layers of sound—until, out of nowhere, and in a desperately wrong key, the first idyllic music arrives again, a familiar benediction in a language we can barely understand. The fragile reprise of the daydream gives new and yet darker authority to the melancholy song that resumes, now forced to strive more mightily up from a faraway key (D Minor). The reprise of the melancholy song is cast strangely into the mold of Sebastian Bach, as if dry and learned counterpoint might wipe away the tunes tears. No such luck. Chopins mixed feelings are always intelligently shaped by his emotional realism: no matter where his heart leads him, he always carries with him the sure knowledge that there is a vast distance between what is and what ought to be (O! how he he lays out that distance, like a pitiless surveyor, with that great and pianissimo stretch of C Major chords near the end!) Do you see—can you hear—what I mean when I say that a great composer can turn our painfully mixed feelings into a noble architecture? Let me emphasize again: music (or any art) cannot show us a better way to live. What it CAN do it show us better the way that we do in fact live. Can this difficult awareness make a difference? To have this affirmation? To be given the gift of so much moral support from great artists? I dont know. All I know is that, thanks to our love for each other (with art as our beloved ally), life—like this Ballad—isnt all bad. https://youtube/watch?v=7tmQSWuYwrI
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 14:44:09 +0000
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