Chopin Valse in b minor Op 69 No. 2. Valentina Lisitsa

Chopin Waltz No 10bis, Op 69 #2 Now available on itunes! Written by Chopin when he was not even 20 years old, this waltz was destined -- by Chopin himself- to be burned at a time of his death as an immature and unpolished piece. Luckily, music doesn’t burn :-) The interpretational problem with this waltz (and many other . pieces) is that we cannot be exactly sure what Chopin’s final intent would have been since he never had a chance, or desire, to prepare it for publication. There are no authoritative editions , no Urtext- just various manuscripts , often written on a stray piece of paper at some lady friend’s album, often varying to such a degree as to make pieces barely recognizable. Thus we have -- in some better modern editions -- countless versions “bis“ that vary from just a few notes to pages and pages... my “favorite“ is a middle part of F minor Waltz where the downbeat is moved by a whole quarter - becoming a third beat gives any performer a case of vertigo  this waltz is no different. For this version I used mostly “BIS“ manuscript -- it has some really fresh and funky sounding cadences. If one can treat a #1 version (the one most played and most used by students ) as something melancholic and sad ( though why would 17-year old be so sad ), the BIS versions with their incredibly playful endings and unexpected turns ( every time is different ) doesn’t leave room for gloom. Tempo? We have different versions here -- Moderato-- raised as a flag by proponents of gloom-and-doom-- is accompanied by 152 per quarter, which places it solidly into upper Allegro territory on a standard metronome . May I remind that Beethoven’s Allegro ma non troppo is mere 132 per quarter. And how about BIS versions having NO tempo indications? Ah, what to do, what to do??? Just enjoy and play any way your heart desires. That’s a pleasure and marvel of music -- there are so many different ways to play and all will find their audience . If you , my dear listener , are into more study of this phenomena -- just look on YouTube for such varied versions as Cziffra , Erez for slow, Rubinstein and Ashkenazy for the middle, and such heavy weights as Cortot , Lipatti and Yakov Zak for fastest ever ( incidentally Zak was my teacher’s teacher :-) )