Chopin’s Piano Solo Goes From Practice to Concert

The études or solo piano studies were pieces created by Frederic Chopin (1829-36) while teaching and performing for recitals in Paris. These were smaller pieces and initially, Chopin created these so that he and others could practice the technically difficult style of Chopin’s revolutionary piano playing. He successfully honed his own style as he has been composing starting at the tender age of 6. At eight he’d been performing for parties of well-heeled people, the likes of Tsar Alexander I and he had been trained at conservatories but left to nurture his imagination in solo piano-playing and composing. To his mentors’ mind, Chopin’s imagination took precedence over academic standards. The études are a product of his skill and imagination and are not mere practice pieces. Chopin put his mark into each work and exhibited his evocative craftsmanship. These pieces are challenging, high in artistic form and substance, and are performed frequently in concerts and recitals for centuries now).

Étude No. 22 Op 25, No.10 was part of the second set of Chopin’s études published in 1837. Chopin dedicated it to his colleague Franz Liszt’s mistress Marie D’Agoult. The first set of études, Chopin dedicated to his friend Franz Liszt. Étude No. 22 Op 25, No.10, complex as it is youthful, is a solo study in B minor. On sheet music its first theme consists of many notes, a series of eighth note-tuplets meant to be played with speed (tempo Allegro), progressing in loudness (crescendo) throughout the passages. After this loud brisk “introduction” enters the second theme--in B major and triple meter. Despite pedal point notes and sightings of phrase articulations in the second theme, Chopin paints the entire étude smoothly by way of legato playing. This second theme is repeated four times and enthralls with poetic trills. And then transitions back to B minor and the first theme.