Creating a New Chopin

Rock Guitar Covers of Chopin Piano Classics

Chopin scholar Jakub Kasperski looked at the use of Frédéric Chopin in popular music and found some interesting links. After his survey, he found that the works that were most popular and most often arranged were the Prelude in E minor, Op. 28 No. 4; Fantasy-Impromptu, Op. posth. 66; Nocturne in E flat major, Op. 9 No. 2; Etude in E major, Op. 10 No. 3; Polonaise in A major, Op. 40 No. 1; and, not surprisingly, the Marche funèbre from the Piano Sonata in B flat minor, Op. 35. As he notes, these are not necessarily the most simple or most accessible works but rather the works that the arrangers found ‘most recognisable, most distinctive, and most singular’.

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) was a 19th-century virtuoso on the piano, basing his career in Paris. He wrote 4 Impromptus, the very title of which promised improvisation on the spur of the moment, a bit of Romantic grandstanding at the keyboard. His most famous is the Fantaisie-Impromptu in C♯ minor, Op. posth. 66, published after his death but written in 1834. It is thought that the similarities between the work and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata may have held Chopin back from publishing it.

Frédéric Chopin: Fantasy-Impromptu in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 66 (Mao Fujita, piano)

The work has 2 outer sections that are intense and exciting, and a middle section, Largo, where arpeggiations in the left hand support a singing melody.

A 1991 compilation of unknown guitarists, Ominous Guitarists from the Unknown, included one piece by Ron Thal, later known as Bumblefoot, when he was guitarist for Guns N’ Roses (2006 –2014).

Ron Thal with Gun N’Roses, 2013 (Photo by Ch. Villa)

Ron Thal with Gun N’Roses, 2013 (Photo by Ch. Villa)

For his piece, Chopin Fantasie, he uses the familiar opening from Chopin’s work but then changes the middle section to his own music, which is used for his own display of virtuosic brilliance. He only performs the right hand of Chopin’s work on guitar; the left-hand music is taken by his keyboardist, and the drummer has an important, if differing role, in the opening and closing sections. In the first section, the drums are more supportive, whereas in the second section, there are more opportunities for complex patterns, with the double bass drum having an important role. There’s often a passage work in the drums that changes the rhythm established by the guitar.

Ron Thal: Chopin Fantaisie

To step back a generation, the American composer and conductor Les Baxter put out an album using the latest innovation, the Moog Synthesizer. Invented in 1964 by Robert Moog, the Moog Synthesizer was the first commercially available synthesizer and Baxter used it to create a piece that we might call a merger between easy-listening and rock. The synthesizer has a crystalline sound and is backed by a normal bass and drum kit. The Moog is programmed to take the piano part, but the interpretation of the music is full of slurs and other note linkages that soften the virtuosic edge that Chopin created in his original work. The bass guitar adds a syncopated rhythm.

Les Baxter: Fantasie Impromptu

Taking the work to the electro-boogie style, Krazy Baldhead takes the rhythm of the Fantasy-Impromptu, but not the actual figuration.

This work appears on the 2008 release Astigmatic Inspired by Chopin.

Astigmatic

Astigmatic

Chopin 1.10

The album was released by the organisers of the Polish Astigmatic International Festival of Electronic Music. They said about their inspiration:

This release contains tracks by some of the hottest and most interesting producers and composers, the biggest, most valuable and original artists of the independent club scene, whom we have approached to create music inspired by Chopin. … Chopin is here the genuine artist inspiring the musicians whose renditions appear in this least bombastic and solemn of compilations. … Each of the artists had total creative freedom. … The cool, the sense of humour and Chopin as the symbol of cosmopolitism are the three pillars of the release.

DJ Amazing Clay brought Chopin in Da Party, based on the Étude in C minor.

Chopin in Da Party

Chopin’s Prelude in E minor, Op. 28, no. 4, was created as part of Chopin’s examination of Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. Like Bach, he went through the major and minor keys, but organised them in an ascending circle of fifths, beginning on C major. Unlike Bach’s preludes, which were followed by fugues, these preludes were only that: the prelude as an independent work, miniature but perfect, and using outside forms, such as the mazurka, étude, and nocturne, for inspiration. No. 4 is filled with ‘yearning despair’ that is somehow lyrical but tragic, in the words of the performer.

Frédéric Chopin: 24 Preludes, Op. 28 – No. 4 in E Minor (Mao Fujita, piano)

The guitarist for Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, composed the soundtrack to Michael Winner’s film Death Wish II. His Prelude took Chopin’s prelude and made it in his own style. The melody is played on the guitar, but in a distorted form. Chopin’s simple melody is transformed into something else.

Death Wish 2 Soundtrack – Prelude

The work remained popular with the guitarist, and he performed it many times in his solo concerts.

Page takes Chopin’s musical idea and turns it on its head. The piano prelude was one where ‘virtually the whole of the tension and drama are contained within the chromatically changing chords of the accompaniment, beat out with greater or lesser dynamic intensity by the left hand. The melody seems to be at most a supporting element to the harmony…’. In Page’s work, however, the chords of the accompaniment are simply the background, created by an electric organ, a ‘monotonous beating of drums’, and bass guitar, and the point of interest moves to the guitar melody. It becomes a starting point for ‘utterly unvirtuosic improvisations, which should be considered in terms of rock ornamentation’. Jimmy Page makes the electric guitar sound uncharacteristic, bending the notes on the fingerboard with his left hand. The pitches aren’t stable, and through this technique, Page is able to maintain that original lament that lives in Chopin’s original. It’s a crying, lamenting prelude that is curiously more emotionally effective than the piano original.

Jimmy Page Prelude No. 4 in E minor, Op. 28

None of these works may be how you think of Chopin, but they are how the modern world regards the master. What brings all these disparate spirits together is how Chopin has become one of the touchstones for the modern pianist – along with Czerny and Cramer, the preludes of Chopin (and his other works) become the pianist’s training ground for becoming one with the instrument. As a product of the Romantic era, Chopin’s works are more than Bach’s works – they’re not introductions or backgrounds, but works with highly charged emotions. Now add that into an electric guitar, and even more emotion can be layered on. Think about Chopin through a different instrument, and he’s a different Chopin.

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