Chopin and others

[muzzer]

I've just discovered the op 17 no 4 mazurka. To my ears it could be by Bill Evans. Am interested in other boarders' similar such finds. Obv there's Ravel and 20thC pieces contemporary with early jazz. All contributions and abuse gratefully received.

[Roehre]

Some passages from Beethoven's opus 111 finale?

[Serial_Apologist]

I've just discovered the op 17 no 4 mazurka. To my ears it could be by Bill Evans. Am interested in other boarders' similar such finds. Obv there's Ravel and 20thC pieces contemporary with early jazz. All contributions and abuse gratefully received.

If I've got the gist of this thread right, Erik Satie's 1904 piano piece Le Piccadilly represents, I think, the first example of a European composer influenced by an African-American musical idiom, in this case Ragtime, obviously - beating Debussy's to today's thinking embarrassingly-titled Gollywog's Cake Walk by about 5 years.

Ives's Central Park in the Dark came around that same time, perhaps marginally earlier. The better-known "jazz-influenced" pieces - Stravinsky's own Ragtime and Satie's Parade, were from 1916/17.

[ChrisBennell]

I've just discovered the op 17 no 4 mazurka. To my ears it could be by Bill Evans. Am interested in other boarders' similar such finds. Obv there's Ravel and 20thC pieces contemporary with early jazz. All contributions and abuse gratefully received.

I first heard this mazurka in the cinema. The middle section was featured in Spielberg's film "Empire of the Sun". Haunting piece.

[Ian Thumwood]

I would always consider Chopin to be the first classical composer to arrive on the scene with more "modern" harmony. When I first heard his music I really hated it because it sounded so feminine but when I then looked at the Preludes with my piano teacher was head was turned. Harmonically I would have to say that Chopin sounds like the "next big step" after what went on in the Classical period. Chopin's harmonic language was probably the most innovative since Scarlatti and it is pretty easy to make the connection with Bill Evans. John Mehegan's "jazz piano volume 4" explains this by giving the examples of the kind of rootless voicing that Evans used and showing how they derived from Chopin.

For me, everything "good" about the classical piano repertoire stems from Chopin. I'd include Faure, Scriabin, Debussy and Ravel in this. The early 20th century offered some even wider alternatives with the influence of the likes of Bartok and Prokovief appearing in the styles of someone like Herbie Nichols. The influence of Beethoven / Brahms and other Germanic composers has influenced jazz harmony to a lesser degree but there is a dourness in someone like Brahms that sounds totally opposite to the expansive approach to harmony on jazz.

I also like to think that Chopin's use of rubato and ability to improvise aligned him more towards being influential in jazz. Chopin's music has a degree of freedom and lacks the rigorous constraints of someone like Brahms. It's often said that Bach would have been in to jazz because of his rhythmic propulsion, harmonic building blocks and the way his music seems to originate from improvisation. I feel this can also be said for Chopin.

I've always been struck by the similarity between Charlie Haden's tune "Silence" and Chopin's C minor prelude:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TuFXeZGxmQ

Charlie Haden:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pojQ4peNlfQ

[muzzer]

Marvellous - thank you. Enriching revelations.

[Quarky]

Beethoven's Kreutzer sonata for violin and piano - very jazzy.

There is a popular song based on a Chopin piece - it might come to my memory in the next day or two.

What is currently interesting me is Tea for Two - orchestrated by Shostakovich: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-Z8rN7oTgA

And also a Jazz Standard - Art Tatum etc.. I'm just wondering whether there is something of musical interest in the song itself both to Classical and Jazz musicians, or whether there was some cross-flow between the two groups.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There is a popular song based on a Chopin piece - it might come to my memory in the next day or two.

Only if you stop chasing rainbows.

[EdgeleyRob]

Some of Alkan's music reminds me of jazz,especially several of the miniatures and etudes.
I couldn't say if there are harmonic links.
I also think he was just as influential as Chopin and Liszt on future composers,thinking here of Debussy,Ravel and Bartok in particular.
All IMVHO of course,I'm not sure there too many other people who think he was so important.

[richardfinegold]

If I've got the gist of this thread right, Erik Satie's 1904 piano piece Le Piccadilly represents, I think, the first example of a European composer influenced by an African-American musical idiom, in this case Ragtime, obviously - beating Debussy's to today's thinking embarrassingly-titled Gollywog's Cake Walk by about 5 years.

Ives's Central Park in the Dark came around that same time, perhaps marginally earlier. The better-known "jazz-influenced" pieces - Stravinsky's own Ragtime and Satie's Parade, were from 1916/17.

Not sure that is what the OP was getting at, but if so, Gottschalk had them all beat by about 50 years.

[Ian Thumwood]

Richard

Gottschalk is fascinating but , as a composer, I think he is over-praised for the fact that he seemed to be able to latch on to the kind of music that ultimately became Ragtime whereas he deserved to have been taken outside a shot on account of some of the maudlin and sentimental Victorian chamber songs which he also churned out. I've got a book of his piano music which was too difficult to play and gave up as so much of it was just pretty dreadful. There are a handful of compositions which are brilliant and allude to the popular music of the early 1900's and these compositions must have owed something to the kind of stuff that the likes of Will Marion Cook would produce in the teens of the 20th century. I think this era of music is hugely interesting but Gottschalk was by no means unique in this respect and not necessarily capable of producing music which deserves to be called classical. He seems to have straddled the popular and classical divide of his era rather like Strauss and had not jazz proved to be so potent, I think he would have become forgotten despite his best efforts being fun. His worst stuff is dire enough to make you think fondly of Mendelssohn.

[Rcartes]

I've always felt that, of all early 2o0th century composers, it's Walton's music that is most full of the feeling (if not the content) of jazz - especially the 1st Symphony (and, of course, some of Façade).