Neil Stannard

Chopin Demystified Neil Stannard

Playing Chopin successfully is a lot like being both singer and accompanist- sorry, collaborative pianist. Achieve a successful collaboration between the hands with imagination and an understanding of style, and colorful scenes galore emerge along the way. In this volume we consider the technical means by which a happy collaboration between the hands becomes second nature. In my experience, if there is an impediment to a successful performance of the Nocturnes, that impediment originates in the left hand. If the fingering and its technical logic are not well understood, the right-hand fioriture have no place to take root, and more often than not die on the vine. How do we negotiate an accompaniment pattern that seems to tease the hand into awkward stretches? How do we organize a melisma of twenty-seven notes against six? And how on earth do we interpret all those grace-notes attached to appoggiaturas and other pesky symbols? With over two hundred musical examples and references to selected video demonstrations, all of these questions and more are answered here as they occur in nineteen Nocturnes.