About Valerio Mazzuoli’s new book: the pianistic elements found in Chopin Henderson Fürst * Everything in this world is misterious. But mistery is more glaring in some things than in others: in the sea, in yellow, in the eyes of the elderly, and in music. Jorge Luis Borges What makes something a classic? Why should we listen, read or watch something considered a classic? I here adapt to music what Italo Calvino, who had previously addressed this question, wrote in the realm of literature. Classic, encompassing music, literature and theater, would be anything considered canonical. This term comes from the Greek “kanon” which means “with excellence”. Calvino wrote that a classical piece is one that “has a unique influence as it is unforgettable and is imprinted in the individual or collective memory”.1 Classic is therefore what goes beyond the limitations of time, becoming timeless, and is, even if unconsciously, part of people’s daily lives. From this definition, listening to Chopin is a way of understanding both who we are and where we are. Listening to this Polish composer is, above all, part of self-discovery. If we are indeed all part of romantic revolutions, Chopin represents like nobody else the romantic myth: his life and works are part of society’s vision of a hero, with his inspirational music, his hyper sensibility, his melancholic personality, his piano as his confident, his broken loves, an unlikely lover and the final death to tuberculosis. * 1 Scientific Editor of the Grupo Editorial Nacional – GEN Group. E-mail: henderson.furst@grupogen.com.br Italo Calvino. Por que ler os Clássicos? [Why read the classics?]. São Paulo: Cia das Letras, 1993, p. 10. 1 However, Chopin should be appreciated despite of all these romantic characteristics. Whoever admires him only through these romantic lenses misses what is most admirable in his works: the resistance. Chopin was against everything around him and as evidence one could mention his love for the rebel George Sand. His music was against all that come to be associated as a cliché: against the glorification of a sickening sentimentalism and against the fantasies of lounge music. On what grounds is the work of this Polish composer based upon? Not having an exact answer to this question also makes him a classic. Instead of listening to him, there is a new discovery. Chopin has never finished saying what he intended to say. Indeed, more than that, every time we listen to him, a new Chopin emerges – his compositions are unique not only in originality but are original each time we listen to them. While listening to Chopin, we lose balance and certainty. The more his songs sound familiar the more it bewilders. Accordingly, his apparent simplicity is, in reality, a sharpened knife that pierces the soul. A number of his songs are quite known to the general audience – we even hear Chopin in cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Woody Woodpecker. Although there is a familiar admiration to him, unfolding his work places us in a maze. His music is so unpredictable as we, humans of flesh and blood, are; it is interesting in itself – it is music in itself. That being said, I turn back to Calvino: “A classic is what it is not possible to be indifferent to, and to what it is possible to define oneself in relation to or perhaps in contrast to it”.2 Accordingly, there is some Chopin in all of us. Although much has been written about this composer, it is not possible to assert that we know everything there is to know about him. Feeling Chopin is the most important aspect in understanding him. To that end, it is necessary to have a light soul – be a free spirit – in a way that one is ready to capture the simplest suggestions and the most occult harmonies. I can assure that Valerio Mazzuoli, in this book that I’m honored to introduce, fits all these requirements. Chesterton has divided the human species in three different groups: simple people, intellectuals and poets. Simple people are those who can feel but cannot express their feelings. Intellectuals are those who can belittle and ridicule with 2 Idem, p. 13. 2 perfection the feelings of the simple people, and can remove from themselves these feelings. Poets, differently, have been blessed with the capacity to express what everyone feels but cannot say.3 From this classification, Valerio Mazzuoli belongs to the group of poets – in reality he is a chopinian poet if I may use Chopin as an adjective. This book is the result of many different voices: a polyphony seen in great authors coupled with a didactic, poetry and technic – borrowed and also stolen from his legal side. However, this book is much more than this: it canonically conjures all the voices that form Chopin. Under these lenses, Mazzuoli analyzes Chopin based on the relevant data to understand the composer’s ethos. Indeed, the reader will see that, with Chopin, the song is enough in itself, is valid in itself regardless of extra musical phenomena. Reading this book, the reader will find relevant information, which will fix imprecise or misleading historical data. This allows the reader to enjoy Chopin’s music with new sensory perceptions. I would like to highlight how this book from Mazzuoli allowed me to understand the usage of novel pianistic recourses to compositions. The author introduces the reader to rich recourses flowing from Chopin’s endless musical source. Moreover, the author also explains how to interpret such musical elements. Mazzuoli, as a cutting edge legal scholar of domestic and international status, has the cognitive, scientific and didactical knowledge to write this singular book, which has a tireless soul that in such challenging times propels us forward. Diving in this book, one of the things the reader will learn is that Chopin’s execution is one of the most complex if not the most complex for a pianist as it requires deep concentration and intent with every note – perhaps due to this characteristic, every pianist carries a piano piece by heart. This is to please the audience when in an encore at the end of a concert or because it leads the pianist to a differed level of experience between the self and the piano. It is attributed to Chopin the versatile use of pedals, which helped consolidate the piano as one of the most resourceful instruments. It is due to Chopin’s methodical and strictly transcribed use of sheet music papers that a new stage in the development of the piano playing emerged – one 3 José Luis Fiorin. Introdução ao pensamento de Bakhtin [An Introduction to Bakhtin]. São Paulo: Contexto, 2016. 3 that, for example, can imitate bells ringing, soldiers marching, and vehicles moving. By the same token, is book is a rich introduction to listening to the soul. Even if the reader has already listened to Chopin, with this book it will possible to finally hear him in an fresh way learning about the potentialities o the piano-orchestra, the element of surprise, tempo rubato, the influence of the Italian bel canto, and the polyphony. I hope, therefore, that the reader like myself can have a metaphysical experience while reading this book. I hope he/she can have a deeper connection with Chopin in a transcendental way that enables listening through the centuries the pinnacle of human creation. In this sense, according to the Greek mythology,4 we, mere mortals, were though to be insignificant in the eyes of Zeus. It fell upon Prometheus to steal the fire of the gods to keep the human existence alive. Chopin, thus, answered for us: look that such inferior beings can accomplish. Valerio Mazzuoli, pianist and expert in Chopin, is the sequel to this answer. And art will always be the answer to life. Reading this book and understanding Chopin means to get one step closer to immortality. Paraphrasing Schumann on Chopin – “take off your hats, gentlemen, here is a genius” – and I say about this new book of this dear friend and author: “take off your hats, gentlemen, here is a classic”. And, this takes me to the point where I started: why, then, should we listen to Chopin – and read Valerio Mazzuoli? It is because, without a doubt, life is much better with them then without. “And if someone disagrees bawling that such effort in life is needless, I will mention Cioran: ‘Socrates learned an area on a flute while a hemlock was being prepared’. ‘What purpose will it serve you?’, someone asked him. ‘To learn this aria before I die’”.5 * * 4 5 * Hesíodo. Teogonia: trabalhos e dias [Teogonia: Works and Days]. São Paulo: Martin Claret, 2014. Italo Calvino. Por que ler os Clássicos?, cit., p. 16. 4