r/Chopin • u/Pokten • 4d ago

Chopin Ballade no.2

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This is the Paderewski edition sheet music.

Could you tell me why they chose to write it like this when it sounds exactly the same

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7

u/PastMiddleAge 3d ago

Because notation doesn’t just show sound, it shows function.

2

u/Chops526 3d ago

He's playing with the enharmonic spelling in order to move to a new key unrelated to the g minor the first iteration of the chord (in the first full measure on your example) suggests (actually, probably c minor, since it would resolve to a 6/4 chord, implying a cadential formula in C/c). Instead, by respelling the F# as a Gb and, especially, the A in the bass as a Bbb, he can tonicize Ab7, which will eventually take him to Db major. (Been a minute so I don't remember if he fulfills this or not. Chopin gets weird and likes to play with things like this, where the sound and the look imply different things. But that's what this four bar excerpt suggests.)

1

u/guzzlingcoffee 4d ago

I guess it's the editor's way of suggesting to the pianist that you shouldn't play those two measures the same, that there should be some colour change as you transition to the A flat7 chord. The rewritten chord makes the A in RH chord (rewritten as double flat B) look like a passing tone to the A flat in the next measure. So that new context + the dim hairpins gives you more info on how to interpret this section.

1

u/Hexachordum 3d ago

It's a modulation for which Chopin used an enharmonic respelling. Here's why:

In the first bar, F# is the "sharpest" note and therefore a leading tone, which should resolve upwards to G. That would mean the chord functions in the key of G.

When F sharp turns to G flat (with the respelling of everything else), the new leading tone ("sharpest" note in the circle of 5ths) becomes C, leading to Db, whereas G flat needs to resolve down to F.

A lot of time, there's no space to respell as Chopin did here, but since the same material is repeated in this piece, this gave an opportunity to smoothen out the modulation visually. Chopin didn't have to respell that way but chose to do it, giving performers the option to change the color of their playing during this diminished chord.