Chopin's music?

Question

I've always been taught in composition class to change the key signature when I'm in a new key, but I noticed that Chopin rarely (if ever) changed his key signatures--he just used a lot of single and double sharps and flats. It always makes it really difficult for me to figure out the notes when I'm playing his pieces. Why did he choose to retain the same key signatures throughout? Was it the style popular at the time, or is there something, some sort of meaning that is sacrificed when key signature changes?

Answer 1

Chopin actually uses plenty of full changes of key signature, though you may not have come across them yet -- and certain less reliable editions have also removed a number and/or changed them to more 'readable' ones at their own convenience.

Meticulous in habit about just about everything, Chopin abides by the time-honoured 'rule' and only changes the key signature when he wants to make plain that an alternative tonal centre has been reached or established *definitively*, or a tonal centre of extreme contrast has been arrived at and confirmed. As one of many of the first kind, the Mazurka op. 17/1, for example changes from B-flat to E-flat between the "A" section of the form and the "B" alternative. As an example of the second kind, in the Étude op.10/6 in e-flat minor, the key signature changes to that of E-major when Chopin makes perfectly plain that his serpentine progressions have driven him to just about the most extreme, tonally remote contrast possible in the original key's context.

Likewise, in the Polonaise op.44 in f#-minor, the first alternative changes the key signature to b-flat minor, which demonstrates his purpose perfectly, b-flat minor being the relative minor of Db-major, enharmonically C#-major, the dominant of f#-minor. As an example of editorial corruption of Chopin's notation, the Breitkopf & Härtel edition of the 1880s of the first concerto op.11, the key signature of the consequent to the c#-minor alternative in the second movement, explicitly (and correctly) notated without a key-change in G#-major (still V in c#-minor) by Chopin, is editorially forced by an inauthentic key-change to Ab-major [sic], presumably 'for ease of reading'. (Reprints in this form were still readily available in the 1970s and '80s.)

Chopin is just very precise and explicit about when he considers one tonal centre to have been left and another one fully to have been established, and no concession whatever is made until that criterion has been met in full, in his view. Until then, everything else is rightly notated as 'in passing' or 'transitory excursions' derived from the prevailing established key, and that can take a lot of accidentals, the use of which in itself makes plain to what depth of deviation ('distance') you have been led from the actual key in force. The ever increasing use of double sharps, double flats and their cancellations are a pretty precise measure of just that fact.

It is in no way the result of some prevailing fashion or common practice of the day. There simply wasn't one in this regard. Just Chopin's almost extreme pre-occupation with notational exactitude to make his purpose plain. Consequently, he agonised almost like no other in the process of getting things down on paper exactly as he wished, something George Sand frequently and vividly attests to in her letters of the day, as do the at times quite violent erasures and 'blacking out' by his own hand in his autograph scores, too.

Answer 2

When Chopin was actively composing (died in 1849) it was uncommon for composers to change key signatures in a composition. That's why so many accidentals appear.

Berlioz was one of the first to change key signature's during the course of a composition.

Answer 3

CubCur beat me to it (as usual -- Welcome Back Sir!!).

I will add something of interest.

Chopin had to make two and sometimes 3 copies of his music for publishing; one for the French edition, one for the German edition, and sometimes one for the English publisher. Not that he minded -- he got fees from each of the publishers. But what is interesting is to see that Chopin never really finished his pieces. He kept tinkering with them -- there are frequently little changes from one copy to the other -- sometimes quite noticeable and puzzling. I have noticed some indecision on Chopin's part as to which accidentals to use (which temporary key he is implying) from edition to edition. In the c# scherzo there is a point ( a small one) at which he seems undecided from copy to copy as to which key he is implying with his accidentals -- one uses sharps, one uses flats -- and it seems more than just an editor's preference.

In the f minor Ballade, at one point there is even a change of register in the left hand in the French edition versus the German one. Earlier in the piece there is an entire sequence of left hand notes in the French edition that are left out in the German.

I wander afield from the point in order to add emphasis to CubCur's point as to C's meticulousness -- he was never TOTALLY satisfied. Kind of makes the notion of a Chopin "Urtext" laughable.

Answer 4

Chopin did his own thing, which is why it's hard to figure out his style. He basically improvised everything, and he totally messed with time signatures.