Andrew Ang - Composer

After Chopin died, Liszt sent a probing letter to Chopin's sister Ludwicka as fuel for a Chopin biography. The fact that Jane replied, not Ludwicka, shows how close she was to Chopin and his family, and the fierceness with which her answers protected his memory against sensationalism shows how she viewed him and his music

What did she say exactly? You can find out in the sources below!



Sources:
Walker, A. (2018). In Chopin: A Life and Times. Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux

Franc conversions:
https://www.historicalstatistics.org/Currencyconverter.html
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

Now that you know what a canon is and Bach's Goldberg Variations are so impressive, go listen to Yunchan Lim's recording and ask yourself this:

Writing a 32-bar canon is already insanely difficult. Writing a beautiful keyboard piece that lasts generations is even more difficult, but in a different way. How can it be possible that, in the Goldberg Variations, Bach wrote 14 of them that are BOTH?

Also... Yunchan Lim's recording is seriously good

Decca Classics

This is the kind of pop piano music I wanted to hear. Catchy melodies grounded in classical structure to create something with layers for you to discover. A fun listen that's also a challenge to play

That highlighted melody? It's from Just Tango On at 1:16. It's actually a variation of the main theme of Just Tango On, which itself is a play on the 4-note figure that opens THAT song

That 4-note figure is a descending minor scale, which happens to be the basis of the SECOND melody in this clip

In fact, Can You See the Balloon Man is full of callbacks to the previous 4 movements in the Tango Sonata, which are all built on top of callbacks to themes introduced in Just Tango On

Thought Just Tango On was just a catchy showpiece? Heh

Isn't it fun to discover a catchy new piano song that isn't actually new at all?

Alexander Malofeev found one for us. This simple little song by Glinka feels like what a miniature Waltz by Chopin might sound like. Amazingly, he wrote it before Chopin changed piano music forever with his own waltzes and mazurkas

As far as I can tell, while Glinka wrote several more piano miniatures, he never wrote another quite like this one

Check it out on my playlist, Catchy Classical Piano! You can find it on Spotify

Alexander Malofeev pianist Sony Classical

Sources:
Burkholder, J. P., Grout, D. J., & Palisca, C. V. (2019). A History of Western Music, 10th edition. W. W. Norton & Company

How about a catchy new piano song? Here's one

Check out my new playlist on Spotify, Andrew Ang: Catchy Classical Piano for this song and the latest hummable piano recordings by today's top pianists

And The Ivory Index is getting very close. More details soon🎹️😊

I'm in Love and There's Nothing I Can Do About It, now available wherever you stream music

At the time, this piece was nothing short of revolutionary for upending the musical status quo and ushering in the era of equal temperament

Long before (and after) Beethoven wrote the Pathetique, theorists debated fiercely over which tuning system was best, each with their personal preference

Most of the major composers of the 1800s revered Beethoven as a kind of musical demigod. Chopin and Liszt wrote many beautiful works with 4 or more sharps or flats, which would have been less beautiful in any tuning system other than equal temperament. By the end of the 1800s, the debate was over, and equal temperament had won

Now, it seems unthinkable that new music would be largely restricted to a handful of keys. It stands to reason that Beethoven may be the single most important person we can thank for that

And yes, The Ivory Index is a thing. More details soon🎹️😊



Beethoven, Piano Sonata in C Minor, Op 13, "Pathétique", II: b1-8

Sources:
Swafford, J. (2014). In Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph: a Biography. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Burkholder, J. P., Grout, D. J., & Palisca, C. V. (2019). A History of Western Music, 10th edition. W. W. Norton & Company

It's another piano hack! Mastering this bewildering section of the 'Torrent' Etude is less about raw speed and more about evenness of velocity and minimizing forearm tension.

This strategic, advanced practice technique is designed to train your hands to unlearn the natural tendency to overplay the fourths on each downbeat, which tends to create tension in the little fingers that prevents them from being able to shake out those sixteenths

And yes, The Ivory Index is a thing. More details soon🎹️😊



Chopin, Etude in C-Sharp Minor, Op 10, No 4, b29-30

It seems bizarre now, but in 1836, listeners were very much NOT used to hearing anything outside of simple harmonies

So how far ahead of the music theory curve was Chopin? His Mazurka in C-Sharp Minor op 30 no 4 was mentioned in the book "Study of Modern Harmony" by Lenormand published in 1912. Chopin's harmony was still considered "modern" more than 70 years after his death!

And yes, The Ivory Index is a thing. More details soon🎹️😊



Chopin, Nocturne in D-Flat Major, Op 27, No 2, b60-68

Sources:
Walker, A. (2018). In Chopin: A Life and Times. Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux
Samson, J. (1992). The Cambridge Companion to Chopin. Cambridge University Press

Dominant pedal is an old technique, employed as early as JS Bach and probably even earlier composers

Tonic pedal is also common, and both are often used to help establish key. You'll sometimes see them after a series of key changes, such as in sonata-allegro development sections, to set up the return to the home key. In this passage, Chopin is using a dominant pedal to set up the key of A major, which is completely unrelated to the home key of G minor

Throughout the work, it seems like Chopin wanted to blend sophisticated sonata-allegro form with something more popular in style. For example, in this Development section, he give us his beautiful melodies in their entirely, satisfying for an ordinary audience, but each in a new "developed" arrangement to satisfy the connoisseur. Along with his first scherzo, this piece was perhaps Chopin's first major statement that he was going to take his music in a direction unlike any composer before

Chopin, Ballade in G Minor, Op 23, b98-110

Sources:
Samson, J. (1992). The Four Ballades. Cambridge University Press
Samson, J. (1992). The Cambridge Companion to Chopin. Cambridge University Press

After releasing three albums in 2025, the music is starting to take me to some interesting places... this one's a lot of fun, and it gets BIG