i. i learnt several other preludes at school besides D flat (G, Emin, Bmin, A, C min, G min) (haha also known as the EASY ONES tho the last sounds harder than it is); i didn’t thini much abt (or of) chopin then — he is often referred to a bit disdainfully as a “salon composer” (=minor romantic), and i wz studying music history and absorbed its silly prejudices

ii. what now fascinates me about him is his fascination with WHAT THE HANDS CAN DO — he was a virtuoso pianist, and lots of his preludes are really compact little practical essays in how a particular hand-shape and movement can be expanded and focused into a piece; a lot of the handshapes in question being particular to him (ie the ideas — as physical possiiblities to be explored — didn’t seem to enter the composer bloodstream): there are two other preludes i’d like to get the trick of, which exactly fit this bill (C and D)

iii. i guess i wd say there is something anti-romantic, art-and-crafts-as-proto-modernist abt his mode of address — the MATERIAL as drive (where material includes the idea of WHAT HANDS CAN DO); it’s incredibly tactile, and shaped to be tactile (cf under the fingers), and hence anti-idealist (hence why he fell out frontline 19th-century appeal i guess)

dull repeat-many-times-over on hand-moves i just can’t get right without slowing or pausing — what’s always super-frustratin about these is that you never show improvement at the time, you do it lots then leave it and forget abt it and when you come back to two weeks later yr fingers know what to do (except when they don’t)

in x the little trick i learnt at EMP (of all places!) for playing four-against-three is paying off — this will takes loads of work to get up to speed but i love how even quite hard chopin just falls under yr fingers so well (charles rosen once wrote that ultra-hard chopin works brilliantly partly bcz the stuff which is hardest, the ring-and-pinkie notes, are expressive precisely bcz of the slight strain and wobble of the way they get played!) (i have no idea if this is true and doubt i will ever know but it is an awesome idea, just the kind of technicalia i like; and rosen is an actual-real plays-in-public virtuso as well as a historian and critic)