Chopin’s Magical Playing Cards

Most Romantic composers were predisposed toward Romanticism. They were propagandists and agitators, conducting or performing each other’s music, and writing critical essays about new styles and theories. But Frédéric Chopin was not among them. He had read little and felt little affinity for Romanticism. He preferred to mingle with the nobility, paying special attention to style, taste, elegance, and attire. He could be astute, irritable, and refined at once. Amid an era brimming with wickedness, madness, sorrow, and joy, he was its most dazzling star, his salon soirées open only to meticulously chosen guests.

What extravagant gatherings they were. Liszt would play four-hand duets with him, though never allowed to overpower him in volume. Mendelssohn served as page-turner, waiting his turn to perform. Around the piano might be Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Heine, Delacroix, George Sand, Eugène Sue, and perhaps Ary Scheffer sketching from the background. This was Chopin, one of the greatest piano composers in Western music history.

His works became legend in their time. To be a great pianist in the nineteenth century meant playing Chopin. Even in the post-World War I anti-Romantic era, this truth held fast. Today, Chopin’s music appears in piano recitals as frequently as any other composer’s. While others’ music rises and falls, Chopin’s flows nearly evenly. It is as if he possessed a unique compositional magic, transforming practical music from mere training and performance technique into art of high virtuosity and musical appreciation. Today’s pianists still comb through his oeuvre, seeking clues to unlock its enduring mysteries.

Chopin was a composer of ‘absolute music,’ rarely naming his works. Names such as the “Black Key Étude” (Op.10 No.5), “Winter Wind Étude” (Op.12 No.11), “Raindrop Prelude” (Op.28 No.15), and “Military Polonaise” (Op.40 No.1) are all Romantic inventions supplied by publishers. Op.25 No.2 is called “The Top,” or “The Bee,” merely for its airy, free-flowing rhythm and melody. In this 2/2 triple-section piece, the endless triplets in the right hand form the foundation throughout, demanding that each note be played evenly at speed.

Because every performer’s hand shape and habits differ, numerous fingering systems for this piece are now in circulation. Yet no one dares claim theirs as the sole correct method. Fingerings are created, separated, appropriated, and dismembered, much like a deck of cards: you might draw the Ace of Spades and say it’s right, I could draw the King of Diamonds and claim the same. As fingers and technique reach a certain level, each performer finds their own card, and as time passes, its pattern seems ever to change.

When he first learned the piece, he used Mikuli’s fingering, later switching to Joseph’s edited version—similar, but not identical. Preparing for the Starfish Cup National Piano Competition, he combined his own finger preferences with fingerings recommended by the Chopin Competition to devise a set unique to his Op.25 No.2. These were the numbers Chen Xuan heard today. Each digit was a summary born of extensive study and experimentation.

He knew his playing was far from systematic, had yet to grasp any so-called style. For now, he could only manage each interpretation as he understood it. To him, this piece meant freedom. Performance required pure release, but also clarity in every keystroke. On stage, he had forgotten this was an assessment; his hands swept across the green, wheat fields like a gentle breeze. As his right-hand fourth finger finally landed on the C in the small octave, he stopped completely, delivering the last breath of coolness of summer to the audience, releasing all his fingers.

Three seconds passed in silence.

Just as everyone felt they could finally exhale, Li An abruptly pressed hard on the damper pedal, his entire being shifting into another state. Both hands rose and fell sharply, striking two powerful chords in succession. Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No.23, the “Appassionata,” Op.57, third movement.

“Dong—dong!”
“Dong—dong!”

In an instant, tension painted the stage. Li An began the assessment segment. The first five bars used dotted rhythms, his arms and wrists working together to repeat the final chords of the second movement’s coda. Dissonant diminished seventh chords intensified in the heavy air. The audience’s nerves seemed shocked by the relentless chords, forced to break free from the delicate, ethereal Chopin étude they’d just heard.

Next, Li An’s right hand made a slightly exaggerated sweep from right to left, fingers flying rapidly and densely into the bass, as his left hand quietly joined in. Both hands moved together, the musical motif emerging in the thunderous cascade of sixteenth notes. From bar twenty, the main theme began in earnest.

Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No.23, the “Appassionata,” Op.57, third movement. Romain Rolland once described this movement as “a torrent of flame rushing through a tunnel of granite.” As one of Beethoven’s most celebrated works, the “Appassionata” holds an extremely important place in piano history. It thunders with stormy rage and whispers with tender streams, its fiery passion never lacking somber introspection. Its profound tragedy, intense conflict, and indomitable spirit are rare even among its peers.

There was once a saying: to become a Beethoven interpreter, the “Appassionata” is an insurmountable mountain. Of course, that mountain also haunted generations of piano students. As the final “big boss” in exam materials, the third movement of the “Appassionata” left an indelible shadow on countless young pianists.

Such was Beethoven, such was the “Appassionata.” Yet at this moment, Li An played with remarkable ease, his face serene—gone was the stern, rebellious intensity from before. Soon after the theme began, Qin Yong sensed something was amiss. It was as if... as if... as if your pants were off and all you showed me was Hello Kitty?

He felt Li An was deliberately hiding something, a different person entirely from the one who had just played Chopin.