I've got this new Chopin Mazurkas book ( the latest edition Urtext) and there are about a million explanations about each mazurka, but I don't understand something.
In the first image shown, my 'old' book shows that place circled in red as two chords - no tie/slurs. As you can see in the second image, my 'new' book shows it with a tie, which means that you're not supposed to play the top LH A-flat, right? At least I think it is a tie or is it a slur? I thought that a curved line connecting two of the same notes is a tie. Anyway, also in my 'new' book is an additional booklet with even more explanations and the third image shows what it says about that particular spot. But I dunno - maybe I'm more dense than usual today, but those words really confuse me. Do they want you to play all three notes in the chord or not? I know this is getting very nitpicky, but it's important that I get this right because it's one of the pieces in my 'project', so I hope someone can help me.

I'm used to tieing both a-flats here, and I can't remember having heard it played otherwise. No amount of newfangled editorial wisdom would persuade me to strike the whole chord again, it just would not sound right.


I am sure you are not

huh?

Thanks for the help.

Hi Monica

I am completely unfamiliar with this piece, but usually a tie should go more from the circular note head to the next circular note head. This has more the appearance of being a slur than a tie because it is so far away from either note head. I really do not know the piece so this is the only input I can give. If everyone in the past has always tied it, I suppose it is just a tie that is placed a bit too high in the score.

Hi Nicole,
I'm still not quite sure how to play that. Seems I do it differently every time. But thank you for the input. I'll try to remember to ask my teacher about it too. I just had a lesson with him tonight (forgot to ask him) but we have a couple more lessons planned before C day.

Hi Monica,

I don't play the Mazurkas, however, I agree with you that in appearance it seems to be a slur. What mitigates against that interpretation, however, is that a two-note slur involves a down-up/release motion of the hand whereby the first note of a slur is the more prominent note of the two, while the second note is a weaker lift-off note. The same with slurred chords. The positioning of the two chords is telling. The first chord of the alleged slur occurs on the last, or weakest, beat of the preceding measure, whereas the lift-off chord falls on the downbeat (strongest) of the subsequent measure--which would be quite contrary to expected norm. For that reason, even though a proper tie should be depicted as connecting the two bodies of the notes rather than the tops of the stems, I tend to think that ties, not slurs, were what Chopin had in mind there. Edition Peters (the only volume I have) does show them as ties. Do you happen to have the Paderewski Edition? It's not urtext as we know it today, but was very scholarly nonetheless. It would be interesting to read those editors' commentary on this point.

David

Hello Monica,

I had the same question for Beethoven's Pathetic Sonata at the Intro of the the 1st mvnt. At the second bar in the bass there's a E-flat with a tie/slur on the next E-flat.
I played it to my teacher as a tie and she corrected me, she told me to play it slur as the first bar F# to G bass.

But I'm not sure about it since it's not a Chopin score.