mozart k282, 1st movement

[riga]

Hi all,

I just recorded mozart k282, 1st movement.
Any comments are welcome   

[teresa_b]

Hi Riga,

Mozart is my favorite, and I like what you are trying to do so far--good start!   
My suggestions:

The tempo sounds uneven.  This is not an easy little piece to play smoothly.  Remember Mozart's comment about his own music --it should flow "like warm hog's p--s."  Not such a pretty analogy  but it works!  Think long lines in the melody, beautiful phrasing, NO choppiness. 

Keep your left hand accompaniment softer.  (I know sometimes it's the recording.)

Think of this movement as ONE, not as many little phrases. 

Have fun, and keep up the good work--it's going to be lovely!
Teresa

[pianistimo]

agreed with theresa about the tempo needing some metronome work.  not to make it robotic but more 'flowing' and connected.  when dealing with rhythms, you have to break it down to the smallest component and become naziish about preciseness.  you could count everything the first sightreading through as '1 e and a 2 e and a' ...  otherwise the dotted notes will all be slightly different.  that is bad bad.  what you want is an effortless conciseness in each repetition of a rhythm or dynamic.  in my dover score, also, someone put in the dynamics of p for the first half of the measure (m4) and forte for the second half.  same for measure five.  but on measure six it is still p for the second half of the measure.  measure 7 grows to forte.  measure 8 is piano.  all this alteration of tempo makes the czerny-like attitude more exciting and turns it into mozart.

also, at measure 9 - i have the bass note as forte and the thirds piano.

[pianistimo]

i like your idea for starting the trill on the Ab in measure three.  two reasons listed here: http://cnx.org/content/m13351/latest 
are:
#1 is the note a diatonic note or not?  it is a diatonic note.
#2  does the auxillary note (if you played it from the upper) the same as the note that comes right before the trill.  yes!  and the trilled note is a predecessor to the note that follows (the g).

the simpler, the better - imo, a simple triple note trill there is better than a prolonged one.  the reason is that you can keep the beat going better.

[pianistimo]

my old teacher used to draw a line (say in this piece at measure 4 and 5 on the '&' of three) from the first auxillary note straight to the third sixteenth note of the beat.  it gives you more preciseness in rhythm.  and, makes you play them just a bit faster and more emphasis on the Ab and not on the auxillary notes.

[pianistimo]

something else, i think i read somewhere, is that when there is an alteration of dynamics with alberti bass - you don't have to alternate them in the left hand.  otherwise, it might sound too 'robotic.'  more of a flowing left hand, and creative right hand?

[riga]

Hi Riga,

Mozart is my favorite, and I like what you are trying to do so far--good start!   
My suggestions:

The tempo sounds uneven.  This is not an easy little piece to play smoothly.  Remember Mozart's comment about his own music --it should flow "like warm hog's p--s."  Not such a pretty analogy  but it works!  Think long lines in the melody, beautiful phrasing, NO choppiness. 

Keep your left hand accompaniment softer.  (I know sometimes it's the recording.)

Think of this movement as ONE, not as many little phrases. 

Have fun, and keep up the good work--it's going to be lovely!
Teresa

Hi Teresa,

THANKS A LOT for your comments, I'm very glad you spend time listening it and giving me your advices.
I'm already working on tempo, certainly there is room for improvment. And my left hand is trying to be more quiet....

I have a question for you.

I heard a lot of times - my teachers told me -, that a good approach to Mozart's sonatas is to think it as a roles -like opera- where you can split the whole piece in some different characters/roles. HOWEVER, and I agree completely with you, this approach can make me forgot to think as a ONE piece, as you already said. Is really the opera/roles approach correct? What do you think?

[riga]

agreed with theresa about the tempo needing some metronome work.  not to make it robotic but more 'flowing' and connected.  when dealing with rhythms, you have to break it down to the smallest component and become naziish about preciseness.  you could count everything the first sightreading through as '1 e and a 2 e and a' ...  otherwise the dotted notes will all be slightly different.  that is bad bad.  what you want is an effortless conciseness in each repetition of a rhythm or dynamic.  in my dover score, also, someone put in the dynamics of p for the first half of the measure (m4) and forte for the second half.  same for measure five.  but on measure six it is still p for the second half of the measure.  measure 7 grows to forte.  measure 8 is piano.  all this alteration of tempo makes the czerny-like attitude more exciting and turns it into mozart.

also, at measure 9 - i have the bass note as forte and the thirds piano.

Hi Pianissimo,

THANKS A LOT for your comments.
As you and Teresa said, I need to work more on Tempo.... that's already improving
Regarding the dyanmics you mention, I haven't it in my score, anyway I will write it down at see how it looks. Thank you!
You said - in an additional comment - that the LH Alberti bass shouldn't change dynamics.... but I don't see any Alberti Bass in this piece! Is there something I'm misundertanding regarding Alberti Bass?

[teresa_b]

Hmmm, interesting question about the operatic roles!  Mozart was "operatic" in his style, so it's a valid idea.  You could think about the different moods of the voices as they come in, the idea being to imbue them with dynamics and phrasing and not have a bland, boring rendition.

But unity and sameness are not the same thing.  I was thinking, this movement is brief, with a lot of rhythmic variation, and could sound choppy without a sense of unity.  You want shifts in dynamics, but with a continuous undercurrent that keeps it all on one moving wave, so to speak.   The LH bass (you are right, no Alberti in this one, but lovely repeating arpeggios) can do this, by being steady in tempo in the background, while your voices in the RH float above,  as operatic as they wannabe.  (It's fine to do a bit of agogic shifting in a slow melody line in Mozart, but he himself said, keep the tempo steady in the bass.)

Hope that helps!  Keep having fun--
Teresa

[kelly_kelly]

Maybe it's just me, but I think the trills should be faster.

[riga]

Hmmm, interesting question about the operatic roles!  Mozart was "operatic" in his style, so it's a valid idea.  You could think about the different moods of the voices as they come in, the idea being to imbue them with dynamics and phrasing and not have a bland, boring rendition.

But unity and sameness are not the same thing.  I was thinking, this movement is brief, with a lot of rhythmic variation, and could sound choppy without a sense of unity.  You want shifts in dynamics, but with a continuous undercurrent that keeps it all on one moving wave, so to speak.   The LH bass (you are right, no Alberti in this one, but lovely repeating arpeggios) can do this, by being steady in tempo in the background, while your voices in the RH float above,  as operatic as they wannabe.  (It's fine to do a bit of agogic shifting in a slow melody line in Mozart, but he himself said, keep the tempo steady in the bass.)

Hope that helps!  Keep having fun--
Teresa

Thank you very much Teresa!

[riga]

Maybe it's just me, but I think the trills should be faster.

Actually I'm compltely sure they need to be SOFTER, but not sure about increasing speed. Anyway I'll try it. Thanks kelly.