Help with Moonlight 3rd reqd

[jehangircama]

Hi

I have to get the 27/2 sonata ready for a recital soon and am having quite a bit of trouble with the 3rd mvt.
 
1. The main problem is that whenever I try to speed it up, some part of my left hand locks up. I've been trying to use some sort of arm rotation but cannot still bring it up to the speed I would like.

2. The trills also are giving problems, the ones where you hold the octave and trill the upper notes. I'm using a 4-5 trill for the first trill in each set, and due to the more awkward positions of the second trill in each set, I'm trying out a 3-4 trill, however it is not clean at all.

3. In some of the ascending arpeggio runs some of my fingers don't fit in cleanly between the 2 neighbouring black keys, for eg, the g (natural) in the 5th opening run keeps getting stuck and I smudge the run.

Due to these problems I'm having to play the mvt without the repeat, which makes it sound a bit incomplete to me. Any suggestions would be welcome.

I would also like to know what the general opinion is on the use of the pedal in this mvt.

Thanks

JC

[furtwaengler]

I also prefer the repeat.

Maybe you could practice relaxing starting from a very slow tempo with a metronome, and working it up in increments - like 8th note = 120 m, then 8th = 132, etc continued to your desired tempo (or even beyond). If you do this, do metric trills, so you are also trilling proportionately to the slow tempo and advancing with the same focus. The faster you go, the less movement is necessary - too much effort rotating could be locking your left hand (as could be holding it at a bad angle?). If I'm understand your third concern correctly, keeping your fingers fit in the chord could be contributing to the tension and fatigue blocking you from taking the repeat...here is where your arm should rotate moving your hand to the notes.

I would guess the general opinion in pedaling the last movement, would be as little as possible.

I'm working this out in my head...I hope some of it is helpful. I'd say practicing slow, metric trills as above will clean things up a bit.

[jehangircama]

Thanks for the reply. Actually, the third pt refers to the fact that my third finger doesn't fit in spacewise between the 2 neighbouring black keys, the space is too narrow for my finger. Have you ever experienced this problem? Due to this I smudge the note and often hit one of the neighbouring notes.

[furtwaengler]

I'm still not sure if I'm understanding you. Have you tried to play it outside of the black notes? Essentially you'll be playing on the tips of the black notes instead of moving inside, and then there'd be no reason to fit the third finger in between the black notes.