Chopin - Etude in C minor, Op. 25 No. 12

[cherub_rocker1979]

Comments are welcome!

[thierry13]

There is too much acceleration/decelaration. You stop too much on each melodic note. It must allways flow and do not decelarate to go search the melodic note, and then gradually regain speed. It must be allways the same tempo and fluid. Watch your sound too, i'd suggest you stop yourself when practicing and listen the beautiful, full and rich sound of each note.

[zheer]

   Aside from what thierry13 has mentioned, i thought it was a very good performance, this etude can so easly sound like a finger exercise but in this case it didn't.

[gerry]

I would add to the above comments that you might want to consider adding some dynamic contrast to the piece. You begin by punching the melodic notes ff which leaves you no where to go when you reach the final recap. It's one thing to play this piece for technical improvement and quite another to perform it. If you observe Chopin's dynamics, it can be a pretty relentless onslaught for an audience, especially if you haven't mastered the ability to play f and ff without pounding. I suggest taking a few liberties with his dynamics.
It is possible to open this piece at more of a mf, still bringing out the melodic notes, lightening up a bit on the arpeggios crescendoing gradually into the C maj section at meas 15 then tapering off at 20 and taking the Aflat section at 21 mf so that you can go into meas 31 a a mezzo and leave yourself room to build through this section to the ff at 47. From there you can come back briefly at meas 58-59 to a mf and begin to build back up to the fff at 71. You've saved your big guns until the end so it doesn't sound like a relentlessly repetitive exercise - a much more pleasant experience for your audience.

Overall, a fine effort - work on cleaning up the left-hand arpeggios - especially as they descent down into the next measure - maybe LH alone practice. Good luck and thanks for sharing.
Gerry

[gyzzzmo]

+1 to Thierry about the acceleration thing. If you want to acc/decelarate you have to think in terms of 'Bars' only (or 'Waves' if you prefer graphics). The melody is part of the wave, not the goal of it. Also, most expression in this piece is done by volume because the 'flow of the waves' have to go on. (i start sounding like some freak  ).

Btw, we are all commenting your dynamics here, wich is actually a compliment since most people are still struggling the techique wich sounds pretty good to me

gyzzzmo