Liszt: Sonetto 104 del Petrarca

[donjuan]

I used a better microphone for this one.

hope you like it!    all comments and suggestions are welcome

donjuan

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I don't like the piano you're playing on (or perhaps that is a side-effect of the microphone). However, in terms of your playing, I feel the music comes across very well. Nice range of dynamics, and it seems like the Lisztian idiom comes naturally to you. 

[rachfan]

Hi, donjuan,

I enjoyed your recording of 104 a lot.  Very nice phrasing, pedal, dynamics, and expression.  Sometimes I felt you rushed a little, and the coda was slower than I would attempt.  Nonetheless, I believe you captured the inner essence of the piece here.  Just curious: Can you tell me about the piano (Yamaha?), and also how you positioned the microphones for this recording? 

Don't sweat wrong notes.  This was a student recital, and you did very well.  Not only are you not deterred by an error, but actually make it musical as well every time.  With highly edited CDs on the market, many pianists make the mistake of believing that music is real, as if it were a first and last out take, as you know.  There is that story of the artist who had a not-so-great recording session.  When he returned to the studio the next day and the CD was played for him, he marveled at his playing, to which the recording engineer replied, "I bet you wish YOU could play like that!"  It's so true.  There is way too much of a fetish today on surgically clean playing which is...  so boring!  A pianist's personality cannot possibly come through in that kind of super cautious, robotic effort. 

What I appreciate in your playing is that you take risks.  I do too.  It draws the audience into your passion for the music and communicates it to the listeners for more effectively. When you take a risk, they move to the edge of their seats.  So rather than sterile, nondescript, generic playing, you give them something to remember after they've left the hall.  That's what it's all about.  When I would go to hear Rubinstein, for example, he would sometimes hit klinkers, but the audiences brushed it off as totally insignificant, as his performance as a whole was so magisterial, and he was absolutely connected to his audience every second.  We need more of that today.   

[pianiststrongbad]

Hi Donjuan, great job on this piece.  I really like the opening line.  I never figured out how to make sense of it, but I think you do a great job with the cresc and accel.  (I'm going to go write the accel in my score so I know for next time).  You got great technique, I wish I had your octaves just before those major thirds in the right hand.  On the second to last page I could have used more time on the fermata just after the G major arpeggiation going up in the left hand.  Again I also could have used more time on the fermata after the descending 1st inversion chords on the last page.  This is all personal taste though.  I really admire your performance of this.  Feel free to listen to mine which is on Rachfan's thread of this about half way in.  https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,18549.0.html

Once again, I really like your interpretation of this.

[donjuan]

Just curious: Can you tell me about the piano (Yamaha?), and also how you positioned the microphones for this recording? 

piano is a yamaha C2 (5'8''), and for a microphone, I put it on top of a folded towel sitting on top of the piano.

Don't sweat wrong notes. This was a student recital, and you did very well. Not only are you not deterred by an error, but actually make it musical as well every time. With highly edited CDs on the market, many pianists make the mistake of believing that music is real, as if it were a first and last out take, as you know. There is that story of the artist who had a not-so-great recording session. When he returned to the studio the next day and the CD was played for him, he marveled at his playing, to which the recording engineer replied, "I bet you wish YOU could play like that!" It's so true. There is way too much of a fetish today on surgically clean playing which is... so boring! A pianist's personality cannot possibly come through in that kind of super cautious, robotic effort.

What I appreciate in your playing is that you take risks. I do too. It draws the audience into your passion for the music and communicates it to the listeners for more effectively. When you take a risk, they move to the edge of their seats. So rather than sterile, nondescript, generic playing, you give them something to remember after they've left the hall. That's what it's all about. When I would go to hear Rubinstein, for example, he would sometimes hit klinkers, but the audiences brushed it off as totally insignificant, as his performance as a whole was so magisterial, and he was absolutely connected to his audience every second. We need more of that today.

haha I agree!  We have too many Marc Andre Hamelin types out there!  And you are right, audiences dont care about wrong notes.  They are only concerned with how the music makes them feel.  I just played a concert tonight, and during Liszt's Ballade No. 2 in one of the loud parts, my hands got disoriented and I was playing wrong notes.  But then I remembered that Liszt doesnt necessarily want right notes; in the specific section he would have wanted thunder and lightning.  So I solved the problem by playing even more wrong notes as loud as I could in the lowest bass regester, and it was a cool resonant effect!

thanks for responding!

Hi Donjuan, great job on this piece. I really like the opening line. I never figured out how to make sense of it, but I think you do a great job with the cresc and accel. (I'm going to go write the accel in my score so I know for next time). You got great technique, I wish I had your octaves just before those major thirds in the right hand. On the second to last page I could have used more time on the fermata just after the G major arpeggiation going up in the left hand. Again I also could have used more time on the fermata after the descending 1st inversion chords on the last page. This is all personal taste though. I really admire your performance of this. Feel free to listen to mine which is on Rachfan's thread of this about half way in. https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,18549.0.html

Once again, I really like your interpretation of this.

thanks!  I listened to your live recording, and I dont know.. you and rachfan play this music sort of like how I originally did, before my teacher convinced me of the negative effect of "savoring every little note" to the piece as a whole.  In concert, I get better results with sonetto when I play it with the idea of constantly moving forward.  True, on the way, we should stop and smell the roses, but it's also important to leave the garden, wanting the come back.

In fact, right now I play sonetto with even less rubato than in this recording.

thanks for listening

[rachfan]

donjuan,

I knew it!  Got the piano right.  I also could tell that you had the mike either on top of the piano or inside the case.  I did a lot of experimentation with that, and in the end dropped that positioning.  What I found was that the mike was too close to the music making, and was picking up sound-in-the-making rather than fully formed sound eminating from the piano.  I was getting more of the sensation of the hammers striking the strings rather than a rounded, developed tone reflected from the piano's soundboard. 

I also used three (3) mikes.  Two were positioned about 6" away from the piano rim, a bit higher than the rim--one down by the tuning pins, the other up toward the tail.  The third mike was on a boom about 7 feet in between and back from the other two to get the ambiant sound of the music in the room.  All of them went into a mixing box then into the recorder.  I think if you at least go to two mikes and get them onto stands just in front of the open lid of the piano, you'll like the overall result better.