Chopin - Prelude op. 28 no. 4, Etude op. post. no.3

[daan]

Hi all, I am new here, I'm 14 years old.
Here are the links:
https://www50.brinkster.com/daanpiano/Chopin-Prelude%20op.28.%20no.4.wav
https://www50.brinkster.com/daanpiano/Chopin-Etude%20op.%20Post.%20no.3.wav

Please post your comment here

Daan

[daan]

no comment? is that positive or negative?

[rob47]

its fine, but i feel the rubato throughout seems unatural and forced.  Loosen your wrists up a bit.  Good work.

[xvimbi]

Is that your dog howling in the background? If so, and if you could get her/him into a sad mood, you succeeded!

Overall, pretty good.

Here are a few things that come to my mind:

- Your left hand is too loud. The repeated chords lack a bit of a legato. This is very difficult. Use a scooping motion, i.e. move your hand towards the fallboard as you play a chord, then pull back the hand as you get ready to play the next chord.
- I agree with Rob47 about the rubato. It should be flowing a bit more, i.e. if you do chose to be liberal with the note duration, don't make such sharp contrasts.
- Vary the dynamics a bit more. You have the melody pretty much at the same loudness throughout. The first note of the sighs should be a bit louder, the second note softer. Overall, these figures could be louder in one instance and softer in another. Imagine yourself sighing and sobbing. in fact, do sigh as you play the piece.
- Measure 9 is a bit uneven. Also, there is a crescendo up to the D, followed by a decrescendo. They didn't come out that well.
- the grace notes in measures 9 and 19 are too short for my taste.
- in measure 12, accentuate the first C (when you release the pedal)
- you didn't quite observe the triplet in measure 12; the figure could have a bit more dynamics
- Measures 14-17: the left hand sounds a bit mechanical, like a metronome.
- Measure 18: the triplet, again, is not quite right.
- Measure 22: you added an extra E.
- The final chords are too loud, they should really be pp; Particularly the first chord comes almost like a hammer blow; use your upper body to play those.

Agreed, this is quite nit-picky. Your version is very good as it is; those are just some pointers for you to explore (except for the extra note of course )