Chopin Op. 28 Prelude 7

[RiskyP]

I have a question regarding the fingering at the end of this piece. Here is the fingering I use in my right hand starting with the final DG# chord: 1&3, 1&5, 2&5, 1(for the gracenote), 1&2&5(final big chord). Is this reasonable? I am having trouble playing the gracenote this way, any better suggestions?

Also, there is this pretty wide spanning chord in the piece which I can actually play as a chord pretty easily, but I recently listened to a pianist playing this piece and he arpeggiated it, so is it supposed to be arpeggiated?

[R.Q.]

The Grace Note is your problem: in your music it should tied to the next note, this means you do not play that A twice! You play the grace note, and keep it down as you play the sixth with fingers 2 and 5. This is why the chord sounded arpeggiated on the recording.

This is a common device in classical music, usually to help with chords too big to be played at one time (see Mussorgsky's "Great Gate Of Kiev" in his pictures at an exhibition for a good example of this). But Chopin uses it just to produce that particular half arpeggiated sound.

Good Luck

~ Young Virtuoso

[RiskyP]

I think you misunderstood. The chord I am talking about is before the end of the piece, it has nothing to do with the fingerings that i was talking about first. I play the gracenote just as you said (don't play it twice) and that is not my problem.

My problem is that from the postion: 2&5 (C# A) I have to play a gracenote with my thumb (on A) and then move my entire hand quickly (whicle holding down the tied gracenote as you said) and play (1&)2&5 (C# A) an octave above the one before. This moving of the hand rapidly makes it very hard for me to play the gracenote softly enough and quickly enough. I was hoping there was a better fingering that lets me avoid this.

BTW, the big chord I was referring to, the one that the pianist arpeggiated was this: F# C# E F# A# C# E A# C#
I can play this no problem as a chord, but the pianist arpeggiated it for some reason, ans there is no marking for this on my edition.

[Hmoll]

Riskyp,

I assume the "wide spanning chord" you are referring to is the one in the 12trh measure. Most fingerings I have seen for this have the A sharp and Csharp played with the first finger, and the chord is not rolled. I have heard people play the chord rolled, though - probably because they have a small hand.

Your fingering is fine for the last 2 measures.

You have to make sure the A grace note is played as a tie, though. In fact you should take some time and study the score very carefully because there are a lot of ties in this piece. One of the contrasts Chopin does in this piece is where he ties the bottom right hand 16th note into the next beat, and where he doesn't tie those notes, so it is worth the study to make sure you are doing it correctly.

[RiskyP]

Yes Hmoll, that is precisely how I play that chord. I try to play this piece as softly as possible (of course with dynamics variations) and I really like how it sounds this way. Know of any other pieces of similar difficulty, not neccessarily by Chopin, which are soft, slow and beautiful?  

I will continue to study the score. I have noticed the ties you were talking about and it really does make a big difference if you play them that way or not. I do play them tied since they sound better that way.