Scriabin - Etude Op. 8/12

[quantum]

One of the pieces that always brings me great joy when I play it.  This piece is just plain fun to play.  

The bass range doesn't sound as rich and full as I'd like it to be.  Maybe time to tweak the mic placements?  Or just get a longer piano  

Scriabin - Etude Op. 8/12
Mic:  (2x) Studio Projects B1
Interface:  Edirol UA-25
Piano:  Yamaha C3

Enjoy!

[gaer]

I enjoyed it.

I have a couple suggestions, if you're interested.

You make a complete break right before the low double C sharp octave. I have no measure numbers, too tired to measure them. Why don't all scores have them? <grrr>

But that seems extreme and totally stops the flow for me. I'm all for radical ideas, but that one is a bit too radical.

At the end, second to last chord, the LH is rolled, and since very few people can hit a 12th solid, it's obvious why. But you roll the RH. That I can peg solid easily. I know many people can't. But there is another way.

For a more brutal effect (it is marked fff!!!), try hitting the RH F sharp with the low D sharp octave, then jump up to the A sharp in the LH and the D# and A# in the RH. You can break the octave, preseverving the roll in the LH, but playing the first RH note with the octave and the other two notes with the remaing LH note will disguise the fact that your hand is a bit small to really nail the RH.

Then instead of getting a weaker sounding roll, can get a Pu POW sound right before the last chord. Your build up to that point is fine.

I've fooled around with this and have a few more ideas, if you are interested. Now I regret never having finished it myself.

Gary

[zheer]

I also enjoyed the way you played this music, you have your own special way of playing it. However i have unfortunitly heard horowitz play this Etude, i had tears coming down my eyes and i almost fainted.Had i not heard horowitz i would have said that it was perfect. All the best.

[quantum]

Thanks for you're suggestions.  They're always welcome. 

About the break at the double C sharp octave, I do have a reasoning behind it.  This entire passage starting at the end of the A theme, with the pedal point D sharp (with F sharp, B, D in RH), is a compositional tool for delaying the resolution of the tonic chord.  Scriabin could have put a cadence where the pedal point begins but he decided to add material that would perlong the tension of the music.  The double C sharp LH octave is the start of yet another device which adds delayed tension: a suspension chain, or 4th species counterpoint.  Play the bottom LH and top RH octaves alone as single notes to isolate the counterpoint.  My delay was just adding to what the music was already doing.  I find that the beginning of the counterpoint passage is not as emphasized without it. 

I've fooled around with the ending for a long time, and never really got the desired result.  The Pu POW effect you speak of is definately Scriabin.  I believe I decided to roll the RH because although I could play it solid it did not have enough punch.  Yes, please tell your other ideas on this. 

I have heard Horowitz play this on one of my videos.  It's a great performance and he manages to get so much power of of the piece, except I didn't like one thing.  He cheats in the counterpoint passage by not playing all of the LH chords. 

[pianowelsh]

I could do with more sonority partricularly at the opening, more sense of the legato line - I know its imposiible to play it legato but the audience musnt know that!! Generally i like what you do though. I do see what people mean about your top of the bridge moment. i agree with you do it but play with it (it int totally convincing me yet. It could perhaps be abit shorter and you could lead into it and out of it with even more drama!) Well Done Hard etude!!

[mc]

Good work, and although I would play the counterpoint section differently, I appreciate your thought behind it and the execution is technically commendable.  It's great that you realize the tension-release course in this piece.  Yours is a very specific, granular interpretation of the tension that I've never heard before.

Legato is difficult in the beginning, particularly if your dynamics are in the p-mp range, but I think might be worth the result.

As for the very end, I've heard a lot of interpretations that in fact do not roll the chord, but play as much of the chord as is in their hand span at once.  Two notable interpreters that do this are Scriabin himself (in the piano roll recordings ascribed to him) and Horowitz.  that's probably cheating though, and I sense that you aspire to a purer/more intellectual understanding of the pieces and the piano.

I, however, am a romantic and cheat all the time for the sake of the sentiment conveyed
Particularly with this piece I cheat a bit.

Enough about me.  Good work, look forward to hearing more with you.

[phil13]

Aside from what's been said already, what can I say?

For my taste, it's a little slow, but that's because I was introduced to this piece through the Horowitz recordings. It is also very hard to control at that speed.

Other than that, it's great!

Phil

[superstition2]

The performance is a bit too technically exaggerated at times, such as the rests ("breaks"?) and at one point in the bass about halfway through where a few notes are played overly loud. You'll have to forgive me for not using good terminology.

It seems like some of the technical ideas are too raw. Move toward making the piece cohesive, flowing, and less choppy. It has a midi feel. Choppiness seems to be one of the biggest problems with performances of this piece and many other short Scriabin pieces (etudes, mostly).

When Horowitz plays it, you feel swept along a current that ends in an amazing vortex-like climax. From the moment he starts it to the end, there is no feeling of stopping. It's smooth. Your performance seems to fragment the piece.

I hope this isn't too harsh, but being evaluated next to Horowitz at his best is harsh for nearly anyone. This is one of the pieces that he played magnificently. It, along with the C# minor Etude, is what got me into Scriabin.

It's obvious you have a lot of talent and training, so I'm sure you'll go far.

[quantum]

It is interesting to note how some pieces have achieved a particular reputation because of a specific performance of a specific musician.  Such performances and recordings somehow become "standardized".  On the positive side it raises the level of musicality achievable in a performance of the specific piece, but on the negative it may lead many people to believe there is only one way to interpret the piece.  Unfortunatly many are discouraged from playing a piece if they cannot "reproduce" the standard, and the world is at a loss for many fresh ideas and interpretations are never brought to fruition.  It also gives some listeners a mindset where if a performance does not meet the "standard" they are used to hearing, they completely shut down their observation and attentivness to new plausable ideas. 

[bearzinthehood]

It is interesting to note how some pieces have achieved a particular reputation because of a specific performance of a specific musician.  Such performances and recordings somehow become "standardized".  On the positive side it raises the level of musicality achievable in a performance of the specific piece, but on the negative it may lead many people to believe there is only one way to interpret the piece.  Unfortunatly many are discouraged from playing a piece if they cannot "reproduce" the standard, and the world is at a loss for many fresh ideas and interpretations are never brought to fruition.  It also gives some listeners a mindset where if a performance does not meet the "standard" they are used to hearing, they completely shut down their observation and attentivness to new plausable ideas. 

True, but IMO one should be able to reproduce the "standard" before considering doing something different.

[quantum]

True, but IMO one should be able to reproduce the "standard" before considering doing something different.

Many people are able to reproduce a standard, but are unable to explain and deconstruct the elements of an interpretation and why it is considered "good".  IMO the latter is more helpful in the path to the construction of your own interpreteation. 

[gaer]

True, but IMO one should be able to reproduce the "standard" before considering doing something different.

Problem. I think that by "standard" Quantum was making the point that one way of playing something becomes ACCEPTED as the standard way that it should be played. Period. Then people become locked into this one way as the only right way, and the more another interpretation deviates from this, the more it is looked upon as somehow lacking.

It's a deadly trap, I think. I can think of several times in my life when an interpretation had seemed inferior to me, wrong, lacking, you name it, just because I had gotten a particular "view" in my head. Later, I reversed my opinion totally, suddenly realizing that I had not heard what a second person had to say. This does not invalidate the first view. I just makes life more interesting.

Listening to Horowitz is especially dangerous for me, because for me his way of playing is so very convincing (when it is/was at it's best) that I can get blinded. In addition, often people make comparisons without consulting a score to find out what the composer actually indicated. This also does not invalidate a great performance for me just because a great player takes "liberties", but it alerts me to the fact that there may be many other views I should investigate.

Gary

[superstition2]

Perhaps this performance is closer to what you're looking for? It's not Horowitz and some of the idea you have seem similar, but more refined.

[gaer]

Perhaps this performance is closer to what you're looking for? It's not Horowitz and some of the idea you have seem similar, but more refined.

This is certainly a very professional a very solid performance. But it really does not much remind me of many of the nuances I believe Quantum is after.

My impression: his performance is a bit on the slow side now, but I think he can add a bit of tempo and keep a certain "sweetness" in the lyrical spots that is already there, which  I have not heard before. Perhaps the difference for me is that I'm looking for what he is doing that other people are not doing, not what is missing. This is what I always do. What is unique? What phrases are done differently and work? New dynmaics ideas? Maybe some work, maybe some don't. But the playing is not boring, to me, or lacking in imagination. Aside from the break, which is too long for my taste, and the rolled chord at the end, I like his (Quantum's) concept. I would never think to play it this way, nor could I, and again, that is what makes music magic to me. Each person brings something new which we may never have heard before!

Gary