Chopin's Large Scale Works

[invictus]

I think I am up to par to play one of his ballades/scherzos.

My last few pieces were:
Rach - bumble bee, preludes gminor and c#minor
Debussy - Passepied, Whole set of Children's Corner

About to begin on Liszt's Liebestraum No,3 (love dream )

Which ballade/scherzo do you think i should go for first/ or am i not up to par yet.

[arensky]

Based on your recent repertoire, I would suggest...

Ballades; #2 in F op.38 or #3 in Ab op.47

Scherzi; #1 in bm op.20, #2 in Bbm op.31 or #3 in c#m op.39

Ballades 1 and 4 and the 4th Scherzo are very difficult, you will probably want to try one of the others in each group first.

[invictus]

Thanks for you reply

How hard are those pieces?

In what order should I do them in?

[demented cow]

The 3rd ballade is in my book definitely the easiest of the big Chopin pieces I've played.
The difficulties of the other ballades are pretty obvious. I did the 2nd for my school leaving exams and it took me 6 months to get the right technique to be able to play the coda at the speed I wanted to without my arm falling off (it's similar to Liszt Hung. Rhap. 6).
I agree with Arensky that the 4th is the most difficult scherzo, despite the fact that it doesn't sound as hard as 2 and 3. Of the scherzi, I find the 3rd the easiest (maybe excluding the 1st, which I can't judge because I don't play it). I would start practising some of those descending two-handed runs in the chorale sections of the 3rd, they're maybe the hardest thing in the piece.
The Barcarolle is way more difficult than it sounds. Getting the inner voices to sound properly (e.g. on the 2nd last page), is hard.
The Allegro de Concert op.46 is an underrated, seldom played piece. It's about as hard as the 4th ballade. (Try to get Arrau's recording, don't judge the piece by Biret's funerial-paced rendition.)
Here's my difficulty ranking, starting with the easiest (pieces on the same line are roughly equal in difficulty):
-ballade 3
-scherzo 3
-scherzo 2, ballade 1, heroic polonaise
-ballade 2, ballade 4, scherzo 4, barcarolle, concert allegro

Difficulty rankings are sometimes unreliable because people may be good with certain types of technique but not with others, which will skew their opinion. Maybe I'm more reliable because my technical and interpretative skills suck in all departments.
I hope other people contribute their opinions.
PS There's quite a lot of advice on technical problems in most of these pieces in older posts in the forum.

[invictus]

Thanks for your great reply, which is informative and fair (you didnt judge on pieces you didnt play) and for your extra bitsy bits (i am not a fan of slow songs or baroque - romantic, only 20th century [yes i am unhealthy])

Ok, here is my plan

Ballad No.3 in Ab
Scherzo/i No.3 n C#m

I guess I will work on both of them almost simultaneously (sounds crazy)

Extra pieces:
Liszt - Liebestraum No.3 in Ab Love Dream
Rach - Prelude 10, 12, 13
Chopin - Better start on some etudes

Any tips or hints on playing the ballad no3 and scherzo no3?

[musicsdarkangel]

the first scherzo is a great piece which is underplayed.


I think that the reason it is underplayed is because it is usually taken at a slower tempo.


Listen to Krystof Jablonski play it........ its amazing.


And Yundi Li is close.  Anyone else is boring.

[demented cow]

the first scherzo is a great piece which is underplayed...Listen to Krystof Jablonski play it........ its amazing. And Yundi Li is close.  Anyone else is boring.

I don't know if the 1st scherzo is underplayed; it's hardly rare repertoire. It's beautiful in the middle, but I find it hard to see the music behind the craziness in the outer sections. I don't think its up there with Chopin's other three masterpieces in this genre.
Recordings:
Maybe you haven't heard Cyprien Katsaris' cd with all the ballades/scherzi. In all these pieces, he discovers lots of inner voices that you don't hear in other recordings. (Imagine somebody who only knows these pieces from the Katsaris disc. I bet if you gave them a recording by someone else, they would think that the other pianist is not playing all the notes.) Katsaris doesn't go for overt virtuosity (though check out his ocatves in some of the pieces, esp. 4th ballade coda), but he gets that 'molten lava' effect (sorry, I can't describe it better) as well as anyone else in the 1st section of the 1st Scherzo.  Overall, this is my favourite complete recording of the ballades/scherzi.
Rubinstein (30s recordings on Naxos) played the 2nd and 3rd scherzi (and I think from memory the 1st) like a wild man from Hell, generating far more fury than you'd expect from someone who's not noted for his technique.
Ashkenazy's scherzi are beautiful too, esp. the 4th.s