Barber - Excursions Op. 20

[rhia]

Hi, I'm thinking of studying Barber's Excursions, and I wanted to know some of the technical difficulties and challenges that demands this piece? And some tips/advices on how to practice would be really great.

Also, to anyone who has played all the movements of Excursions, could you put the movements in order of dificulty?

-Rhia

[nanabush]

I'm just ballparking it, but 2-1-3-4

[lagin]

I've looked at them before and was seriously thinking of playing them before my teacher said to do Bartok instead.  I am somewhat familiar with the 3rd and 4th and started working on the 2nd.  I would say that the easiest is the 2nd followed by 4, then 1, and definately 3 as the hardest. 

The 2nd has the challenge of counting tricky rhythms, but it's quite short, and nice if you like jazzy pieces.  The 4th would be harder to play on an upright because all of the repeated notes might note sound without the double action of a grand.  But this quick little country dance is not hard note wise as far as sight reading goes and is one of my favorites in the set.  The 1st is more tricky is respect to it's tempo, but is kind of neat as it is to convey a down town of a large city and it really does sound like that.  The 3rd is mainly 7 agaist 8 all the way through, and then on the second page there are even trickier rhythms.  Stuff like groups of 5 in the left hand against a "group of 8" in the right hand, but that "group of 8" is not in 8 even notes, but contains dotted rhythms and such. 
There is one page where it is all chordal and it's 7 against 7 which is probably the easiest section.  There is one other section where the hands play together easily but there are challenging inner voices to bring out then.  Definately the hardest in my opinion, but a very neat sounding piece.  And if you like it, would be worth the effort. 

[rhia]

Thanks for your feedbacks.

I absolutely love the 3rd movement . . such a gorgeous piece.

-Rhia