This piece is not only a black key arpeggio exercise but also an exercise in tone colour and counterpoint, with two distinct melodic lines being played off against each other – one in each hand.
two distinct melodic lines? That is not true, unless you call an embelishment of the SAME melody line to be a different one. That's all the right hand is - an embelished line from the left hand.
The opening section (bars 1-16) is relatively straight-forward with four 4-bar phrases in the sequence tonic, subdominant and dominant. The touch must be legato throughout and careful attention must be paid to the pedal points, otherwise you will smudge the arpeggios.
You mean except where Chopin writes staccato right? I also don't quite see what the pedal point has to do with smudging the arpeggios - a pedal point after all only means the same bassnote for a period of time, which actually doesn't occur in these four bars. Or maybe you mean pedalling, in which case I would suggest following Chopin's pedaling as they, surprisingly, work rather well.
The second section (bars 17-48 ) is where the real test of this work is to be found. This is where the white keys become into play through a series of modulations and the figuration turns into a steeplechase with each key change. Pay close attention to the transition from bar 32 onwards – two beautiful arabesques must be pedalled for the entire two bars each one – followed by the heavily prepared return to the tonic from the dominant from bars 41 to 48.
What happened to the parts between measures 4 and 17? The transitions in mm. 7-8 and 15-16 needs to be done very sensitively, especially the G-flat to F in the left hand from 15-16. After 17, the white keys do come into play. But they're also in play before, or do you not consider C-flat, D-natural, or C-natural to be white keys? The passage from 32 onwards should NOT be pedalled for the entire two bars, but rather for the entire FOUR bars, as Chopin intended and wrote. The "heavily prepared" return to tonic is one of the most amazing passages, and THIS is a pedalpoint, which means when you're playing this part you need to keep the low D-flat in your ear, even if you can't hold it by hand or by pedal.
The final section (bar 49 onwards) starts as a shortened restatement of the opening theme, with a transition from bar 55 to 66 into the coda (bars 67 to the end). Unlike the main body of the work, this coda must not be pedalled and is a test of legato playing.
The coda must not not be pedaled. Use your own judgement at pedaling rather than just chopin's markings. He was using a very different piano from what we're using now, and sometimes the pedaling still works, but many times it doesn't. You have to use your OWN judgement and play it so that it sounds good - it doesn't matter how you get to that point. Remember that for all our discussions, the only thing that really matters is the end product. You can practice legato, staccato, fast, slow, soft, loud, whatever, but if in the end your performance of it is sh1tty, then nobody's gonna want to listen to it.
Topic: Chopin's "Black Keys Etude"