chopin first ballade

[walking_encyclopedia]

i'll be performing this piece along with a WTC prelude and fugue and mozart sonata, in several competitions coming up and thought some of you with experience playing this piece could give me some practice and performance suggestions, especially for the middle, fast scherzo section. that section is harder for me than even the 'presto con fuoco' finale. i've got everything up to speed except that section.

thanx guys

danny

[zheer]

, especially for the middle, fast scherzo section. that section is harder for me than even the 'presto con fuoco' finale.

    Hahahaha, i know what you mean, well what i do is play it not so fast, instead bring out the left hand melody a lot, and play the righ hand part as a sort of gentle soft water fountain  effect, if done musically one can get away with it. Good luck.

[dnephi]

Practice slowly the difficult parts toget them good and solid.  Then do with speed and fury.  Good luck.

[bella musica]

I've played this one too and trust me, good fingering is everything when it comes to the scherzo section.  As I recall I did a lot of slow practice with dotted rhythms to help keep it solid and even.  Once you can do that, you can experiment around with different ways of playing it.  Good luck!

[quantum]

The scherzo section has perplexed me for years also. 

What I find helps me is to have whole lot of "mental markers" in this section.  So it is possible to startup up if you do fudge some notes.  Because of all the whirlwind of activity in both hands it can be tricky to get back on your feet if you do mess up. 

I find also that slowing down a bit until you can play it securly at a faster tempo is wise.  Also I've pretty memorized how to play the RH without looking at it so I can direct my eyes to the LH jumps. 

I also found that some of the solutions to this section were not technical, but musical.