National music competition (Canada)

[thierry13]

This year, i'm entering this competition, i tought about a program with my teacher and I would like to hear toughts about it. I'm entering in the 17 years and less category.

First round :

Bach A minor P&F (book 1)
Liszt Sonetto del petrarca 104 (not sure yet)
Liszt Mazeppa

Second round :

Beethoven Sonata op.90
(now there is two choices ...) Or Bowen Toccata Or Jacques Hetu (a set of variation my teacher is suposed to bring me soon)

Final :
Prokofiev Concerto no.1

[le_poete_mourant]

Do you have any Chopin?  I'd replace one of the lists with something by him, if it was me.  Probably the Sonata del Petrarca - I'm not really a fan of that, I think it's overplayed and not the right kind of Liszt for a competition.  (Again, just my preference.) 

Hmm... late Beethoven.  I hope your interpretation kicks @$$.  Because it will have to in order to impress a jury. 

Good luck. 

[nanabush]

Where is this competition held?  I'm interested, I just gotta learn a concerto and I'm set!

[JP]

Where is this competition held?  I'm interested, I just gotta learn a concerto and I'm set!

I would also like to know.. Especially if its in eastern canada.

[viking]

If you are talking about the Canadian Music Competition, I have entered this as well.  If you would be competing next year in the 17 years category, I would know of some of the people who competed in the 16 yrs category that would be in the 17 yrs next year.  Some pregnant cat played the rach 3 finale, so there is tough competition.  If this is not CMC, then please tell me what it is.  I will be entering CMC next year with a tentative repetoire as follows:

First Round:
Chopin Octave Etude, or Ligeti Etude Autumn in Warsaw
Brahms Opus 4 Scherzo
Some random bach P&F

Second Round:
Hamelin Prelude and Fugue
Haydn Sonata in F major no. 23 (or 20 according to some editions)

National Round:
Prokofiev Concerto no. 2, (first mvmt)


I am really interested in this, and if it is really the CMC competition that you are entering.

Sam     

[gruffalo]

I agree with the other guy who firstly said that you should replace one of the Liszt pieces with a Chopin, and secondly, that the Sonetto del petrarca should be taken out. It's not a good competition piece.

Gruff

[maxy]

I should not talk about this, but I've seen some comments written by judges on CMC, and from what I've seen, 80% of them are incompetents and should not be allowed to sit on jury. 

Anyhow, I wish you the best.  I do like your program. 

[ramseytheii]

I agree with the other guy who firstly said that you should replace one of the Liszt pieces with a Chopin, and secondly, that the Sonetto del petrarca should be taken out. It's not a good competition piece.

Gruff

Just to confuse matters, I disagree!  The Sonetto is in my opinion, and limited experience, a perfect competition piece.  It has brilliant figurations, as well as beautiful, cantabile, floating melodies.  It has everything.  You have lots of options for coloration and individuality, and when the brilliant passages sound good, they sound very, very good.  i recommend it full force!

Walter Ramsey

[thierry13]

Yes it is the CMC i am entering. I may change the prokofiev for the tchaikovsky. I WILL change the sonetto lol I think it would have been good as a lyrical piece, but anyway, another dude plays it in my college so I just told to my teacher erase that one from my program We're looking for a good Chopin piece together, for the modern I may be playing Bowen's toccata or Jacques hetu variations ..

[nanabush]

lol Where is it?

And dear god, some ppl are insane... 17 and under category Rach 3? aaaargh/// and what are the requirments?

[jre58591]

go with the bowen toccata. that piece is a great showpiece and is musical at the same time. the hétu variations arent that good in my opinion. maybe i just havent warmed up to them. they also arent ear friendly, unlike the bowen. the bowen does have more technical difficulties though.

[Alde]

Remember that whatever repertoire you choose, you have to play at a very high standard (CD like quality).  I have found that it is better to perform lesser known works.  Play the Hetu Variations.

[thierry13]

Remember that whatever repertoire you choose, you have to play at a very high standard (CD like quality).  I have found that it is better to perform lesser known works.  Play the Hetu Variations.

I know the standards, and the Bowen Toccata isn't really a "known" work. I'm going to look at that with my teacher. The real decision I must take is my first round choice piece ..

[thierry13]

lol Where is it?

And dear god, some ppl are insane... 17 and under category Rach 3? aaaargh/// and what are the requirments?

It is in every region, and the National Finale I think hasn't been anounced yet(I think it is at a different place every year.

[jre58591]

Remember that whatever repertoire you choose, you have to play at a very high standard (CD like quality).  I have found that it is better to perform lesser known works.  Play the Hetu Variations.

both pieces are relatively obscure, but i can just see people covering their ears when thierry plays the hétu variations. the bowen toccata is completely tonal, a fun piece, and is a great technical showpiece. my vote still stands for the bowen.

actually, now that i think about it, the hétu variations was one of the contemporary pieces that glenn gould played. perhaps if a great one such as him performed it, it may be more worth performing than i think. perhaps im just missing something in it.

[phil13]

both pieces are relatively obscure, but i can just see people covering their ears when thierry plays the hétu variations. the bowen toccata is completely tonal, a fun piece, and is a great technical showpiece. my vote still stands for the bowen.

actually, now that i think about it, the hétu variations was one of the contemporary pieces that glenn gould played. perhaps if a great one such as him performed it, it may be more worth performing than i think. perhaps im just missing something in it.

Remember that Gould also refused to play anything Romantic.

Phil

[jre58591]

Remember that Gould also refused to play anything Romantic.

not true. he did record strauss's b minor sonata, which is late romantic. but this is getting away from the subject.

[ramseytheii]

both pieces are relatively obscure, but i can just see people covering their ears when thierry plays the hétu variations. the bowen toccata is completely tonal, a fun piece, and is a great technical showpiece. my vote still stands for the bowen.

actually, now that i think about it, the hétu variations was one of the contemporary pieces that glenn gould played. perhaps if a great one such as him performed it, it may be more worth performing than i think. perhaps im just missing something in it.

Gould had a high opinion of the piece, writing:
"His Variations are an ebullient and stagey piece of work.  Hetu's flair for the instrument is unmistakable.  Everything works and sounds and lies rewardingly beneath the fingers.   Yet the impressive thing about these Variations is that despite their unabashedly theatrical inclination, they are held together by a sure sense of the purely musical values inherent in their material...
The fact that Hetu does so, with verve and spontaneity, augurs an important career."

And there is an interesting anecdote about Hetu's response to Gould's recording, though it leaves one wanting more information:
"[Gould] did not bother to consult Hetu before recording his Variations in 1967.  Hetu found out about the recording through a letter from Columbia a few weeks before it was released, and, though impressed by Gould's analytical grasp of the piece in the liner notes, he was shocked by the performance (he couldn't sleep for three days, he said); years later, however, he came to feel that Gould's interpretation of the Variations, despite its fundamental departures from the score, had its own integrity and offered a viable alternative to the composer's vision of the piece."

(italics added)

An interesting point from the mouth of the composer himself.  So often we are bullied into believing that this elusive thing called "composer's intentions" - a singular collection of consonants and vowels that makes me want to vomit every time I hear it - is a fixed, rigid thing.  For some composers it undoubtedly was (Ravel called performers "slaves").  But composers time and time again have accepted interpretations differing in many ways from their written marks; they themselves change them and are thus recorded, or written about (see Liszt on Chopin); they improvise on their scores; they revise and offer multiple editions.  This moralizing about "composer's intentions" - gag - is really just another way for a teacher to beat a student into submission, with the apparent force of history on the side of the teacher.  Nothing could be more immoral and revolting. Tolstoy wrote the same about Orthodox priests in Russia pretending they alone held the key to salvation; it was wrong then, and it is wrong now!

Then again Hetu makes perhaps unconciously an interseting point - if Gould's interpretation is a "viable alternative," then surely one can study his record along with the score, and perform it as he did.  In other words, it is not just Gould's own version, but one that would function in a general way with the piece.

Some things worth considering!

Walter Ramsey

[pita bread]

Viking's CMC repertoire, if he decides to do the Ligeti, is one of the most pregnant cat things I've seen in a while.

[thierry13]

Gould had a high opinion of the piece, writing:
"His Variations are an ebullient and stagey piece of work.  Hetu's flair for the instrument is unmistakable.  Everything works and sounds and lies rewardingly beneath the fingers.   Yet the impressive thing about these Variations is that despite their unabashedly theatrical inclination, they are held together by a sure sense of the purely musical values inherent in their material...
The fact that Hetu does so, with verve and spontaneity, augurs an important career."

And there is an interesting anecdote about Hetu's response to Gould's recording, though it leaves one wanting more information:
"[Gould] did not bother to consult Hetu before recording his Variations in 1967.  Hetu found out about the recording through a letter from Columbia a few weeks before it was released, and, though impressed by Gould's analytical grasp of the piece in the liner notes, he was shocked by the performance (he couldn't sleep for three days, he said); years later, however, he came to feel that Gould's interpretation of the Variations, despite its fundamental departures from the score, had its own integrity and offered a viable alternative to the composer's vision of the piece."

(italics added)

An interesting point from the mouth of the composer himself.  So often we are bullied into believing that this elusive thing called "composer's intentions" - a singular collection of consonants and vowels that makes me want to vomit every time I hear it - is a fixed, rigid thing.  For some composers it undoubtedly was (Ravel called performers "slaves").  But composers time and time again have accepted interpretations differing in many ways from their written marks; they themselves change them and are thus recorded, or written about (see Liszt on Chopin); they improvise on their scores; they revise and offer multiple editions.  This moralizing about "composer's intentions" - gag - is really just another way for a teacher to beat a student into submission, with the apparent force of history on the side of the teacher.  Nothing could be more immoral and revolting. Tolstoy wrote the same about Orthodox priests in Russia pretending they alone held the key to salvation; it was wrong then, and it is wrong now!

Then again Hetu makes perhaps unconciously an interseting point - if Gould's interpretation is a "viable alternative," then surely one can study his record along with the score, and perform it as he did.  In other words, it is not just Gould's own version, but one that would function in a general way with the piece.

Some things worth considering!

Walter Ramsey

Do you know where and how could I get the Gould recording please ?

[ramseytheii]

Do you know where and how could I get the Gould recording please ?

If you are in Amerika, it is relatively inexpensive:
https://www.amazon.com/Glenn-Gould-Plays-Contemporary-Music/dp/B0000028OB/ref=sr_11_1/002-1227251-1745647?ie=UTF8

Like a lot of Gould's recordings.  I have this CD but have rarely listened to it, I usually like to see the score.  Hopefully it has the liner notes he wrote as well, I can't find my copy right now.


Walter Ramsey

[viking]

Viking's CMC repertoire, if he decides to do the Ligeti, is one of the most pregnant cat things I've seen in a while.

Thanks, I take that as a compliment.  I have currently learned the Chopin Octave etude for the OSM (Montreal Symphony Orchestra) competition, but from mid november till whenever CMC is in SASKATCHEWAN I would have to learn the 1st mvmt of Prok 2 (doable but tough) the Haydn sonata (not bad) and then maybe the Ligeti would be sortof a bonus piece, not that it would really matter what I played in the first round.  We'll see what happens.