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Topic: Rachmaninoff Etude Tableau Op. 39. No. 5  (Read 12968 times)

Offline sharon_f

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Rachmaninoff Etude Tableau Op. 39. No. 5
on: January 20, 2007, 10:30:04 PM
A few weeks ago my teacher decided I should learn something "big" by  Rachmaninoff and suggested the Etude Tableau in E-flat. So I bought the complete Etudes on line and started working on the E-flat major Op. 33. When I came to my lesson this past Thursday and opened to the Op. 33, she looked at me and smiled. It seems she had meant the E-flat minor Op. 39. She wanted something "big" and challenging and said the the E-flat major just wasn't hard enough.

Well, now I'm a little thrown. This looks "way difficult" and being my first Rach I'm not even sure how to proceed. So for those of you who have learned this I would like any suggestions, practice recommendations, etc. Right now it just looks completely overwhelming. Thank you in advance.
There are two means of refuge from the misery of life - music and cats.
Albert Schweitzer
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Offline mad_max2024

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Re: Rachmaninoff Etude Tableau Op. 39. No. 5
Reply #1 on: January 20, 2007, 11:43:25 PM
Hey, I'm learning that as well  ;D

I don't know what level you're at but for me, it's been hard...
My teacher said I would probably spend next to a year working on it, since I don't have that much time to study, I'll probably spend even more than that
It is a beautiful piece though, so I love working on it
First step I took was to sight-read everything to a reasonable level, I worked slowly through the music trying not to make any wrong notes untill I could read the whole music in a way that wouldn't hurt people's ears or cause any members of the canine family to get the urge of starting their own symphony in the street.

The beginning was fairly easy to play right, after I got the tempo straight and got the movements into my fingers playing slowly, the notes just popped into place, of course I'm still not worrying to much about musicality, just the technical part.
The fingering was fairly obvious but I have rather large hands so I could play most of the chords with my RH, you will probably find it easier to pass some of the notes to the left if you have smaller hands, I did so too when I found chords awkward to play.
I can't stress this enough... work out all the fingering before you do anything else...
It's hard to change it afterwards

The slower part at around bar 26 on my sheet I also didn't find technically overwhelming, I played very very slowly paying extra attention to tempo and fitting the notes properly and after a while I got the hang of it and was able to play it without too much trouble (again, not too worried about musicality yet, I just play the dynamics as they feel right, I'm guessing getting the accompaniment extra soft will have it's problems when I get around to it)

Then the real problems begin
the end of the slow part at the C major chord on bar 33 started a world of trouble
Getting from there to the ff B major chord on bar 41 was very hard for me, I had to go very slowly and pay attention to every single note since the melody is strange and illogical. Also found it a good idea to play the voices separately to get used to the melodies, I still can't get the middle voice completely right.

Oddly enough, the following part I found slightly easier, I worked on each descent separately, slowly and for a good deal of time untill I could play it and after a while I could play them reasonably well. Something I found very helpful was to play them from the end to the beginning, I played the last note, then the note before that and the last note, then when I got that right I played from the previous note until the end of the phrase and I kept doing that untill I reached the beginning. It wasn't easy, but to be frank, I thought it would be much harder to get that part right, it looked so fiendish when I first looked at it...

Then the impressive passage when the melody passes to the left hand
I've heard recordings that play that thing at a really impressive speed
Not me though... I just struggle to play it slowly for now...
Worked on it slowly and first for the RH only so I could get used to the chords, I found the LH fairly intuitive to add later
It's not easy, and I'm still far from playing it properly, but I'm slowly improving that bit
and of course, still playing it at a slow speed.

Then the climatic fff and subsequent descent
not especially hard to do, in a way it is similar to the previous descent on bar 22 (Bbmajor) I just did it slowly

Then comes what I think is the greatest technical difficulty in the piece (at least to me)
the impressive sequence of fifths at bar 67 and the even harder one that follows
Doing that backwards thing I explained earlier helped a lot and I can do it reasonably at a comfortable speed, still have a long way to go before I can do it fast though...

The trilling part I got easily, I just took care to match RH F with LH A at all times.
I was surprised at not having great difficulties with the fast fifths at this point, I managed to get them right without much difficulty.

The rest is fairly identical to the previous slow part.

Now that I can play it from sheet in a rudimentary way, I'm working on memorization
I figure working on the technical stuff will be easier if I don't have to constantly read from the sheet.
I'm going VERY slowly (sometimes a bar at a time) and I'm currently on the beginning of the LH melody part (bar 53 I think)

I'm still not very worried about musicality, I try to play it as musically as I can but I find solving the technical problems and actually getting the notes right to be the important issue for now.
It is a lot easier to work on expression when you don't have to chase the notes all over the keyboard...

Maybe I started ranting for a while there... lol
It's a very impressive piece of music, I hope I can play it properly some day, it's very passionate and heart-constricting
I think I'll still be working on it for a while
I'm working on some easier Mendelssohn songs w/o words at the same time to distract me from it so I won't get the urge to hit the keyboard from time to time

So that's roughly what I've been doing so far (hope I got the bars right, I have no bar numbers so I had to count)
I hope that helps you in any way
And of course, I would also greatly appreciate any advice from people who already worked on it
 ;D

PS: This is my first Rach piece as well and yes, it was very overwhelming when I heard my teacher play it too  ;)
I am perfectly normal, it is everyone else who is strange.

Offline sharon_f

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Re: Rachmaninoff Etude Tableau Op. 39. No. 5
Reply #2 on: January 22, 2007, 03:00:11 AM
Thanks for the reply.
There are two means of refuge from the misery of life - music and cats.
Albert Schweitzer

Offline mike_lang

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Re: Rachmaninoff Etude Tableau Op. 39. No. 5
Reply #3 on: January 23, 2007, 03:57:16 PM
If you have any specific questions, please do post further.  I recently learned this etude and would be glad to address any concerns of yours.  I advise that you play the chords inside the second escapement, in order to avoid tension, and that you maintain linear direction through the masses of chords by voicing them (as it is quite tempting to revel in the vertical agitation that is found here).  Finally, it is of utmost important to find a legato fingering for the upper voice in the main section.

Best wishes,
Michael
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