Liszt "La Leggierezza"

[mhl]

I would appreciate your opinion on my daughter's recent performance of "La Leggierezza" by Liszt.  I have been lurking on this forum for a long time and know that many of you are highly knowledgable about piano performance.  Here is the link to the YouTube video:

Any comments will be appreciated by me and my daughter.  Thanks.

mhl

[pianistimo]

she is an exceptionally graceful and beautiful pianist.  the only thing i noticed was a tendency to do what most people do - and lean forward and back a lot - and also do a lot of lifting of the wrists.  too much of anything draws attention to itself.

see if she can catch herself - and simply sit mostly straight up and when she feels the tendency to lean forward - to lean back.  to let her wrists stay more flat as much as possible (unless letting go of notes completely and moving to another area of the piano - but even then you can make a low sideways movement). 

she has a really nice sound from the piano.  on one of the last notes - she gradually lifted her finger off the note before lifting the pedal.  the pedal is what actually ends the note for you.  so, you kinda want a semi-simultaneous thing - and not an obvious hand then pedal.    but, this is really picky picky and nothing to overly worry about. 

you must be very proud of her!

[mhl]

pianistimo,

Thank you so much for the comments and kind words, which I shared with my daughter.  I guess I will have to let her audition for double majoring music in addition to her intended major when she heads for college in the fall (although, unfortunately, she may have to stay one more year for that).

mhl

[pianistimo]

unfortunate for you but not for her.  it's hard to make it nowdays.  i think she's being very wise to listen to that idea and get two degrees, really.  if i had known how little performance makes (i've mostly taught piano).  i love teaching - but the benefits are little to nothing.  i'm talking health and dental benefits.  you need those if you have children.  look at people who major in dentistry or pediatrics or pharmacy - they're the ones that can afford to live nowdays. 

i don't know.  i have two daughters.  on the one hand - i just want them to settle down quickly and have grandchildren before i die (so i can help them take care of them and make life easier for them).  then, on the other hand - i hope they have some career that allows them flexibilty to HAVE a family and do that too.  maybe your daughter should look into companies (right now - ahead of time) that have flexible programs such as maternity leave (very important to not being laid off for simply becoming pregnant and needing more home time and part time hours until a later point) and programs where you can work from home. 

only one person in  my entire neighborhood that i  know of has sucessfully worked this through and she was not laid off and rehired at lower or base salary - but kept her salary going.  she probably makes as much as her husband.  not that this is THAT important -but with taxes - etc always getting higher...it's something to think about.  where you actually want to work and if your education will get you a foot in that door.

[jakev2.0]

Nice playing! Especially love the crisp leggiero runs... I find the rubato can get a bit extreme at times though.

I must agree about the mannerisms though. They're a bit distracting and do not add to the quality of the performance...there is a strong possibility that such movements can actually have a negative impact on such aspects as rhythm. (as a sideline, you could bet your last nickel that Benno Moiseiwitsch sat absolutely still during his stunning performance of this piece.)

Overall an almost professional-level performance, and for 16 she should be very proud!

[hakki]

Bravo !!
Beautifully played. You must be very proud of her.
Thanks for sharing.
The sound quality is good too.

Would you mind giving some details how this was recorded and the format you used to upload to youtube.

Regards,

[mhl]

Thank you so much for all of you who gave very helpful comments.  My daughter never planned to major in music, so she has not been as serious about her piano practice as many other students on this board, for example.  With all your kind words, I think she should more seriously consider double majoring music.  Of course, she and I know that majoring music only is not a realistic option.

hakki,

This recording was part of her performance for a local scholarship competition at a TV station.  I was able to upload to YouTube only because the station gave us a DVD copy.  I have never uploaded a video to YouTube, so it took me some time to figure out how to convert the vob file to the mp4 file appropriate for uploading.  What I did probably was not the most efficient way.  I downloaded a trial version of VideoReDo to cut out the piece and save it as an mpeg file.  However, the size of this file exceeded the 100mb limit, so I used Videora Ipod Converter (free software) to convert mpeg to mpeg-4.

mhl

[rachfan]

Hi mhl,

First, I very much enjoyed your daughter's performance.  She plays with a wonderfully expressive lyricism and managed all the technical challenges of this piece very well.  I was impressed with her phrasing, warm tone, effortless articulation, and fluency with Liszt's idiom. 

Like some of the others here, let me say a few words about posture during performance.  She does sway back and forth a lot, undoubtedly feeling the ebb and flow of the music.  I'm old school, I guess, so I sit quite still, yet can elicit the same lyricism from the piano.  There are a few instances where it is actually helpful, by exception, to move the trunk of the body forward or to lean back.  When playing fff, moving forward can add some additional energy to the natural arm weight producing the big forte.  If one has to play ppp, leaning back until the arms take on the sensation of floating in the air can help produce a delicately quiet sound.  But constant swaying has not been shown to improve performance, although I do realize that many modern teachers are far more tolerant of this mannerism than those of the former generation.  To me though, any mannerism is distracting.  The role of the pianist is to be a transparent medium bringing the music to the audience, while serving the intentions of the composer through a sound interpretation of the work.  To the extent that the performer is as unobtrusive as possible in the process, so much the better, for then the music stands more on its own merits, as it should. 

I was watching her wrists too, and I believe someone else mentioned this point.  She plays with very active wrists.  The wrists must certainly be relaxed and flexible.  But they are only one part of the entire playing apparatus of the arm.  The trunk, actually, can  have a role as impetus in initiating energy.  The upper arm directs the lower arm.   The lower arm, in concert with gravity, plays a huge role in tone production.  The wrist, with the forearm, is important in differentiating various touches like legato, nonlegato, portato, staccato.  It can also position the hand vertically and obliquely, and in turn, the fingers to best advantage, although if more "geography" must be covered across the keyboard, there again the upper arm will be directing those broad motions, while the wrist deals with smaller scope and angled movements.

What I see in your daughter's performance is a lot of unnecessary upward thrusts of the wrists, sometimes in isolation from the arms.  True, if the pianist has to taper off a phrase ending, the upper arm will direct the lower arm to lift the wrist.  But sometimes I see her raising the wrist first in order to raise the lower arm!  I believe she would be better served by keeping a relaxed and flexible wrist, which she has achieved wonderfully,  but at the same time aiming for a quieter wrist and hand.  We sometimes call this "economy of motion".  Motions at the keyboard need to be justified according to the effects they must produce.  Needless or superfluous motions add no value to the quality of the performance, may even be a hinderance to execution, and will certainly call the audience's attention to them.

I mention these things as food for thought.   But again, I want to congratulate her on this fine performance.  She worked very hard on this piece to achieve an excellent result and deserves much credit.

[mhl]

rachfan,

Thank you so much for such detailed comments, which I showed to my daughter.  In fact, this was the first time my daughter saw her own performance, and she agrees with much of what you and others have observed.  She appreciates your comments and suggestions very much.

mhl