Alright I have a college audition in a month and I want to play a sonata. Any suggestions? I don't care about the period, difficulty, length, etc. I just need some suggestions. And I do not want to play a piece that everyone has heard about 400 times...ThanksWill
Bartok, Berg, Vine 1, Dutilleux, Radulescu 4, Sciarrino 5, Scriabin 6, Scelsi 3, Morillo Cuarta Sonata, Ginastera 1, Ornstein 6, Prokofiev 4, Mosolov 2, Ravel
Some of those seem a bit out of a month's range...Phil
Classical - Clementi or DussekRomantic - Balakirev or PaderewskiThal
The Balakirev is AMAZING, i really want to do that one sometime.
he did say he didn't care about the difficulty. hmmm. what people say? one month - entirely memorized? or can you bring in the music?
A very balanced piece, that also allows some exhibition would be Scriabin's 4th Sonata Op. 30. The two movements in which it is separated have moments that span from languid relaxation to pyrotechnic soundstorms. It is reachable within the month range, counting for the fact that you are probably not going to be doing 24/7 piano practice. Even if you do, you will have more time for the piece to mature.Another, advisable one of the same composer would be the 9th Sonata (Black Mass) Op. 68. Both pieces contain enough elements to display mastery of the instrument.If you want works that never _ever_ get played, I would go for Sorabji's Sonatas or Rachmaninoff's No 1. But that is way way more than a month.That is about it.
But I have to say, if you are preparing a sonata for college, you should be playing the classics. At this time you should be playing music your teachers really know inside and out and can use to imrpove your whole piano approach. If you bring in something loud and showy like Rachmaninoff 1st sonata, or I can't believe someone also suggest Opus clav., I feel it is generally pointless, because the chances will know anything about it are low. You will probably know more about it, from praciticng it, then your teacher. But what is the point of that? Being esoteric only helps if your teacher is equally or more esoteric.Walter Ramsey
You exaggerate - I've seen Rachmaninoff 1st sonata ("Faust") live twice, and also have two recordings of it by two different people!
you should be playing music your teachers really know inside and out
Why? Well, ok, I hope that eventually he will learn how to coach himself. Knowing your limits on your own, is the first step towards expanding them.
The reason is you are not getting the value of the teacher if you are constantly bringing in pieces that they have never studied themselves. Claude Frank, in fact, doesn't listen to pieces from students that he doesn't know. And why should he? He spent a lifetime mastering the classics, something which is decidedly out of fashion. People should go to him to absorb his knowledge and mastery, not be esoteric.
The other problem is that when the teacher odesn't know the music or style thoroughly, you won't receive as thorough a criticism, which will be an obstacle to your improvement. In fact one feels sometimes that students will choose esoteric works often for that very reason: to avoid strong criticism, since nobody knows the piece. They are only hurting themselves in those decisions.Walter Ramsey
In anycase this is wrong. I will not argue with you any further on why a teacher may end up being the biggest limit ever from some point on, since your mentality always requires somebody to confirm what you are doing, and you never do things that have not been done by your teacher.
Frank could have just read the scores of the pieces and try to see the sound behind them. Wouldn't that be a cuepoint for him? Ravel was desperate in asking people NOT to interpret his pieces but to PLAY the score. The music is IN THE SCORE. Taking an isolated comment out of the greater context may not have the results you want. If you want me to go on this road, I will only go through it once: Sergei Rachmaninoff himself commented that Horowitz plays contrary to how they had been taught, yet somehow with Horowitz it worked. Why? The comparison is among people of similar skills here, not a highbrowed teacher / student approach. If the student is stupid, and there are many, it is obvious that the general rule applies: teacher knows best.
There is a definite, irreplaceable need for a teacher when you need to reach a standard quality level of playing and there is no doubt about that. But it will not get you any further. If you do not "get" the music, no teacher will "help" you "get" it. And that my friend is an exceptionless rule. The later years Liszt never gave direct points in his masterclasses, mainly because he wanted the "students" to get things out of their beings the way they intended too, within what the pieces offered and not to be simple copycats. The same has been done with many other great masters of the instrument (note: I say masters, not teachers), over and over again.
Specialization is a scapegoat for teachers. People who want to go after a serious level of piano playing do not need spacegoats. Quality of piano playing can be showed even through pieces you have not heard before. It seems like your approach towards the "new" piece issue is one of immitation. That will work always if there is a certain standard level to reach. Never, ever for something different.Music is not something that from a certain point on, can be taught. That point varies for everybody.
Well apparently I hit a nerve. I don't always require confirmation, but it is nice to get it, even when it comes in the form of a denial.
It can sometimes happen that the student wants to learn an esoteric piece, and the teacher is also willing to spend the time alongside the student learning the same piece. This happened with me in conservatory when I decided to learn Schoenberg concerto, and my teacher, who had never played it, and I had a wonderful collaboration on it. But this has to be agreed on between teacher and student, and not just be a student bringing in esoteric works just because.
You lost me here. Are you saying that the general rule is students have similar skills as their teachers? Then why do they have teachers? And what on earth do you mean by "highbrowed?" It sounds like you are accusing the whole system of apprenticeship as having the pungent odor of elitism.
As much as we would like to believe it, the markings in a score are not objective.
A forte does not indicate a precise decibel level, and a stacatto does not indicate a precise duration. In fact, every composer uses these things in different ways; and, sometimes markings were misunderstood by the composers themselves (for instance when composers wrote Piu andante to mean a slower tempo). Studying works of a composer in context of his others is therefore infinitely valuable and informative.
If you are bringing esoteric works to your teacher, who has never approached the body of work of that composer, you will receive more superficial criticism, and that is not a critique of the teacher. That is only natural.
Actually according to Rosenthal, Liszt did this out of laziness and apathy towards teaching. But I suppose everyone has a different viewpoint. I think what you arguing isn't incorrect, but it's more than bland. You seem to be assuming that once someone "gets" it, all questions are answered. But there you are arguing from the standpoint of limits again, this time that knowledge and experience is limited. But I say no - one can "get" something just fine, and yet improve upon it through the assistance of a teacher.
This is especially so in the case of the classics, in which musical layering is so deep it can provide fodder for a lifetime of study. Consider this quote by James Levine, about his teacher George Szell: "Szell forgot more about the classics then I will ever know."
I also find it curious that you take pains to make a distinction between masters and teachers. Your post is seeming to me to be more and more anti-teacher on principle. I can think of dozens of masters who are also teachers.
But you aren't bringing a piece to a teacher solely for the improvement of the quality of your piano playing - I hope. The teacher is also there to provide the experience and knowledge, and sometimes ears, that the student lacks. Actually, how can you expect someone to make a thorough critique of a piece they are hearing for the first time, played by a student? The very notion is absurd. And this little escape hatch is exactly how students can, and sometimes do, avoid thorough criticism.
If you consider learning from a teacher a matter of simple imitation, I only feel pity for you!Walter Ramsey
You did not. Your exemplary sophistry has already been proven ineffective more than 2000 years ago by Aristotle. Hasn't any "teacher" taught you that?
One word: collaboration. This would require for people collaborating to be large enough to eat their own words, ie "students of the truth". When Tchaikovsky went to Rubinstein with his first piano concerto, the only thing that Rubinstein did not do was to shoot and bury him. Nevertheless, things changed after a while and Rubinstein understood what had originally been done with the work. As Tchaikovsky wrote in one of his letters:"... I had written a Piano Concerto. Not being a pianist, I considered it necessary to consult a virtuoso as to any points in my concerto which might be technically impracticable, ungrateful or ineffective. I had need of severe critic, but at the same time one kindly disposed towards me."
Read what I wrote again and again, until practice makes it perfect:There is a definite, irreplaceable need for a teacher when you need to reach a standard quality level of playing and there is no doubt about that. But it will not get you any further.
The notes are. Dynamics is the word you are trying to find here, and dynamics may differ after composition time, with the composer himself changing them in live performances of his own works. This is an argument that has been thoroughly discussed in the literature, but at it stands, "harmonics" has always the override on "dynamics" since dynamics becomes dependent on it. The same goes with the tempi you have to follow. Another example comes from romantic pianism vs Scriabin when it comes for example to the later Scriabin works. This is why, we find unusual italian words garnishing the scores like ... "legendaire". By using a tautological argument you prove no point.
I admit that this is mandatory, but when we "study" the works, it is not the dynamics that is of most importance but the harmonics, who always come first and impose themselves on everything else. Previously addressed in this reply.
You are limiting yourself to simple technique - related issues, I have said over and over again: fully trained. And that is what my "treatise" was about.
Rosenthal was not Liszt. You have avoided the Rach/Horo question btw, so here comes another one for you: Horowitz feared that a pianist studying with him might end up a Horowitz clone, so the sessions were not publicized and Horowitz insisted "I am not teaching you. I give you tips." Again, read as well the Ravel comment before.
I see that you take pains as well as to understand the difference between a teacher and a master. A teacher may never be a master, but a master may also be a teacher. Since some are obviously making a living out of this, it is crucial to understand that they will always be needed up to a certain point, once they understand this, they will also understand when to, put it bluntly, "butt" out. Read again what I wrote before:There is a definite, irreplaceable need for a teacher when you need to reach a STANDARD quality level of playing and there is no doubt about that. But it will not get you any further."For those who have eyes to see, and ears to listen". Again, you totally misaddress the issue.Likewise, for you unconsciously do this exact thing.
I will let that quote speak for itself.
First of all nobody has insulted you but your own self, Nobody has called you names either.
Victimizing yourself will not turn you into a hero, you are only constantly bothering more with your puny and arrogant way of imposing your opinion upon others without seeing anything else past the monitor. Your lack of knowledge regarding this particular aspect is "astonishing". But I guess that there was a teacher who "taught" you that.
you are only constantly bothering more with your puny and arrogant way of imposing your opinion upon others without seeing anything else past the monitor.
I am sorry that a person with two legs to stand on makes you so insecure. If you didn't rely so heavily on cliched anecdotes that don't relate to any topic at hand, you might feel a little more confident yourself and be able to argue your opinions without hyperbole. In the meantime, I don't dumb myself down in order to help people not feel so insecure by my opinions.Walter Ramsey
Topic: I need help choosing a sonata! 