Chopin, Poulenc

[schubertiad]

Here are a couple of recordings I made a while back, which a friend randomly sent me yesterday. One is the fun Poulenc Novelette in Bb minor, and the other two are Chopin mazurkas, both in A minor (one early, one late). They're all unedited (you may be able to tell...)
Any comments welcomed

[daniloperusina]

In opus 64 I think your left hand is not as good as your right hand. Maybe due to the fact that your chords on beats two and three are a bit stiff, at least what concerns phrasing, you know, like third beat softer than second for example.

Right hand is quite nice! And you make the piece 'dance' in a nice way.

[counterpoint]

The Poulenc sounds very unnatural. I tried to shift the pitch 1 fourth down - then the piano sound is much better. Did you speed up your recording? 

[daniloperusina]

In my humble opinion you slightly misunderstand the opus 17 mazurka. Both hands, not the least the left hand, must be much more 'flexible' concerning both rythm and nuance. Alway small subtle changes, now faster, now slower, now diminuendo, now crescendo, rit, acc, subito pp, espressivo, now intimate, now louder.
Which is a bit of the opposite of what you are doing.
I was surprised by your 3 against 2 in bars 43&44. My score indicates that the second voice in RH should go with the triplets.
You ornaments show some good fingerwork!
it is a very difficult mazurka to play well.

[daniloperusina]

I don't see that. It sounds perfectly natural as a slightly out-of-tune upright in a dry room. A quick check showed that the key is the right one.
Nice performance, full of fun!

[schubertiad]

You're right, it was not a great piano, but I don't think anything was done to the recording. I get what you mean about the op.17 mazurka. I haven't played the piece in a long time, but I'm sure that what I was trying to put into it at the time didn't really come out. That's often the way, I guess.

[daniloperusina]

What I hear is that you aim for a very steady pulse, and this is what I mean is wrong. But to your defence, I don't like Perahia's recording either, also for how he handles the rythm, although it's different from your's, of course

[schubertiad]

I do think the piece needs changes of colour and tempo - just very subtle ones. (Unfortunately, either the recording doesn't show them very well, or I wasn't playing them.) I think it is all too easy to make a real rambling, soggy mess of pieces such as this if you overdo the sentimentality. I seem to have gone to the other extreme here, though.
Btw the triplet/quaver in bar 43/44 is written in one edition I have (the one I learnt) but not the urtext.

[pianistimo]

schubertiad, thank you for posting the poulenc!  i enjoyed it.

[schubertiad]

Thanks  It is a lot of fun to play, and has a certain brilliant stupidity (or maybe stupid brilliance) to it. I might relearn it sometime, just to get rid of some of those wrong notes which seem to crop up from time to time 

[counterpoint]

I don't see that. It sounds perfectly natural as a slightly out-of-tune upright in a dry room. A quick check showed that the key is the right one.
Nice performance, full of fun!

Okay, my ears acclimate now to the sharp and aggressive sound of the piano. The piece sounds a bit like the 3rd movement of the concerto for 2 pianos & orch. Very funny, indeed!  

[schubertiad]

He certainly liked to recycle material. I remember hearing the concerto after learning this, and thought it was an orchestral arrangement at first. If you listen to his sonatas for flute, clarinet, oboe and violin, they all have almost identical episodes in them, too.

[rachfan]

Hi schubertiad,

I was particularly interested in listening to the Poulenc "Novelette".  Poulenc infused his music with a great deal of wit, irony, bittersweet lyricism, and French charm.  I think you brought out the spirit of this piece quite well.

Almost all of Poulenc's compositions began as improvisations, which is a good thing, because they always sound like fresh creations, even with repeated hearings.  Once he had a few improvisations polished, he'd invite friends to his home to perform them in a casual recital.  If his efforts were enthusiatically received, he'd then write out the scores for publication.  If he was especially fond of a certain passage, it would crop up in thinly disguised fashion in another or even more work(s); so yes, he did recycle some of these moments as you suggest.   In a way, I like that, because it reinforced his unique idiom, almost as if he placed his signature within the music.  Other composers would do that on occasion too.  One of the Rachmaninoff "Etudes Tableux" appears within his 4th Piano Concerto, for example.