Venetian Boat song in f#

[kevin2006]

For some reason I always play the tempo as Andante rather than Allegretto Tranquillo. But I would like to hear comments from others, so here you go.

[rachfan]

Hi kevin,

There are some good things to like in your playing of this song without words.  You have a deeply felt sense of expression, some nice nuances, and good attention to the cantabile melodic line.  Good work!

Some suggestions: 1) The bass right now is too loud.  The idea is to create a quiet, even bass throughout, except in a few places where the bass is the sole point of interest, but even then it cannot rise to a level of forte that would be out of proproportion to its normal level in this piece.  Mostly, think of a mirror-calm lake without a ripple on it.  So this is really more of a balancing of the hands, to ensure that the cantabile is always in the foreground, and the LH is background accompaniment.  2) After the trills your playing gets very allargando.  It would be difficult to justify that slow broadening given the lack of evidence for it in the score.  So you really need to maintain momentum--no ritardando or tempo change there.  3) You need to work at bringing out the crescendo followed by the diminuendo on the long trill in measures 34-35.  Right now it is too mono-dynamic in execution.  4) Finally, if I were you, I'd definitely pick up the tempo a tad.  Allegretto is light, and cheerfully and moderately brisk, but not as fast as allegro.  Relative to mood, this allegretto is in the context of calmness and tranquility.  So the tempo and mood need to be integrated and balanced.

I've posted my own recording so that you can perhaps compare performances, and to better illustrate what I mean in my comments above, i.e., a sound picture is worth 1,000 words.

I think you're on the right track and simply need to work on some refinements at this point in your practicing.  Thanks for posting this piece.  Mendelssohn gets seemingly very little attention in this forum, with a very small handful of pianists posting his music. 

[kevin2006]

Thanks rachfan for your comments, I will record it again some time later.