Rating Technical Difficulty

[starpianist]

Which of these two pieces do you think is technically harder? Chopin's Revolutionary Etude or his Fantasie-Impromptu? I would like to hear your answer and why. Thanks.

[thalbergmad]

For me the "revolutionary" for the simple reason i have less facility in my left hand.

Anyway, I hate both pieces and would not waste my time with them again even if you attached electrodes to my brain and gave me 10,000 volts.

Thal

[invictious]

The FI, it is so hard to play it again without getting sick of it.

Same case with Revolutionary.

Those pieces are so overplayed, it is actually pretty difficult to come up with an original interpretation. Even ones like War, kitchen on fire, pain, desperation, kicking gnomes in a garden, poking someone's chest with your keys etc have all been done.

(That is how overdone those pieces are, maybe except my personal interpretation...throwing staplers in a jacuzzi.)

[faulty_damper]

Which of these two pieces do you think is technically harder? Chopin's Revolutionary Etude or his Fantasie-Impromptu? I would like to hear your answer and why. Thanks.

The harder one is the one that is not as easy as the other. 

Both are easy but sound difficult, which is why they are so overplayed.

Most pianists play the easy version of the Impromptu.

[thierry13]

Both are easy but sound difficult, which is why they are so overplayed.

And to a true pianist they look easy, but are difficult 

[kantsuiex]

 
technically easy but musically difficult

[chopinfan_22]

Maybe this will help you...

With Revolutionary, your main technical obstacles are going to be very fast runs in the left hand... it's a study for the left hand after all... you have to be able to make it sound legato without using too much pedal... Too much pedal makes all the sound clash together. Not to mention it is overplayed, and that does make it difficult to make an original interpretation.

With Fantasie-Impromptu, you're basically playing fours against threes. For some this is easy, for others not so much. Not to mention it's not exactly slow. Once you get the rhythm and notes down, you'll be able to increase the tempo to how it is to be played. That's... essentially it. And this one is way overplayed too.

Good luck.

[gerryjay]

For me the "revolutionary" for the simple reason i have less facility in my left hand.

Anyway, I hate both pieces and would not waste my time with them again even if you attached electrodes to my brain and gave me 10,000 volts.

Thal

The FI, it is so hard to play it again without getting sick of it.

Same case with Revolutionary.

Those pieces are so overplayed, it is actually pretty difficult to come up with an original interpretation. Even ones like War, kitchen on fire, pain, desperation, kicking gnomes in a garden, poking someone's chest with your keys etc have all been done.

(That is how overdone those pieces are, maybe except my personal interpretation...throwing staplers in a jacuzzi.)

hey guys!
i was missing that: pure piano culture!

about overplayed stuff and original interpretation...well, i don't want to bother anyone, but is there any work by the mainstream composers that isn't overplayed by now? tell me a work by chopin that you don't had listen a thousand times.

furthermore, i'm almost scared about "originality"...invictious made a sober list of some attempts i witnessed lately.

well...what am i saying? i'm studying opus ten twelve, and i have a fresh, original and outstanding intepretation of that. coming soon! 

best!

[dan101]

The impromptu highlights mistakes easier, in my opinion, as the ear tends to be drawn to the treble. Having said that, I find the Revolutionary to be a bit more challenging (I'm also a lefty).

With respect to over-played repertoire, I think part of the trick is not to over-listen to recordings when actually working out an interpretation (easier said than done, I realize).

[starpianist]

Thanks for your responses. I wasn't planning to learn either of the pieces; I've already performed one of them a while ago.