Rachmaninoff Prelude C-Sharp Minor

[peter.rajkai]

I'm new to this forum and sorry for my English...
I'm learning Prelude C#m on my own and I don't understand why I should play the beginning of the piece with interlocking hands when there is an easier way (I hope you know what I mean). I've learned a few measures with the original, interlocking hands and then without it and I can not hear a difference (and I think none of the listeners can hear it).

And another question: I can't find in the scores I have how to use the pedal. I have also a midi file (from NI Akoustik Piano Demo page, anyway what do you think of that performance? https://www.nativeinstruments.de/index.php?id=apsounds&L=1 ) and I'm checking in the midi file how to use the pedal, but it would be easier in a score. Maybe I have it in the score but I can't recognize the sign?

[mad_max2024]

I dont think  a midi file is the best source for research on musical issues.
You can try listening to live performances in youtube if you wish.

Pedalling is mostly about hearing what you are playing. Generally speaking you change pedals when the sounds begin to be excessively mixed up.
Usually you have to change it when you change the base chord in the harmony line. When you want to clear everything up and begin a new clean sound you change pedals.
Don't be too hung up over score notation, use your ears.

Hope it helps.
Don't know about the interlocking hands, I've never played that piece myself and am too lazy to go try it out right now 

[allthumbs]

I'm new to this forum and sorry for my English...
I'm learning Prelude C#m on my own and I don't understand why I should play the beginning of the piece with interlocking hands when there is an easier way (I hope you know what I mean). I've learned a few measures with the original, interlocking hands and then without it and I can not hear a difference (and I think none of the listeners can hear it).

There is no difference sound-wise, except that's the way Rachmaninoff wrote it, so that's the way I play it.

Technique-wise, I don't see any real advantage by playing the chords the other way.

[akonow]

I'm new to this forum and sorry for my English...
I'm learning Prelude C#m on my own and I don't understand why I should play the beginning of the piece with interlocking hands when there is an easier way (I hope you know what I mean). I've learned a few measures with the original, interlocking hands and then without it and I can not hear a difference (and I think none of the listeners can hear it).

And another question: I can't find in the scores I have how to use the pedal. I have also a midi file (from NI Akoustik Piano Demo page, anyway what do you think of that performance? https://www.nativeinstruments.de/index.php?id=apsounds&L=1 ) and I'm checking in the midi file how to use the pedal, but it would be easier in a score. Maybe I have it in the score but I can't recognize the sign?

Once you get on with the rest of the piece you'll realize that it's much easier and more comfortable to interlock your hands. Plus, it's easier to sight-read octaves.

[peter.rajkai]

Thanks, akonow, I just thought the same, that later it will be easier if I follow the score "finger tips". Anyway it's obvious that in the beginning it's easier and more comfortable to play the 3 lower notes with LF and the 3 upper notes with RH, you don't have to take your hand over or below the other hand and most of the times the 2 hands play the same, so it's easier (at least for me) to memorize.

[alessandro]

Welcome Peter,
I shouldn't worry about not sticking to 'pre'-fixed fingering.  It's sometimes interesting, just for the pleasure of investigating, why a fingering has been advised in the score but for the rest you have to find out for yourself what suits you the most and than, not easy, write it down and stick to it.

But it is a nice question.  This etude is often performed with exaggeration and therefor destroyed.  It is definitely overplayed but for me enjoyable.   I like when pieces go 'agitato', and once in a while playing sforzando or FFFF is of course a lot of fun.

But the main reason why I'm answering your post is to make an allegory on that intertwining of the hands.  There are really three distinct parts in this etude, second and third part linked with that fall of chords...  Part one, the whole first page, when I play it I'm always thinking at a couple in a relation that is 'ending', 'consumed', that have the start of an argument.  The first three notes don't need any comment, they are three of the most impressive, interrupting combination of notes in literature, a tremendous moodsetter.   But what follows than is in my eyes a conversation between two partners, in my case man and woman.  The man starts speaking and the woman always gives an answer.  Her answer is always linked, reminiscent of what the man just asked but is also detached, different.  You can almost feel after the first let's-call-it "question and answer" that the conversation is doomed.  The relation and the show is over.  The tone becomes insisting, but it's always tumbling down, it goes higher, and tumbles down deeper, to end at the bottom of the first page, in some kind of hopelesness and almost silence, fatigue.  Something is wrong in this couple and that's why I like the fact that both hands -'man and woman' -sometimes still intertwine with each other, for the sake of the relation, for the sake of conversation.   The whole piece has an air of fatality, it is going towards a rather unhappy, uncomfortable-feeling ending.
I certainly wouldn't pretend that it has been done on purpose by Ol' Rach, but it gives me a good feeling while I'm playing, I will not change it.
Have a nice day, dear Peter and dear forumeers.

[whiteboyfunk]

There is a reason for the interlocking hands on page one. It is played that way because it provides a very comfortable and familiar place for piano players. It uses the minor position one and octaves over and over, i.e. C Eb G and C or F# A C# and F#. This should feel very familiar as you touch your hand to the keys, and if not, it might be time to focus on the parts of the song you enjoy and put the rest to the side! Come back to it later on after you've played a few other bits. Rachmaninov had monstrous paws, and wasn't afraid to show that in his pieces.

-Clay