Piano Forum

I have played the first movt of Beethoven's Waldstein more than 15 years ago, then learned the 2nd/3rd movt. about seven years ago.

Indeed, the entire Waldstein is very difficult.

And my question is: I am planning on entering a competition next year, and I need to play a classical sonata. The waldstein seems to be good candidate since, as I already said, I played the whole thing and am very familiar with it. But still, I must say that all 3 movts are very difficult. (The 1st is extremely tough, but I have performed and competed in competitions and know that I can do fine. But then, the 3rd...full of challenges...yes, I played it through, but I think there're lots of room for improvement, and some of those improvments seem to be impossible to bring about...I mean, the challenges with trills everywhere, with how the Left/right hands should go together so to sound satisfactory, in a definite demand of an extremely good quality of touch, and with the big section before "Prestisimo", etc, etc...

Because of the concern I have for a satisfactory performance of the Waldstein, I started looking around for other classical sonata. I find Haydn's C Major Hob. 50. You know that light-hearted 1st/3rd movt, with a gorgeous 2nd movt??

I just want to hear people's opinion. Do you think I should work on the Haydn instead of the Waldstein for the competition? I know the Haydn should also have its challenges. But they seem more manageable. Of course, i don't think the Haydn is "easy", but considering that I don't have a teacher now to work with me in polishing the 3rd movt of Waldstein or giving me advice for the overall sonata, the Haydn seems to be something I have enough experience to make it sound very good on my own, but the Waldstein...I don't know. The only advantage of the waldstein, is I am familiar with it--I know the 1st movt so well that I won a scholarship for it, but that was 15 years ago.   

So, what do you think?