Beethoven Pathetique 2nd mvt

[daniloperusina]

Hope someone likes it! It's unedited, and not note-perfect. Hopefully, 1st and 3rd are on their way.
Thanks!

[allthumbs]

I think the piece is well played overall. My one suggestion would be to bring out the melody line much more that it is now.

In some sections the alternating notes in the left hand seem to distract from the melody at times.

Starting at bar 37, the melody shifts from the right hand to the left hand and back several times, so you may want to revisit that.

Overall, I enjoyed your performance.

allthumbs

[daniloperusina]

Thanks for commenting!
You are very right, the melody is hardly audible, while especially the middle voices are very prominent. I did want a gentle sound in the melody, but not this much.
It's good that you point out the section from bar 37, it needs to sound as a dialogue, perhaps more than it does here.

For myself, I serously miss a generous amount of rubato.
I'll do a 'take two'...

[rachfan]

Hi danilo,

I think you've made excellent progress on this second movement--a nice feeling of cantabile, a studied accuracy, fine phrasing, good articulation, and clean pedal.  Good work!  Here are some additional thoughts: 

First, when you examine the structure of the notation, what Beethoven really had in mind was not so much the second movement of a piano sonata, but rather a string quartet.  So the overall sound held in your "mind's ear" as you play this needs to be the warm interplay of the string parts. 

Watch the D flat in the RH in measure 2.  It should be quietly tapering off the end of a phrase, but right now it is being emphasized, almost serving as a "launching pad" for the coming E flat on the next downbeat.

Sometimes I think you could quiet the Alberti figuration in the bass a bit more, so that if the dynamic marking is, say, p, then let that apply to the RH cantabile, but the LH Alberti bass will be more pp, as it is in a supporting role.  That will keep the cantabile in the foreground and the Alberti bass in the background enabling the melodic line to soar.

Consider playing the portato touch in measure 8 without pedal (which now gives it a legato character).  Notice the 8th rest in the LH there too.  You also wouldn't want to pedal through the rest anyway. 

Measure 24: You really do need to play the crescendo there to produce some surge.  Same in 26.  Right now it's much too mono-dynamic and pallid.  It needs some rich blood flowing in the veins there to make it more robust.

27-28: The ebbing and waning with the crescendo-decrescendo seems to be missing there.  It really calls for more expressive emotion.

In Part C, second episode, at 41 you need an exciting crescendo there followed by those sforsato octaves, the crescendo being continually spent throughout all that, ceasing only with the decrescendo in 44 to return to pp in 45.  At the moment, this sameness is sounding like more like the Viennese Classicist Franz Joseph Haydn, not the bold, impetuous Beethoven in my opinion.  I believe you need to unleash some drama there.  Although this is, admittedly, an early period Beethoven piece, by Op. 13 he was already differentiating his new idiom from Haydn's sedate and formalistic style.  Beethoven was a transitional composer with one foot in Viennese Classicism, but with the other foot planted in Early Romanticism, much like Schubert.  If Beethoven were here today, I have no doubt he'd play this section with passion and excitement.

I think with measure 48, the writing is on three levels.  There is the sustained cantabile (which kind of sleeps there), the repetitive chordal accompaniment (which is just that), and the ascending bass passage.  In looking for the point of interest in this measure (and likewise in 49), it has to be the ascending passage in the bass, meaning that although it is staccato touch, you can still make more of it than you do.  I would play it louder than the other voices there, probably exceeding the contextual pp back in 45, again bringing a touch of drama, welling up out of the bass as it does. 

In the coda, in 70, 71 and 72, notice that the last note in the RH of each measure is staccato outside and independent of the preceding slur.  Your last one is now being played legato.  The staccatos have to be played carefully too, so as not to steal any emphasis from the following downbeats.

I hope you find some of this to be useful.

Again, I think overall you're doing a wonderful job with this movement, and I greatly enjoyed listening to your playing. 

[daniloperusina]

Hi Rachfan!
Sorry for taking so long to reply, but I have no internet at home.
Thanks for the detailed comment!

"Watch the D flat in the RH in measure 2.  It should be quietly tapering off the end of a phrase, but right now it is being emphasized, almost serving as a "launching pad" for the coming E flat on the next downbeat."

-My opinion is different. I think of the compositional technique Beethoven likes to use, where the same note is the end of one phrase as well as the first of the next. I think I was first made aware of that in a Charles Rosen lecture. The point is, if there was no slur, the Db would obviously belong to the second phrase as an upbeat. The other way around doesn't sound quite natural. But Beethoven put a slur there. Conclusively, I'd play two phrases here, making the Db an upbeat to phrase two, but because of the slur perhaps try to create a sense of ambiguity about where the Db actually belongs. But not very much. Any other way simply doesn't make musical sense to me.

"..the portato touch in measure 8 without pedal"

-You are right!

Measure 24, yes, I need to do some brain-storming to get the grip better here.

27-28, ditto

Measure 48, well, yes, but I'd still like to be very careful with the bass not to make it to prominent. The whole passage to me is pp. I want the bass to whisper, just a little louder than the other parts. To me, no drama here, rather a gentle epilouge to the preceding drama.

I have had the hammers refelted (but not yet intonated), and tried a new position of the mics. Something caused the treble to all but dissappear, and I have to look into that. Perhaps I'll redo it and post again.

It was very useful, so thanks!