Prokofiev Piano Concerto #3

[nearenough]

I am puzzled by the fingering of the doublets in the last movement, starting at measure 137. I've tried but it seems impossible to rapidly play what's written -- successions of 2 white keys as a scale up and down. I can fake it, but possibly Argerich and some other performers do it as written VERY FAST. Am I right? Or do they fake it too?

Example: start with middle C, 5th finger left hand; then D and E 4th finger; F third finger; G and A 2nd, and B and B thumb; then continue up similarly with the right fingers and down again. Very odd. First time I've ever seen this trick.

[nearenough]

Hey people, don't clam up. Is there a secret technique here? Lang Lang in his interview at the piano just slaps his paws down and plays those one finger on 2 white keys scale like it was no big deal. Is it? (I'm a lowly aging amateur and just looking for a simple tip.)

[franzliszt2]

You can just play a glissando. Thats what I was told by a teacher. It gets the same effect. I think is is the effect Prokofiev was after, instead of exactly what is written.

[nearenough]

Subsequent to my inquiry I scanned all 72 forums here and several of them dealt with this issue. Some said that if Prokoffiev wanted a glissando he would have written "gliss..." with lines up and down. But he didn't. He wrote single notes and doublets which is not a glissando. Anyway, I did slap my paws down and rotating the wrists a bit and slamming my flat fingers down in a rippling effect effected a pretty good approximation of what was written. Only the rare cognoscenti would notice any errors. Up to 3-4 years ago when I bought the score I would not have known any better despite listening to the work dozens of times.

[houseofblackleaves]

My favorite interp. of this passage:

Argerich fingers it same as in the vid, only backwards.

[houseofblackleaves]

Argerich:

No idea how she does it.

[zheer]

 So effortless.

[nearenough]

Argerich is definitely not playing a glissando but is possibly dividing up the passage using her fingertips L R L R up and similarly down.

[anda]

Everyone is scared of this fragment (I was too before I found a solution), and actually it is the easiest passage in this concert...

The best solution depends on hand type - if you have thick fingers, then playing the passage as written won't be a problem. My solution (I have small hands and my fingers aren't thick either): palm play. I put my palms on the keyboard as to cover all white keys between the lowest C in the passage and the highest D in the passage. I deliberately left out the top E - that note is very important, and has to be detached. I played by rolling my palms left to right - play the E with my left hand - roll palms back right to left.

I'm not sure how clear these explanations are... and I don't have a video recording (I only recorded audio), but it sounds better than a glissando.

best luck