Mozart-Thalberg: Voi che sapete (Youtube)

[pianovirus]

As always, any comments or criticism welcome!  

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(btw thanks to thal, I've been learning from the sheet music he shared here)

Some background:

Mozart's famous aria in a piano transcription by Liszt rival Sigismond Thalberg (1812-1871). This transcription is part of a collection entitled "LArt du Chant appliqué au Piano" (the art of song applied to the piano). This collection contains 25 transcriptions of vocal works by various composers, the majority from the opera genre.

Thalberg's L'art du chant stands apart as one of the earliest examples of piano pedagogy which directed the performer's attention toward tone production rather than virtuosic technique. Thalberg's twenty-five transcriptions, in comparison to his intricate and brilliant fantasies, present a deceptive simplicity while actually making sometimes even greater technical demands. The music eschews those virtuosic elaborations that can divert and fascinate the listener, and leaves the pianist's abilities and control more exposed.

Accompaniments to the melodies may be thickened or modified for reasons of sonority, but nothing extraneous or unnecessary is added. Thalberg does not place the melodic burden on one hand only. To an even greater degree than in his fantasies, the single melodies or different voices are distributed throughout the keyboard so that both hands must form, for all practical purposes, one seamless mechanism.

[thalbergmad]

Absolutely stunning.

This is much harder than it looks and requires considerable touch to ensure the melodic line does not get lost or smudged.

It made my day listening to this and warms my heart that some people still wish to play neglected transcriptions.

Thal

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Lovely to hear this. I've worked on this arrangement and appreciate that some bars are significantly harder to bring off successfully than they sound to a casual listener (eg 14, 22). Why Thalberg's op 70 set is not a standard pedagogical work is beyond me.

[grisell]

Absolutely beautiful!

[ahbach]

Amazingly !!!

[pianovirus]

Thanks for the nice comments, guys!
ronde, I agree, I'm also perplexed why these arrangements are not played more often also for instructive purposes. My teacher still complains that my melody in Voi che sapete gets influenced by the accompaniment instead of freely unfolding like a vocal line... More work ahead, I guess

[thalbergmad]

My teacher still complains that my melody in Voi che sapete gets influenced by the accompaniment instead of freely unfolding like a vocal line... More work ahead, I guess

He must have extremely high standards if he thinks you have not already acheived this, as in my book you have pretty much nailed it.

I am particularly jealous as this is something i am not very good at. I once spent almost a week on a single page of Thalberg's transcription of Bellini's La Sonambula, but still could not play it correcty. Thalberg requires the melody and accompaniment to be played with the left hand alone whilst maintaining a trill with the right hand. To ensure the melody is clear and does not get hidden i find incredibly difficult.

The whole Op70 needs to be typeset and published in a modern edition. I think teachers would use it.

Thal

[pianovirus]

He must have extremely high standards if he thinks you have not already acheived this, as in my book you have pretty much nailed it.

I am particularly jealous as this is something i am not very good at. I once spent almost a week on a single page of Thalberg's transcription of Bellini's La Sonambula, but still could not play it correcty. Thalberg requires the melody and accompaniment to be played with the left hand alone whilst maintaining a trill with the right hand. To ensure the melody is clear and does not get hidden i find incredibly difficult.

The whole Op70 needs to be typeset and published in a modern edition. I think teachers would use it.

I find this stuff difficult, too! The other piece from op. 70 I'm working on, Adelaide, has much more distribution of melody between the LH and RH, and often melody and accompaniment in cross-rhythm (2:3, 3:4) and with all these continuous changes to keep the melody completely smooth and undisturbed by all the other things going on is a great exercise.

Regarding an edition, I was surprised to see that some of the pieces carry a copyright from 2002 (Polyhymnia or something like that), but I could not find any information on this (and two sheet music shops in my region told me they are not able to order it)...

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I suspect the 2002 copyright date will be because Polymnia released a recording of the op 70 set about then, and there is free sheet music on their website dating from that project (incidentally, there is surely a misprint in the lh bar 17 (the low D[!?]) of their edition of this particular piece!). It's possible you might find an edition through an Italian publsher such as Ricordi, but I really don't know for sure.

[pianovirus]

ronde, I actually play that low D, didn't consider it a misprint (if you mean the one instead of an F, but still with Bb in the bass)! Sure, in the parallel passage in bar 70 it's twice an F, but it's still part of harmony and some variability can never harm IMHO. A similar asymmetry is is in bars 14 vs. 67: 14 has a D in the middle voice where 67 has an F -  I also play this as written.

Two minor things I changed was
-- bar 8: I play an 1/8 break instead of the last octave in the bass which sounds quite helpless to my ears and the little break much more effective.
-- bar 24: the melody in this bar starts with a 1/4 a, but in the original there's a 1/8 suspension (? Vorhalt in German) of Bb and I play this.

Btw, I didn't know there's a full recording of op. 70. Did you listen to it and is it good? By whom?

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Yes, the change at bar 24 jumped out at me when I was listening, but I can't see any problem with the reasoning behind it.

I've not heard the recording, I'm afraid. The pianist is Victoria Power; I can't say I had heard of the name before.

[rachfan]

Hi pianovirus,

This piano transcription is a lovely and challenging piece played exceptionally well.  Bravo!

[makeanote]

Hey there pianovirus,

I really enjoyed listening to this (and some of your other pieces on the YouTube site). You brought out the melody line quite beautifully and, as you correctly state in the write-up about the Thalberg Op.70, the difficulty required here isn't so much in dazzling display as it is in purely finger-based legato work and voice leading.

That said, the main parts which stood out to me to detract from the overall performance (and forgive me if this is picky, but it stood out from my first listening), that the very end of the main theme (Bb - A - Bb - C - D - Bb - D - Bb) seemed disjointed in some way. Using timings from your video, 0:18 - 0:20 was disjointed, 0:44 - 0:46 became unsteady in tempo, and 2:50 was slightly broken. You also seemed a little stiff on the descending 6ths, although this is understandably a quick movement to return to the melodic line.

Expressively played. Well done.

Ian

[pianovirus]

Thanks David and Ian!
Ian, thanks especially for your careful observations; all of them are spot on. I was especially annoyed with 0:44-0:46, but when I tried to re-record, other things were not so good, so I gave up. Btw, all of you were kind enough not to mention a mistake at the worst possible part of the piece: the very last chord. Doesn't the LH sound a bit empty with this missing F?  

[birba]

I, myself didn't notice it.  It was really lovely playing.  I've played the accompaniment SO much by myself, I didn't think I would really enjoy it.  But you really did carry it off! You made it sound easy, but I bet it isn't.  I bet those accompanying pizzicati are uncomfortable.  Can you tell me where I can find this op. 70?  Who is the pubblisher?

[pianovirus]

Hi birba,
thanks for your nice words! To my knowledge, you can't buy op. 70 at the moment. I got the sheet music for the whole op. 70 from thal's link in this thread (3rd post from the end):
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=22274.0
Have fun,
  virus.

[kard]

Amazing sound. What did you use to record?
It's also interesting to hear the remarks about transcriptions. I once brought it up with my teacher and he was almost on the verge of advising me to not waste time with them.

[pianovirus]

Amazing sound. What did you use to record?

Thanks! I'm also happy with the sound, despite the fact that it's quite low-end equipment (well, except for the grand piano  ):
Recorder: Zoom H4
Mics: AKG Perception 100
Software: Audacity (it's free, I use it just for cutting & normalizing)

It's also interesting to hear the remarks about transcriptions. I once brought it up with my teacher and he was almost on the verge of advising me to not waste time with them.

Yeah, opinions differ even more widely than usual for this kind of transcriptions. I love them 

[ronde_des_sylphes]

It's also interesting to hear the remarks about transcriptions. I once brought it up with my teacher and he was almost on the verge of advising me to not waste time with them.

Strikes me as a very blinkered attitude on his part, though I am a little biased. Of course, there are good and bad transcriptions, as there are in any genre of writing. I would have thought, however, that well-written transcriptions such as this, which force a perceptive pianist to think about how to voice chords and how to control melodic lines spread across all ten fingers should find favour with any free-thinking teacher, not least due to their pedagogical value.