Debussy - La cathedrale engloutie

[redbaron]

The left hand chord on the first beat or bar 58 (it also appears on the second beat of bar 59 and the second beat of bar 51) is causing me grief. Starting from the bottom up I'm fingering it as 5-4-3-2-1 which is the only practical fingering I can think of. It's a very uncomfortable chord (cruelly so) and if anyone has any other ideas about how to take it I'd be very interested in hearing them.

[landru]

Oh, I know this chord  . It really is sadistic with the 4th finger somehow trying fit in between the black keys. The only way I can think of playing it differently is if somehow you get the lowest two notes played with one finger (the G sharp and the A). But that seems just as awkward as playing it with two fingers.

The only other solution is to leave out one of the notes so that you can at least play the piece without taking a two second break while getting your fingers in the right places. I've been working on this piece for a month - I've been concentrating on easier to solve problems, but getting this chord smooth is on my radar.

Good luck.

P.S. it is so discouraging watching people play this on you tube as they just ...pop...play the chord.

[scottmcc]

think outside the box:

 G#     A       C#     D#       G#
 4       5        3       2         1  

it ends up being not that much of a stretch if you do it that way, at least for me.

try the end of the prelude from suite bergamasque if you want some tough debussy reaches!  (F C F A for instance)

(edited above because I added an extra note inadvertently)

[redbaron]

The funny thing is that this particular section of the piece is one that I was not anticipating much difficulty with. I was expecting the difficulty to lay in other areas, which as it turned out, were not as challenging as I thought they would be. But this particular section is deceptive.