You seem to concede that your technical mastery of this piece is uneven. But as you describe the performance as “unfinished,” I can’t tell whether it’s a bit beyond your grasp or whether you simply need to put in more work. How long have you been working on this, anyway? Surely it’s longer than the few recent weeks of frustration you mention, so I wonder what might have changed in the past few weeks.Beyond the issue of some passages not being technically secure, though, there’s the underlying matter of rhythmic accuracy: it’s inconsistent overall, and strays significantly in some places.I don’t mean to discourage you at all; the sections where you have rhythmic and technical control are very expressive and musical, so hang in there! In my opinion, the most important challenge you face may be the ability to feel and to project accurately the pulse of the music you’re playing. Unfortunately, I don’t have any advice to offer for refining it.p.s. I use Audacity for converting .wav to .mp3. It's free at https://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Yes you do have talent, but Grieg ran out of it with this piece.
You play with some affinity for the style, so that's a good start as it's hard to teach that. However you really need to sort out the rhythmic and tempo problems. I've got a lot of sympathy for your problem, because I didn't see a teacher for many years and when I finally got round to it he (justifiably) gave me really quite a hard time over such issues. You should either practice with a metronome or count out loud when going through passages (practice them at half, quarter or even eighth speed if necessary.) You may find it useful to break down passagework to the lowest unit, and if that means counting at the demisemiquaver (1/32nd note) level then so be it. The rhythm is a fundamental building block of the music and yours is shaky. Practice without rubato and without pedal; that can be fitted in later. It sounds unpleasant, but stick at it and after a while (once you've fully internalised the rhythm) you will see the benefits. It seems to me that you may be trying to represent the rhythm intuitively (perhaps by imitation from recordings) without having actually thought it out properly. Good luck.
Those who imagine Thalberg to be a magnificent composer or believe that the Schumann and Grieg concertos (and, by extension, any concerto sharing their key signature) are rubbish might recall why opinions are said to be like the posterior orifice: everybody has one, and everybody thinks somebody else's stinks.
If you think a post inappropriate, why not use the report to moderator button instead of adding nothing yourself, whilst publicly throwing your teddies out of your pram??If my post served no purpose, yours served even less.
Thanks alot for your help. And your story is inspiring especially to me. There is hope, haha.I decided to put the grieg aside for now, atleast in the progressive sense, and I'm going to work on my rhythm until I feel comfortable with counting before I work on it again. So I picked up lieberstraum for the first time, a nice piece with a steady rhythm and without grieg's jazzy tendencies. I can feel it really helping already. Do you use "and"'s when you count? The tempo's 6/4 and I'm counting 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 +. But sometimes I miss an "and" and finish on a 7 or 8 lol. Anyways, thanks again everyone. I'll do another recording in a month or two if I've got anything to show for it.I don't tend to imitate people, although I'm very good at it. But I've really only heard the concerto played professionally a handful of times. But I did like the way Rubinstein played the F major (?) down and up staccato like, that is definitely imitated.Just out of curiosity, which passages were good (if any) and which were worst?
Neither does being unhelpful, unwelcoming and unfriendly violate any rule, but it's what makes this place what it is.
In general terms, the lyrical passages come across better. Some of the more technical sections, like from 1.04, need work both on the rhythm and accuracy of the notes. Grieg isn't quite that jazzy. I use "and"s when counting if necessary. However, if I was (for example) counting a 6/4 bar at the semiquaver level, I would count 1234 2234 3234 4234 5234 6234. The place isn't perfect, but I wasn't aware it was all of the above adjectives. Seems harsh.
After learning and counting 3 pages of lieberstraum I felt like I was ready to start implement counting into the grieg (this was my plan but I didn't expect it so soon). Counting with the concerto is much harder, he IS JAZZY! . But I found it more comfortable to count the 4/4 bars as 1234 1234 1234 1234. I felt like I could much more focus on the chords and notes at hand rather than other things, as this was easiest/simplest for me. But with simplicity comes the problem of dealing with complex problems. I feel most comfortable with this and I don't forsee any problems with this counting in this specific peice. But as a much more experienced pianist is there any foresight you could give me on the possible problems of counting on this tunnel-vision like method?Also I watched some of your performances, ronde, bravo! Wonderful to have gotten your opinion.
You said "I am without a teacher atm". Well, that may be the first point to be corrected. You need a good teacher who corrects all those basic measuring and counting rhythmic issues (you are skipping silences and cutting the duration of some notes), among many other problems.
I encourage you to continue practicing. There were some good details... but you must work hard on the basis.You said "I am without a teacher atm". Well, that may be the first point to be corrected. You need a good teacher who corrects all those basic measuring and counting rhythmic issues (you are skipping silences and cutting the duration of some notes), among many other problems. So, I also think that Grieg's concert is now, in my opinion, a bit beyond your actual possibilities. Study some easier pieces that you can afford and in some years I'm sure you will can play Grieg pretty well. IMHO, the best advise here maybe is: be patient and wait. Practice another easier works that will give you a better background.