Fingering suggestions appreciated...

[willcowskitz]

Here's the problematic sequence: https://koti.mbnet.fi/exlex/presto.jpg

Left hand is a little difficult to play fluidly, due to the repeated notes that mess up my fingers when trying to go from D to C to E to F to E to D with the A in between repetitions. Any suggestions?

[Motrax]

The fingering here should be pretty straightforward - I assume problems arise only when you start playing closer to Presto?

I think the best way, although slow and tedious, is just to practice slowly. If you're right handed, this kind of note arrangement becomes very confusing. Spend a good half hour just playing these few measures, left hand only, SLOWLY. Once you start getting severely bored, pick up the speed a little, and try hands together every now and then to make sure you don't lose coordination when you're playing both together. Just speed up until you can play it nicely.

The important thing is not to be impatient - sometimes there are uniquely difficult (i.e., wouldn't be difficult for others, but you just can't get it right) portions of music which won't seem to be improving much at all. Just don't get discouraged, it'll always click eventually.

[donjuan]

haha! I see now it is your turn to fight with Totentanz!!

I actually looked at that spot, and I came up with my own solution:

Since the left and right hands are playing the same notes an octave apart, I choose to play the melody in octaves (b_cdd_dc_ce_...) with the right hand, and play the A octaves with the left hand (where the _ is located in my example), playing with the left hand over the right hand, moved forward far enough to allow room to play with both hands.

This works well for me.  What do you think?

[willcowskitz]

Motrax: Yes, problems occur on higher tempo, when my fingers are occupied with the upper notes that change DCEFED, I have to play the first and last note in the sequence with my closer-to-thumb fingers, sooo, I would have to switch my finger after the A playing the sequences of 3 notes with, i.e.  141 353 252 151 252 353.  That is, in theory, a working solution, this kind of movement is just new to my technique.

donjuan: Interesting solution, thought outside the box.    I couldn't get it to work fluidly though, I really hate playing over the black keys plus taking the right so far to left was causing problems too. And you're right about the piece, I've been practicing it for a while already but I'm not very developed so I'm just tackling it, playing bits from all over the piece, excluding pages 10-15 (except maybe half of page of the beginning of var.5 (page 10 is where fugato starts) which are by far the most difficult parts of the piece).

Thanks for the input guys. I'll try hammering this part down with the fingering I came up with, let's see how it turns out.