Frederic Chopin - Nocturne #20 Opus Posth.

[stefanelya]

Hello, I'd like to post this nocturne in my interpretation. Any suggestions are very much appreciated, it'll help me improve my playing. Thanks for listening.

[pianisten1989]

It's quite well played already! Good job!

Here's what I'd take a closer look at:
-Every time you do a crescendo, you go suddenly much faster. Then you play very uneven, and that's not a good thing.
-You need to correct some notes and rhythm. You can do rubato, but don't completely change the rhythm.
-Practise it again, but very slowly. Make sure you have a good view on exactly what you want, and how you want every note to sound.

[stefanelya]

Thanks, Pianisten1989. It's very helpful to me and I do want to get to be a better pianist, so , I'll take into consideration everything you have suggested. 

[musicluvr49]

Nice playing. Very intersting take on that nocturne though, I've never heard it played quite lke that.....

A few things....

In the first part, I think it sounds better if you obey the pauses, rather than keep the pedal down.
Pianisten said it right about the crescendo thing. Try to work on that. Keeping the music at the same tempo, or even slowing it down, as you crescendo helps to create more drama and tension.
You're ornaments and trills seem very rushed. Try to relax more with them. That is one of the reasons that I prefer hearing this nocturne played slower, but I'm not going to force that on you since everyone has their own interpretations.
I also agree with Pianisten about the rythm thing. It's fine to have your own interpretation on things... But don't go changing the rythym. It kind of ruins the whole "feel" of the piece.
There are a few noted here and there tat didn't sound right, but I can never really be sure with this piece because there are so many different version of it.

Hope you find some of my advice useful. Keep on playing !

[stefanelya]

musicluvr49, your advice is helpful. Did it sound very different than any other interpretations (other that a few wrong notes here and there)? I agree with tempo and rhythm control, will work on that. Thanks.

[musicluvr49]

Yes, to me it did. Not very different though, just a little different. (Which is not neccesarily a bad thing ) Just the way you played the rythm, and your phrasing and such things made it seem different.

[emill]

Hi..

Interesting rendition... a bit different from how my son enzo
plays it but nevertheless very NICE.  thanks...

if you're interested here is his rendition of this popular Chopin piece:
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=36365.0

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

That was very nice, I love listening to different interpretations of this nocturne. I learned this nocturne 2 years ago and I'm still trying to figure out mine.
 I can't give you any advice as I'm not a teacher or a pro and I'm still not happy with how I play this nocturne, but I'll tell you what I remember my teacher telling me about this nocturne. Don't know if it will help you much, or if you are still working on this piece, but if it does, I'm glad.

She said:
1) In the beginning (first four bars), it's important to listen to the pauses. (I think another poster may have mentioned this). Sound is beautiful, but so is silence.
2) to sing along with the melody.  musicluvr mentioned that your trills seemed rushed, I had that problem too. Singing, or at least imagining a singer singing the melody, helped me relax my trills and make it sound more natural and "sung"... starting out slow and soft and gradually getting a bit faster and louder.

[dashmore]

Hi,

Very nice and very pleasant.  You have a very lyrical melodic line.  Thanks for posting.

I'm strictly amateur, so feel free to discount or ignore any of these thoughts.

I second thinkgreenlovepiano's point about the rests -- my teacher used to tell me that "the rests are just as important as the notes".  It seems that especially in measures like 1 and 3, the rests are particularly important.  In fact, my score (from IMSLP.org) explicitly releases the pedal just before the eight-note rests in those measures.

I second the other's observations about keeping the rhythm, but I'll get more specific.  Whenever you have three against two (triplets in the RH vs. eighth notes in the LH), the triplets don't seem even (e.g. bar 7, 4th beat, or beat 3 of bars 21 and 22, etc.).  Is this intended rubato or are you not quite comfortable with three vs. two?

Anyway, thanks for posting.  Good luck with the piece.

[stefanelya]

Wow, I haven't been here for a while, came back and see all the comments. Thank you very much for your time to write about what can be improved in my playing. It definitely has helped me. Now I pay attention to the tempo, rubato and melody in all the pieces that I play. It is good for me to hear the opinion of other performers (pro or amateur) because, sometimes, I cannot hear my own mistakes, so this helps. Thanks a lot. 

[shishirth]

Actually, I liked it mostly just as it is!

[stefanelya]

Thank you, that's very nice.