Debussy Ballade

[in_love_with_liszt]

Has anyone played this piece or know anything about it? My teacher wants me to have at least one impressionistic piece in my repetoire, and this is one of the few Debussy pieces that I thought had a nice melody....well as close to a melody as Debussy got anyways. It doesn't sound too difficult, for those that know it does it seem like you could learn it in a week?

[maxy]

Yup! played it!
Not hard!  Quite romantic... not very impressionistic.
Yes it can be learned in a week.

[in_love_with_liszt]

Wonderful, thanks!

[Max]

I can play this also, it's not that hard, the left hand arpegs are kind of awkward at times though..

[in_love_with_liszt]

Damn my teacher said it might be too easy. Can anyone suggest a good impressionistic piece for me to add to my repetoire?

[Nightscape]

Look at the following:

Debussy-  L'isle Joyeuse(many good melodies in here, but difficult)
Ravel-  Jeau deax(not as hard as it sounds, excellent  melodies, with a slight oriental sound)
           Sonatine(3 movements, much different than the usual stereotype of impressionism.)
           Valses et noble et sentimentle(romantic waltzes with a Ravelian tinge, to be played as a set.)

[Max]

Why too easy? It's certainly not a pushover at least, there is an awkward crossrhythms passage for the right hand at one point.

Well try:

Reflet dans l'eau - it's not so hard, you need good TO technique to play the arpegs well, but the difficult part of the piece is relatively short

L'Isle Joyeuse - not so difficult, as nastily awkward with a whole section with 5-3 crossrhythms, lots of hand passing and swapping notes.

Some of his Etudes are managable, ones which you should look at are "Pour les octave" and "Pour le arpeggio" (numbers 10 and 11).

Mouvement from Images book 1 is good also.

You might want to look at the preludes, not so many difficult ones, try "Ondine" and "Voiles", also "Minstels" is quite nice. They're all about grade 8 (though to be honest all are easier than the ballade).

Ravel isn't as approachable, but look at his Sonatine and Pavane.