Beethoven pathetique movement 2

[benzenering]

Thanks for watching.

[mousekowski]

Well done - confident playing.

Try experimenting with the soft pedal, and using less sustaining pedal during the middle section (with the triplet semiquavers).

Have you tried either of the other movements? They are fab!

[rachfan]

Hi benzenering

You have the notes, continuity, fluidity, control of touch, articulation, and attention to dynamics present in your playing.  So there are good things to be said here.

When you look at the notation of this piece closely, it's often written in four-part form.  When I used to play this movement, it strongly suggested to me that what Beethoven actually had in mind was the warm, mellow sound of a string quartet (two violins, a viola and a cello).  You might want to find any Beethoven quartet online and listen to its lyrical middle movement.  You'll hear what I mean.  That's the quality that we need to bring out in this music. And the first violin part, the melody, has to sing.  That means you need to be singing it in your mind as you play it.

I also believe that you could allow your playing to be even more expressive.  Beethoven began composing in the Viennese Classical style, at first much in the Haydn tradition.  But in a relatively short time, he found his own path.  Eventually both he and Schubert became transitional composers ushering in the early sounds of the coming Romantic Age.  So in this second movement of the Pathetique, I believe you can make it even more lyrical and expressive.  

Finally, you need to watch your pedaling very very carefully.  Listen to every note you play, and be guided by your ears at all times.  You might think that pedaling is done with the foot, but the ears are really the judge of good and not-so-good pedaling at the moment it is occurring.  Right now you have many blurs caught in the pedal.  If the edition you use has pedal markings, they are probably Beethoven's if it's an urtext edition.  If so, be very cautious!  The modern grand piano is far more rich and powerful than the old forte-pianos of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  So in some instances what he marked for pedaling back then could actually be impossible to execute well on the modern grand piano which might deliver too much of a wash of sound--perhaps OK in Debussy, but not Beethoven.  Again, trust your ears and adjust the pedaling as necessary.  

When working with your teacher, ask for some instruction on using half-pedal releases.  When the overtones are piling on with the pedal down and about to cause a blur, lifting the pedal half-way up can "spill" those overtones out of the pedal without losing the value of the pedal for the intended notes at that moment.  So it's a great tool for the pianist.  Keep in mind that you always want to pedal for CLARITY. That's the real secret of pedaling.  

Up above I posted some Liadoff preludes. All four can be heard in about five minutes.  I think they demonstrate what I'm trying to get across here about pedaling. Also, further down the page, I play the Rachmaninoff "Melodie" with its much thicker textures raising a bigger challenge for maintaining clarity. So that illustrates the points too.

Keep up the good work!