Les Adieux

[yodaofpiano]

Hey,

so in tennessee each year, we have the tmta competition where middle school and high school students play 15 and 20 minute programs respectively and are judged and subsequently awarded 1st, 2nd, and so on. this competition normally takes place every may, so i've got a bit of time until i have to perform my program. my question is this: my piano teacher wants me to perform the first movement of the les adieux beethoven sonata (without repeat) in 4 minutes max; she'd really prefer me to perform this in 3:30 minutes. Is this a reasonable amount of time to perform this sonata? After doing a bit of searching on youtube, i found recordings by kempf, rudolph serkin, ashkanazy, arrau and many others performing this around 7 minutes with the repeat, many often going over. I've timed myself several times and i can't get this piece under five minutes. I just feel that this movement is so gorgeous and profound that rushing the first 10 or so measures or the last 30 or so measures in order to meet this timeframe would be so inappropriate. any thoughts? I should probably also mention that in this 20 minute timeframe, the rest of my program includes the third chopin ballade, and reflets dans l'eau by debussy. I was originally going to also play the Prokofiev toccata but we cut that thinking that i wouldn't have enough time seeing as i probably wouldn't be able to play it martha-argerich-speed.      

[mcdiddy1]

Why don't you ask your teacher to time you and ask if the speed was appropriate for the piece. It may be a simple communication issue where she may have meant without the repeat or she may have a misconnception about how long it takes to play the piece. Teachers make mistakes also.

Also, I am entering students in a piano competition for the first time. Do you think competitions are worthwhile?

[omar_roy]

Also, I am entering students in a piano competition for the first time. Do you think competitions are worthwhile?

Depends entirely on the student.

[iratior]

It sounds as though the music teacher is almost ready to take a passage from Les Adieux and put it in a television commercial.  I think it's a mistake to do just one movement of Les Adieux;  the movements are closely related and mean something taken together.  It's even worse not to do the repeats within a movement.  The impression that Les Adieux is meant to make on the listener simply isn't one that can be properly achieved by lumping it together with other pieces in a fifteen-minute time slot.

[sordel]

Yoda, I'm guessing here, but it would seem to be common sense that by following your teacher's advice you stand to annoy the judges on two points: in the first place, playing only one movement; secondly, performing at an eccentric pace.

It's not unknown to perform a single movement at an unusual tempo just to prove a point (Kaplan recorded only the fourth movement of Mahler's 5th on that basis) but you would have to have a very good explanation for doing so ... better than squeezing that work into your programme, for example.

Your teacher's recommendation here sounds wrong to me, but this is one of these issues where I have to append: "what the hell do I know about it?"

[yodaofpiano]

Thanks for the comments. Okay, I talked it over with my piano teacher and she said that five minutes sounded like a reasonable time-frame for the first movement. Also, to respond to the comments about not playing the whole sonata; I would love to except like I've previously stated, I only have 20 minutes max for my whole program and judges and adjudicators love to see a "balanced program" with lots of contrasting styles in order to see the widest range of manners a pianist can play. that's why i also have the third chopin ballade and the debussy on my program. all  are of different styles and allow me to express myself musically in three totally different ways. thanks once again