Poetic Tone Picture, op. 3, no. 1 by Grieg

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

Performed by my sister, yet again. I hope I'm not spamming the forum She tells me that this piece frustrates her- she isn't very happy with it. So she'd appreciate your help again, thanks

[pianoman53]

I'm not very comfortable in giving advice on pieces I don't know. But what you need to do is to find a tempo, and stick to it. Now you've got like 5 of them, in the 6 first bars. That's probably why you're not very happy with it.
If you want to do some rubato, you need to find some hints that you're doing them on the right place, not just randomly guessing. For example, A slur starts in bar 4, and ends on the first beat in bar one. It ends with a staccato note, and a 16th pause after. You can take a little time between beat one and two. Stuff like that... Look through the scores, try to find all the crescendos and diminuendos, and try to think why he put them there. Most composers doesn't put anything just for the sake of it, but it has almost every time some sort of meaning...

You also need to make sure all the scales are evenly played, cause now they are a bit all over the place. Sit with the metronome for a while, just so you know how everything goes.

This one needs some work, but the other two pieces was really well played!

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

Thanks again, pianoman53. You're the only one who replied to my sister's 3 posts- we really appreciate it.
I showed her your advice- it was really helpful. My sister's always asking me for advice on how to improve her pieces but I never know what to say!
 

[pianoman53]

Tell her to make an account here, and I'll be glad to help when I can

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

I tried to convince her to get an account... but she wouldn't.
She prefers to use the Internet to play games- forums aren't really her thing. 

[ramseytheii]

Honestly, I listened to this not knowing this piece by Grieg, and came away feeling like I still didn't know it.  The performance doesn't really seem coherent, possibly because of the inconsistent idea of tempo... I think you need to take the view of relating the sound more to the visual look of the score.  In other words, this recording doesn't, for me, paint a picture of what is in the score.

Walter Ramsey