Trinity's ATCL repertoire selection

[edddvvarrd]

Hello everybody! I'm Edward from Malaysia and I am going to take my Trinity ATCL Diploma exam next May/June. Of recent, I had doubts of my selection of songs which are as follows:-

J S Bach-Prelude and Fugue in D minor
Mozart-Sonata in A K. 311
Chopin-Ballade No. 3
Debussy-Voiles (no. 2) & La cathedrale engloutie (no. 10)
Copland-The Cat and The Mouse, Scherzo humoristique

I haven't really had the time to focus on my piano playing till now. After my piano teacher (who attended a seminar regarding tips for diploma exams) told me that one of the best ways to score in your ATCL diploma exams was to have an overall theme about all the songs the student selects. For example, it could be themed 'Russian Romance' and a student could select songs from Russian composers as their repertoire selection.

What I'm curious is whether this is perfectly acceptable and bound to get me more marks (of course!  ). As you can see in the choice of songs above, I'm choosing songs from all the four periods of music history and also to comply with the minimum time requirement for exam pieces which so happens to be 32 minutes  The trouble is that I have to write programme notes too and I intend to maintain the least number of songs possible so that I don't have to write so many programme notes! Besides, Baroque and Classical (to a less extent) isn't my forte while Romantic music is what I truly enjoy. I have thought of choosing Romantic music with different emotions and style of playing as my theme.

I do hope that all of you can advise me on my problem. Any other suggestions are welcomed. I just hope to steer away from the common 'Repertoire of songs from the Fabled Four Periods of Music' theme. Thank you!

[starstruck5]

Could you provide a link to the syllabus please??? -with out knowing your alternatives - it is hard to give advice.

It seems though, that your current selection is broad and balanced.   The alternative, ie 'Russian Romance' sounds more specialised?