Medtner - Russian Folktale, op.42 no.1

[andhow04]

an excellent piece from Medtner's Skazki op.42, which he called the Russian Folktale.  it has a refrain-melody that comes back in a few different keys, as well as secondary sections that tie the piece together.  this music really reveals his narrative powers.

this is from a program called the cosmopolitan pianist where evrey piece had a nationalist vein to it, ie the bulgarian dances, italian concerto, spanishr hapsody, etc.  recorded on the trusty tunetalk live in concert, but i edited out applause because the audience was on the meager side.


UPDATE; video

[49410enrique]

thank you for posting, i complimented you on your Bartok, this is equally nice (my main musical interest is in Russian composers so I listen to a LOT of romantic and modern/post modern Russian piano music), this is really a treat for the audition room. bravo! wish i could have caught it in person i clap really really loud so maybe i could have helped the applause a bit.

[diegocaetano]

Really good! Nice voicing!

[andhow04]

thank you for posting, i complimented you on your Bartok, this is equally nice (my main musical interest is in Russian composers so I listen to a LOT of romantic and modern/post modern Russian piano music), this is really a treat for the audition room. bravo! wish i could have caught it in person i clap really really loud so maybe i could have helped the applause a bit.

wonderful comments, thanks for those.  I have a particular interest in medtner and have played a lot of his tales, only one sonata as of yet being the sonata tragica. the interesting and difficult and sometimes frustrating thing about his music is the voicing, it is often so dense and so many voices marked you have to have a balance.  this one is less so, but even his simpler music requires a lot of thinking thru.

[rachfan]

Hi andhow,

This is really good!  Medtner always loved to tell a story in his music.  I liked the composition as well as your marvelous playing.  Occasionally I find that when a melody is reprised several times in different keys, keeping the variations in the fingering in mind can be a challenge in some pieces even though one knows all the scales in his sleep.  It didn't seem to phase you at all.  The only point I would make is that there were a few times when I believe you could have spilled even more overtones in the half-pedals given the very chromatic textures often present.  Nonetheless, you have a fine rendition there.  Thanks for posting it.

David

[pianoplayjl]

I love this piece! portions of this piece sound like the music played in action films. Nice playing and attention to details in piece.

JL

[scottmcc]

This is great!  Thanks for posting it and as usual you have made a difficult and relativelY unknown piece of music seem very accessible.  I may have to put this piece on my "someday" list, as with so much of medtner's catalogue.

[megadodd]

BRAVO!!

[mike_lang]

Very nicely done -- thank you for sharing!

Mike

[andhow04]

glad uyou all liked this recording.  this is not one of medtner's more difficult tales, though anything he wrote has a certain amount of difficulty...

for me the truly hard part is in finding the right tone color. medtner by instinct wasn't thinking of the objdctive piano sounds like scriabin or rachmaninoff did, but somehow you have to find a balance when multiple voices are sounding; a balance to articulate the architecture and form; and still leave enough room for a wide range of expression.

sometimes at the beginning, learning his pieces feels stuffy, stiff and somehow unrewarding.  but they eventually always (at least the ones i have learned) opened up in the end, when i seem to find the right balance between competing things that allows me to play it and communicate it to an audience, always my end goal.

in general, i don't think we have a lot of reference for his music. his own recordings are not that colorful, perhaps its best to say not that ambitious. hamish milne recorded all the tales, and thats a great accomplishment, but somehow i don't find them inspiring for my own purposes.  a recording that shows medtner's true potential at the piano is defeinitely horowitz's recording of a tale from op.51, i think #3?  horowitz's only medtner recording, it is full of pianistic effects and colors that the others who approach his music, neglect to use.

all that is to say, i appreciate the comments on this in particular because i put a lot of thought into how i wanted it to sound. t hanks

[andhow04]

updated with a video from live performance of this piece:
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=43961.msg479398#msg479398