Traumerei is Easy??? Excuse Me??

[starlady]

It's Friday morning and I'm going to start the weekend early with a little squabble!

I've seen many places on this forum where people put down Traumerei as 'easy', for beginners--in the Donnie Yen thread someone classed it with Fur Elise.  To which I say: HUH?? Are we playing the same piece here?  The one with the 4-voice polyphony?  Where you play legato and detache' in the same bar?  Have some respect for Traumerei, people!  Hitting the keys might be straightforward--except for the left-hand stretches-- but PLAYING it, voicing it like it should be, is not.

--s.

[landru]

Yeah, I've heard that too. My teacher gave it to me relatively early - I'm not sure why, probably as a stretch. I could put my fingers in the right places at the right times. But it sounded like a mess. I couldn't differentiate the melody voice at all, the pedalling was atrocious, the rubato was random,  and I couldn't even hear the melody in the middle part!

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe my teacher was showing me that "the right fingers on the right keys" is the easiest part of some pieces.

[pianowolfi]

No, Träumerei isn't easy at all! But it isn't so advanced that students should refuse to play it alltogether when they're ready.

This year I'm doing a project "Kinderszenen" with some of my more advanced students, each of them plays one of the pieces, some of them two. In all of the pieces you have to deal with very sophisticated polyphony, voicing issues, three or even more layers, questions about sound in general, huge stretches, polyrhythms and much more! I consider it to be very helpful to have the one or other clue about harmony if you tackle these pieces.