Schumann The Wild Horseman Op. 68 No. 8 (What is your tempo?)

[1piano4joe]

The Viktor Merzhanov edition lists the tempo as beating dotted half notes at 120 BPM. There are people on Youtube who play it at that tempo and are criticized for playing too fast. What tempo can you play this at? And How did you achieve it?

I would like to hear from teachers what they expect their student's tempo to be.

This piece at 120 BPM would be played in 32 seconds flat. I provide the trivial calculation below but feel free to ignore it.

There are 32 bars including the repeat and 2 beats per bar or 64 beats in total.

64 beats X (1 minute/120 beats) X (60 seconds/ 1 minute) = 32 seconds

I am using Chang's method to learn this piece.

Hands separately currently 132 BPM for each hand.
Both hands 80 BPM.

80/132 X 100 = 66.7% (So Far So Good).

Chang says, "HT speed is 50%-90% of HS speed".

50% corresponds to doubling the tempo HS to 240 BPM
90% corresponds to multiplying the tempo by a factor of 1.11 therefore 1.11 X 120 = 133.3

Therefore I must set the metronome at 138 BPM for HS practice. This is the minimum speed HS which corresponds to being able to play HT at 90% of HS.

This is brutal for staccato triplets!

Either I am using the wrong motions and/or staccato technique and therefore have created a speed wall or just have to go beyond that 90% to 95%. Just for curiosity I will add the following:

120/132 X 100 = 90.9% which rounds to 91% (OK that seems plausible) Maybe with lots and lots of practice.

I am curious. What was your maximum HS tempo for this piece? and your maximum HT tempo?

If you did not use this method please share how you learned this piece and any suggestions or tips for me as well as the many other forum users as this is a very popular piece.

Thanking you in advance, Joe.
                                    

  

[lostinidlewonder]

I don't think that the tempo has to be an exact measurement (and that goes for any piece you play). If you go too fast then the distinction between the slurred and detached notes becomes too blurred, so choose any rapid tempo so long there is a clear contrast. When examine this piece I do not bother about tempo unless it is ultra slow or super fast, ultra slow doesn't make us think about a horseman and super fast skips over/blurs the proper musical articulation. Think about the sound not the speed, although it is tempting to tamper with tempo (unties tongue)

[roseamelia]

I have a wild horseman song Is yours 6-8 timing? I don't like that fast either so I slowed it down you might think this is a little to slow but I like it I like playing it in 4-4 timing Its sounds alot better to me.

[1piano4joe]

These are some suggestions that I used to learn this piece and found very useful.

These are the difficult places you should practice:

LEFT HAND MEASURES 2,3,4,8,12,16

RIGHT HAND MEASURES 12,16

Some more tips/suggestions:

***Sforzandi*** are only in the melody, not in the accompaniment.

This piece has the form AABA.

8 Bars of A
8 More Bars of A. (i.e.The repeat sign)
8 Bars of B
8 Bars of A

It seems to me that many students have trouble with the left hand melody in the B section. I just learned this piece and can tell you from personal experience that playing this piece from beginning to end which I was doing was not bringing my left hand along at all. Then I said to myself, "Self every time you play completely through your practicing the A part three times and the B part only once. Do you think this is efficient?" I think maybe I was just having too much fun with this piece. Anyway, I decided to ignore the repeat and just play the first 16 measures over and over. I practiced it ABABAB...so that the left hand melody of the B part was gettiing just as much emphasis as the A part. I suppose I could have just practiced the left hand B part separately but the A part still needed lots of work since I saw the foolishness in my practice rather early on. I think I did that because of all the HS practice I was doing and when I finally put my hands together at a snails pace I was preoccupied with coordination. Also, it sounded unrecognizable since I was initially beating eighth notes hands together and was further concerned with the hands together tempo. At this tempo the left hand part hadn't presented a problem yet.

I hope this helps, Joe

P.S. Yes, this piece is in 6/8 time.