Tchaikovsky/Pletnev Pas de Deux

[nyiregyhazi]

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Any thoughts would be welcome.

[starstruck5]

Never heard this arrangement before -it is a very captivating piece -really draws you in. You play it excellently, and you seemed to grow into the performance as it devloped. I thought, the melody in the early stages wasn't articulated clearly enough. You did this much better as the piece progressed though -the arpeggios are played beautifully throughout -

A fine addition this to the Audition room!

[nyiregyhazi]

Never heard this arrangement before -it is a very captivating piece -really draws you in. You play it excellently, and you seemed to grow into the performance as it devloped. I thought, the melody in the early stages wasn't articulated clearly enough. You did this much better as the piece progressed though -the arpeggios are played beautifully throughout -

A fine addition this to the Audition room!

Cheers, very much agreed on the start! Despite the impression the piece gives, it's the opening which is most technically difficult. I still need to do a lot of work on controlling the r.h. hand figurations better. Funnily enough, I did one take before this and listened back and the melody was so poorly audible in that one that I was pretty astounded. While I don't like to make excuses, I think my antique piano accounts for some of the blame- as in this second take I was exaggerating severely (more like an extremely intense forte for the opening melody than a relaxed mezzo forte), but I agree that it still isn't clear enough. I'll probably try doing a recording on the Yamaha grand at work, to see how it the balance fares on there.

[pianoplayjl]

Modified:

Sick as, N. What a grand entrance to the Audition room! Some good playing. Since I haven't heard of the piece ever in my life I can only say it is a brilliant display of your piano skills. Sorry if I offer nothing useful. You've done a hell of a job with the arpeggios, as far as I know.
As a side note, I remember hearing this song from Nutcracker, a BARBIE movie I saw when I was a few years old. Such a passionate song I long forgot until you brought it up again. Thx for posting and reminding me.

P.s. I also heard your playing of Lyapunov's etude no 6. I love that one better just because that is one of my favourite pieces to listen to during leisure time.

JL

JL

[birba]

God, I LOVE this piece!!!!!!  I remember sitting in the pit waiting for my sugar plum fairy dance, and just hating that I wasn't in the audience!!!  Such a simple melody (I mean honestly, a descending g major scale?!) , simple harmonic progressions, and such great music.  well, at least I think it's great.
First of all, you play it magnificently.  But it doesn't all work - the transcription, I mean.  and, in fact, you can intuit this from the preceeding comments.  In the beginning, there's too much going on in the right hand and you don't feel the sweep of the music.  Like you do at the end.  I don't know how you could better this.  Maybe playing ultrally soft those waves of sixths going up and down.  How did you ever do that?  Is it really difficult?  You've really got me going and I want to learn this piece!  I just finished Weber's Invitation to the dance, and I think this would be great to take up.  I think I saw it in the IMSLP.
Very fine playing, indeed.  And on that upright, it sounded like a first-class ballet class!!!
p.s-  I just found the music.  Might be feasible for me...

[frogtester]

This piece is incredible!- I've never heard a piano version before. You've done a great job with it, and I agree that the upright definitely adds to the performance.

I'm interested in playing it too. Where did you find the music birba? The one I saw on imslp was a different arrangement.

[birba]

I had found it on pianostreet.  It was sitting on my desktop and I hadn't even looked through it.   


https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=22585.0

[49410enrique]

God, I LOVE this piece!!!!!!  I remember sitting in the pit waiting for my sugar plum fairy dance, and just hating that I wasn't in the audience!!!  Such a simple melody (I mean honestly, a descending g major scale?!) , simple harmonic progressions, and such great music.  well, at least I think it's great.
First of all, you play it magnificently.  But it doesn't all work - the transcription, I mean.  and, in fact, you can intuit this from the preceeding comments.  In the beginning, there's too much going on in the right hand and you don't feel the sweep of the music.  Like you do at the end.  I don't know how you could better this.  Maybe playing ultrally soft those waves of sixths going up and down.  How did you ever do that?  Is it really difficult?  You've really got me going and I want to learn this piece!  I just finished Weber's Invitation to the dance, and I think this would be great to take up.  I think I saw it in the IMSLP.
Very fine playing, indeed.  And on that upright, it sounded like a first-class ballet class!!!
p.s-  I just found the music.  Might be feasible for me...

side note, birba take a look at the taneyev transcription on imslp, i've played excerpts from other parts of the ballet from that score. it is spot on as far as good (albeit 'difficult') piano writting, he did a wonderful job preserving the orchestral texture of the whole work (for a while this was used for ballet companies to rehearse since a full orchestra was impractice).

to the op, spot on man, i love this work and pull out the score and read along with some performances from tiem to time. in general i prefer the taneyev score but the pletnev version has its moments and you captured them marvelously. 

[frogtester]

Thanks very much birba!! 

[49410enrique]

here's the one i mentioned, generally i prefer this one especially since it is essentially note for the note the entire ballet, you get access to some very good music we would otherwise not (i.e. less common played but still very pretty especially on piano)

for those interested Pas de Deux is on page 144.  again the pletnev concert transcritpion is great and all but there's something about this one that draws me in more.

ps since this is a 'literal' transcription you can use orchestral recordings as a guide since all the lines are there and it is probably preferrable to a piano recording (good luck finding one no one seems to care about this fantastic score for piano, all the recording i see are for the suite or pletnev).

to the op, hopefully if you didn't know about this you'll find this one enjoyable for further study (there are some horrendously difficult sections in here as well, taneyev was an incredible pianist).

[rachfan]

Considering all the technical complexities and demands, this is a marvelous recording. Bravo!

David

[pytheamateur]

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Any thoughts would be welcome.

That's a very polished performance.  Thanks for sharing.
I have the sheet music for this piece.  I have just started learning it.  I was wondering if you would mind sharing your fingering ideas for the R hand double sixths in the first part of the piece.

The principle I am using at the moment is to group them into 2 or 3 to fit each hand position and then move on to the next hand position.  So for example, the fingering for the first bar would be:

2 14 25 14 25 13; 25 13 25 14 25 14; 2 13 25 14 25 14; 25 14 25 14 25 13.

Do you finger them differently.  I just didn't want to spend too much time practising a bad fingering. 
Thanks.