Furtwaengler, thanks for the very positive comments and feedback. Yes, Szymanowski generally presents problems for the small-handed pianists. Leaving out notes or arpeggeating them is not always a sensible solution either, unfortunately, unless you´re able to somehow do it in a very imprerceptible way (I remember for example Alicia de Larrocha commenting that Ravels left-hand concerto never caused her much problems in spite of her small hands - she simply found ways to arpeggiate effectively. Haven´t heard her performance of the piece though)
One would imagine that the big problem with learning any of the bigger Szymanowski pieces is memorization, and indeed it was probably the last thing I felt "secure" with (if one can ever feel completely secure with pieces like this one). At the same time, the many difficult passages simply need a fair amount of work and are automatically memorized in this process, while other parts...well, let´s say it was a great deal of fun playing around with this piece and perhaps I did more of that than actually "practicing" in a way - that way, the music somehow got memorized, as well. But it did take time....Fortunately, I feel that the difficult part of the job is now done, and picking the piece up again in sometime I´m sure it will feel much less a pain in the ass than Gaspard or something similar.
Which tenutos in Bartok were you referring to, the ones in the opening bars...?
Topic: Szymanowski, Chopin, Bartok and Debussy - Live