Chopin Prelude #4 -- New to Piano

[robpina]

Hey Guys,
I played a little piano as a child but was never very interested and quit the piano after just a few years of playing. At 20 I found I loved the music and was welcomed back to the instrument by my teacher (and now friend) who lives down the street. I have been working at it for almost 8 months now and decided to make a little recording on my instructors Steinway to present to the community.

Overall, I am not as thrilled with my playing as I would like to be in this video. Its a bit slow in my opinion but my instructor and I had been working at slowing the piece down a bit.. I think I need to find a happy medium. Actual playing time was about 2:30 I would like to get it to about 2:00. Also, I miss a few notes in the final three chords. However, I was pretty nervous for my first recording and will certainly accept the results.

Please let me know what you think of my progress. Many Thanks!!

[robpina]

Any comments or critiques would be greatly appreciated. My playing is not worthy of much of the community but I would be honored to hear some of the great pianists on the board comment.

Thanks

[svetmira]

Hey Robbie,

Well, I'm definitely not one of "the great pianists" of the board but I'll comment

I have heard multiple recordings of this piece and I am of the opinion it works better slow. However, I'd encourage you to speed it up a tad... my favorite version is Arrau's and it takes approximately the 2:00 you said your aiming for.

Nice work bringing out the melody over the chords in most of the piece. Kudoz!

I do think you could exploit dynamics a little more. For example in bar 9 (or 10, depending on how you count) you could contrast the <> more. And the "f" of bar 17 (18) could sound a lot louder.

Overall I thought it was very good. Congratulations!

[j_menz]

Coming along nicely.  You may not be aware of this, but the slower you play it, the more difficult this piece is to pull off.  At your stage, I'd aim for a somewhat quicker performance; it will take a lot more experience to be able to play it at your speed, though it could be magnificent when you can do it justice.

You need to work on getting the base chords more even.  They tend to wander around a bit in response to what's happening/comin up in the right hand and so do not keep to a steady pulse.  I'm not suggesting you play in strict metronomic tempo, but you should practice so that you are able to do that. Any variation from it will then be musically driven, not just accidental (or worse, driven by the difficulty of the passage).

I would also make the LH somewhat softer generally. Overall, you could broaden the dynamic range. I think this will come more naturally at a faster pace.

There are a couple of passages in the RH you are either still struggling with a bit, or at least not confident about.  I would suggest you isolate them and practice them seperately, including at a range of speeds up to way way too fast.  When you bring them back to the piece they will be much more confident.

I've always found this a very difficult piece to play well. Judging from the recordings out there, I'm not alone in this.  For where you are in your piano journey, you have done a great job. 

As an aside, the only piece you should leap away from the piano so dramatically at the end of is Dudley Moore's "Beethoven..?"  from Beyond the Fringe. In this piece it quite startled me.