Prokofiev Sonata 7 fingering

[davidjosepha]

Well, I've shocked myself. I've been learning the Precipitato from Prokofiev's 7th sonata and up until today, I hadn't found a single spot where I couldn't find a reasonably comfortable fingering, one with very little hand movement and minimal room for error. I thought I'd be having uncomfortable fingerings all over the place, but I guess whoever wrote the piece must also have played piano . But now, I found one, and I really don't see anything very comfortable I can do here, but I'm hoping someone will find something. It's in the left hand, 5 measures from the end. The work isn't in the public domain so I'm attaching a picture of the last 2 lines of the piece so you can figure out what I'm talking about.



My only real thought, other than just picking up my hand completely, is using thumb for the b-flat (seems pretty obvious) and then for the descending notes, using 2-2-3-3-4-5 and then jumping my hand down and using my 2 for the last note so it's in position for the octaves in the next measure. This would work all right since I'd just be sliding my 2 and 3 down from a black key to a white. Also, I know it's detached, but the piece goes quite fast and moving my hand more than necessary is not a good idea. Does anyone have a better idea though?

[nanabush]

Ahh repeating fingers sounds nightmarish.

If you have a big enough hand, what about (for the descending notes): 23 234 35

This way you keep a rhythmic pulse with the upper Bb, and it actually fits pretty well!

I've never played the piece, but I just tried out that bar for a few minutes.

[davidjosepha]

Ahh repeating fingers sounds nightmarish.

If you have a big enough hand, what about (for the descending notes): 23 234 35

This way you keep a rhythmic pulse with the upper Bb, and it actually fits pretty well!

I've never played the piece, but I just tried out that bar for a few minutes.

That worked great! I played it for a few minutes and got it to about 75% speed and it felt natural, so I'm sure it'll work up to speed too. Thanks so much for taking the time to come up with something!

[khadsell]

2-3-3-4-5-3-5

I recorded this piece 3 years ago

kevinhadsell.com/scarlatti

[alhimia]

2-3-3-4-5-3-5

I recorded this piece 3 years ago

kevinhadsell.com/scarlatti

No, you played the piece half tempo and then sped it up. See this: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=2129.0

This way, anybody in the world can play this piece even with their toes, so what is your point?

[davidjosepha]

2-3-3-4-5-3-5

I recorded this piece 3 years ago

No, you played the piece half tempo and then sped it up. See this: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=2129.0

This way, anybody in the world can play this piece even with their toes, so what is your point?

To be honest, after several minutes of testing it out, I don't see how that fingering could possibly work at 160+ bpm. I'll stick with nanabush's suggestion

Edit: Also, after listening to your recording, it has way too much attack, which I'm sure comes from the fact that by speeding up the recording, you're also speeding up the rate of note decay. Comforting to know that even by playing the piece half speed, you still can't play it a quarter as well as Richter?

[nanabush]

Glad the fingering worked!  I haven't played much Prokofiev (was learning the 3rd sonata as a contender for my jury, but ended up dropping it), so I'm not extremely familiar with his writing.

Generally, for stuff like this, the rhythmic drive can totally influence your fingering choice.  A passage like that is easy to turn into a polyrhythmic nightmare for the left hand... 

Enjoy the piece!  This movement is a beast   

[davidjosepha]

Glad the fingering worked!  I haven't played much Prokofiev (was learning the 3rd sonata as a contender for my jury, but ended up dropping it), so I'm not extremely familiar with his writing.

Generally, for stuff like this, the rhythmic drive can totally influence your fingering choice.  A passage like that is easy to turn into a polyrhythmic nightmare for the left hand... 

Enjoy the piece!  This movement is a beast   

I showed up to my last lesson with my teacher yesterday (getting a new one in a month or so at college) and played this for him. And at the end, he said...

"Better you than me."

I thought that was hilarious. Anyway, he went on to say that he doesn't actually play this piece and had only worked on it a bit in grad school, so he didn't have too much insight into lots of things, although we looked through it together and came up with a bunch of decisions on shaping and such.

[scherzo123]

I have the same sheet music!

[davidjosepha]

I have the same sheet music!

I'm not using this one, this is just one I found on the internet to show what I was talking about.