Tchaikovsky - Op. 39 No. 21 (P.S. Comp)

[j_menz]

Pardon my ignorance.  Agogics means? 

There are four kinds of agogic accent:

1) Longer notated duration of a note, for example, a half note among quarter notes.

2) Extended duration of a note within its full time value (without altering the tempo). For example, players of organ and harpsichord (which don't afford the use of dynamic accents) can emphasize one of a sequence of staccato quarter notes by making it less staccato.

3) Extended duration of a note with the effect of temporarily slowing down the tempo.

4) Delayed onset of a note.

Stolen shamelessly from wikipedia.

[costicina]

 Agogics: the theory that accent within a musical phrase can also be expressed by modifying the duration of certain notes rather than only by modifying dynamic stress.

Sorry if I acted like  a smart ass: the term in Italian is much more common than in English, and we use it as often aws dynamics to refer to interpretation and expression matters....

[keypeg]

Got it.  It's something I'm trying to get a handle on which has fascinated me about my teacher's playing.  I get into runaway rubato.  For it to work you also have to not lose the pulse.  This is exactly what AJS was getting at by seeing this piece being played at different levels, and so suiting more than one kind of pianist.

[lostinidlewonder]

Hi here are some general ideas that come to mind when reading the score and playing through the piece.

This piece has an obvious melodic line throughout, it is important that this melody tends towards not being overpowered or challenged the supporting notes. The majority of the volume/tempo is controlled by the melody. The single note crotchets/minums in the LH need special attention to work well with the RH melody and should sound different to the chords the LH plays.

Phrasing in this piece is important, if everything sounds connected together and there is no sense of control when ending a phrase or beginning a phrase, this misses out on the appreciation of phrasing in musical language.

There is space for tempo control throughout this piece especially that of which clearly defines different phrases (eg: broadening end of phrases, holding back the top of notes in melodic lines etc). Certainly should pay attention to the "poco rits" and following "a tempos" marks and make these noticeable (they also define the end and start of a phrase very clearly).

There are rests written throughout this piece for a reason, very easy to naturally sustain everything over them all or neglect sustaining notes that should not vanish with the rest.

Accents need to rise above the rest of the playing, you need build appropriately towards them and also fall away from them well.

There are a number of volume controls throughout this piece, special attention should be paid towards how you solve this and use it with your phrasing, you of course do not have to do what the score asks for but if you do something else you need to support your interpretation with good musical sense.

[keypeg]

Thoughts about a couple of things:

There are rests written throughout this piece for a reason, very easy to naturally sustain everything over them all or neglect sustaining notes that should not vanish with the rest.

The only rests I see are the eighth rests in the accompaniment.    If pedal is used, those rests will vanish. I am wondering whether I am understanding this as you intended.

[outin]

Thoughts about a couple of things:The only rests I see are the eighth rests in the accompaniment.    If pedal is used, those rests will vanish. I am wondering whether I am understanding this as you intended.

Not playing this piece but this is something I haven't yet discussed with my teacher so I'll just ask you guys. I kind of assumed from the beginning that one should not pedal through rests? Which requires a lot of footwork sometimes...

[keypeg]

Not playing this piece but this is something I haven't yet discussed with my teacher so I'll just ask you guys. I kind of assumed from the beginning that one should not pedal through rests? Which requires a lot of footwork sometimes...

I think I figured out what LiW is saying.  He is not saying that the rests should sound like rests, which would be impossible, and I don't think it would sound good either.  I think he's looking at it mechanically, that it would create a soft staccato touch with the result of those notes being quieter.  I had to think it through backward because I was looking at the music as music, if that makes sense.  Musically the top line in the beginning is the melody, and the bottom bass line forms a counter melody.  So you want to hear these playing off against each other like two singers.  The middle notes with the rests are the "accompaniment" and they should be softer.  I was concentrating on the outer melodies and didn't give much thought to the fact of the rests - it would just happen as you try to bring out those two voices.

Um, this is something that I learned recently.  Sometimes the way music is written tells us how the composer wants it to sound.  Sometimes it is written in a way that if we physically do what the instructions say, we end up with a musical result (making it sound a certain way).  I'm still wrapping my head around that one, but I think that's what these eighth notes with rests mean.

[lostinidlewonder]

Pedal technique is important to use not to kill those rests, if you merely hold sustain the whole bar you will have a different sound, if you pedal every crotchet beat in the opening bar for instance you may produce a sound paying respect to how the rests are phrased. Bar 22 for instance with the accents a held pedal throughout will produce an ugly sound.

[hfmadopter]

Pardon my ignorance.  Agogics means? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accent_(music)

[keypeg]

We had this from AJS on November 10, almost a month ago.  I wonder how many of us were basing what we would do with the piece on this kind of approach:

So in an effort to further the learning..  I've just sat in adobe acrobat for a moment and removed all dynamic markings from our score. File is attached..  it still contains phrasing and accents.. they were too hard to get out without me just rewriting the score from scratch (which is a heap of effort..)

Anyway.. point being..  I would invite anyone to print it, then fill in your own dynamics, by hand, with some pretty serious detail. For example, you may mark multiple dynamics at any one moment such as that the top voice is mf and the lower voice is mp while the accompaniment part is p...   or any other array of musical shenanigans.

This should help you cement your own interpretive ideas. But then, also.. scan it (or digitally photograph it) and post it.. so that we can look at each others ideas..   because seeing the contrasting thoughts should be interesting and spur further ideas of our own. I'll post mine later today or tomorrow.

I also think it would be cool to hear some explanation..   "I like this dynamic there to provide a contrast against that other section" or "this cresc. is meant to build to a climax point in bar X"

[keypeg]

I discussed the eighth note rests with my teacher.  We've done a fair bit of theory including examining the choices that composers make.  Every composer has a musical idea in his head, and then has to use the notation system to bring that across on paper for us to decode and turn back into music.  The system is not perfect.

The main idea of the piece is that you have a lyrical melody, with a countermelody along the bass line, both of which should stand out.  In the B section the melody switches to the upper notes in the bass clef, and then it switches back.  The middle eighth notes are an accompaniment that need to be played a great deal softer, with a light touch.  If you let go early knowing that the pedal will continue the note then it's easier to get that touch.  (One reason I was not going to do the piece since I'm just starting to get any kind of technique).

In the way it is written you can easily see the steady rhythm that continues on the off beat.  If you pedal every beat along with the melody notes, then you will literally hear the middle notes get that shorter note value with the rests.  In various performances I've heard, very often beats that have no discordant notes such as beat 2 will only be pedaled once, and there those middle notes sound like quarter notes.  I believe we have a choice and don't need to take the rests literally.  This part would be interpretation.

The music could have been written with quarter notes or tied eighth notes in part, but it would be awkward looking.  I think this way we have greater interpretive freedom.  I remember that exploring pedal choices was one of AJS' recommendations and I have to admit I went overboard to the point of ridiculous when I  first tried it.      

[lostinidlewonder]

I've seen these rests in a number of pieces, if you play them legato and neglect the rest you are ignoring what is written. Neglecting rests can be very natural, a random example... look at the opening LH of Ravel's Pavane pour une Infante Defunte, sure you could play them all connected legato and it may sound pretty, but that is not what the composer wrote. The written rests in the Tchaikovsky piece here is important and not pseudo rests or interpretive imo.

If the composer didn't want to write those rest he wouldn't have to, it would have been easy to leave them out. Appropriate pedaling is the solution to produce these rests. This piece is grade 5 I think it was mentioned, when I first reviewed the notes it made me think it's more like grade 3 for AMEB standard, but then the pedaling required makes it a little more difficult and I found is one large part of the challenge to control this piece.

But of course one can ignore the rests and play legato but perhaps it might be interesting to explore what it means and how one produces the rests when the time is right.

[keypeg]

I just listened to Ravel.  I'm told that it was originally an orchestral piece.   Did Ravel write a piano version later?  (I'm still much in learning mode for composers and pieces).

Here is the orchestral version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqAlMItkV44

The bass comes in as quiet pizzicato strings, with the melody played by winds.  A bit later there are bowed legato notes like another melody coming in on the bottom, after which the pizz starts again.

This is a piano version played by Angela Hewitt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcm9X5kuehc

I actually listened to this first.  Hearing the orchestral version helped understand the choices.  But even before that I had some impressions.  Namely that the contrast between short unconnected quiet notes and then the melodic legato section was an important feature of the music.  That is even more so in the orchestral version.  The bass notes play an important major role.  

[keypeg]

This piece is grade 5 I think it was mentioned, when I first reviewed the notes it made me think it's more like grade 3 for AMEB standard, but then the pedaling required makes it a little more difficult and I found is one large part of the challenge to control this piece.

Imho the hardest thing in the piece is playing the bass line, which forms a kind of countermelody, more loudly than the inner notes, both in the LH.  Not only that, but the melody wants to rise from a soft piano, become louder, and then die down again - then swell more in the next phrase and so on.  Your LH bass line notes mirror that.  To have a bass line softly swell from piano but still have them louder than the inner notes - I found that really hard.  Agreed about the pedal control.

[costicina]

We could'nt find a way to make the piece sound less monotonous and ripetitive. Varying dynamics doesn't help so much, since they can't be so dramatic as to change the nature of the piece..

[lostinidlewonder]

I think that baseline is one challenge also keypeg and to me especially how to maintain the correct tone and connect it accurately with a well synchronized pedal. The pedal is especially useful to free the LH to play these notes, doing this all finger legato would make playing this quite awkward.

There is one trick part in the pedaling in this piece where finger legato will produce a superior sound, bar 23 the two chromatic quavers in the LH should be played finger legato rather than pedaled to produce a desirable effect. These LH quavers sound muddy if played with a sustained pedal.  I think bar 23/24 is the hardest bars in the piece.

I think that tempo control and articulation of your phrasing is helpful to make this piece sound lovely. Here are some examples of how I see the phrasing:

Bar 1 - 2 This phrase is a small increase and die away. Tempo control especially likes to effect the accented dotted quaver in the RH melody, notably holding off its entry and elongating its duration.
Bar 3 - 4 In contrast to the previous phrase this phrase has a longer increase to rise towards the forte of the following phrase.
Bar 5 - 6 Happier sounding phrase, dies away at the end to gently connect to next phrase.
Bar 7 -8 This phrase contrasts the previous by sounding more contemplative, serious? Last three quaver beats need to be a small phrase to end this phrase and connect to the opening theme again, it might be nice to broaden this short phrase instead of playing through it too fast.

[keypeg]

Lostinidlewonder, I had a chance to explore your ideas.  I was coming at the music from a totally different angle so I had to shift gears.  I was concentrating on the outer melody/countermelody and letting the middle notes do their thing, just making sure they were quieter.  The big thing for pedal was to keep the melody notes flowing, not letting them wash together or be cut off.  So this time I listened specifically for the middle notes.  If you pedal on each beat in measure one - which you want to do so the melody notes that are a 2nd apart don't wash together - then the middle notes end up having the rest between them, as you say.  So then if it starts that way, you have to decide whether you want that to continue.  It's not something I was hearing before, so thank you. 

Problem is that I've already submitted my recording and have a time issue.  We each have to play up to our abilities.  But this has been a fantastic learning experience on a lot of levels (and still is).

[pjaul]

I realize that this whole competition thing is long over, but since I'm relatively new here, I'd like to add that there is a version of this piece for trumpet that I recently played in a competition!  If only I had submitted my trumpet playing into the competition... would have added a brand new dimension