Chopin op. 10 no 1

[Gieseking]

I´m studying op. 10 n.º 1, which is one of my favourites, and I´d like to now what exercises you recomend.

According to Vladimir Horowitz this is the most difficult etude. This etude is for the right hand, and to develop the so called open-close technique. That is the trick, and I practice exercises with the thumb and the five finger.  I would like to now your opinions. Thanks.

Sorry my archaic english...

By the way, does anynone nows the recording of this etude played by Martha Argerich, live in the Chopin Competition?

[robert_henry]

That's Horowitz's opinion, and if I remember correctly, he thought 1 and 2 were both very difficult and, for some reason, he couldn't play either of them.  Don't let that scare you.  Once you can play 1 and 2 correctly, they become among the easiest of the Opus.

I (and others) have shared some thoughts about how to learn this etude on this board.  Look down the performances section to the other Chopin etude post.

[Gieseking]

What other exercises do you recomend?

I read the other topic and I think that working this etude by making accents and use the pulse is somehow dispensable. This is a etude for the extension of the and contraction of the hand, and I practise very slow and pianíssimo.
After visit your page, I saw that you recorded the Chopin-Godowsky studies, and there is an edition that has some preliminaries exercises before every studie. Do you now this edition?

Pianistic Saudations                Gieseking

[mozartean]

First of all, you need to have a span of at least a 10th before you should attempt Op 10 No 1. The trick is to use rotatory movements of the wrist for the broken chords in the right hand.

[robert_henry]

Gieseking,

You are thinking of the Cortot edition of the Chopin etudes.  Your awareness that one of the important solutions to this etude is the proper extensions and retraction of the hand is why you will perform this etude well.  Add to that the wrist movement and you've got it.  I remember when I learned the original.  I could play everything up to tempo and without mistakes, but my arm got tired.  Someone showed me how to use my wrist for it and I could play it immediately without that tightness, and I could repeat the piece as much as I wanted.  As to preparing for the Godowsky studies, I didn't really prepare.  I have played the original etudes for so long, they came quite easily, I'm happy to report.

I must respectfully disagree with Mozartean about the hand span business.  If she were right, I couldn't play the etude or it's transcription.  I can only reach a ninth.  

[Gieseking]

I agree absolutely with mozartean. Once Peter Eicher said: a person who wants to be a pianist has to do that rotatory movement of the wrist, to the right and to the left, without moving the lower arm. That is the trick for many chopin studies, for instance op. 25 no 4 in the left hand. Aboun the 10th everyone can reach that by making exercises for the extension of the hand. If you now the Cramer etude no 42, sometimes you have to play broken 10ths in staccato, and Liszt loved this particular thecnique.
About the edition of Chopin studies that I use: I found the Friedman´s edition of studies (1913, Breitkopf & Härtel), which is probably the best edition; however he puts some strange fingering, and Neuhaus talked about this in his book of piano playing.
What editions of Chopin music do you recomend?

By the way, does anynone nows the recording of this etude played by Martha Argerich, live in the Chopin Competition?

Pianistic Saudations      Gieseking

[Pianorak]

Robert Henry: <<. I can only reach a ninth>>
You have made my day! Talking of "small" hands, I gather that Josef Hofmann was said to have had the smallest hands in the business. And Alicia de Larrocha complains about having too small a hand. Except that she can do "the splits" with her hands, ie a 180 degree angle,  or so a friend of mine who knows her assures me. Vladimir Ashkenazy too has reportedly said he wished he had bigger hands- which doesn't seem to have stopped him from having made a considerable mark.

[geoffrey]

I've never come across the Friedman edition of Chopin etudes. They must be incredibly rare.  With regard to Neuhaus's opinion of his fingerings, Allen Evans, (who seems to have written a manuscript about Friedman and done a lot of research), maintains that Friedmans's fingerings were incorrectly copied into the Russian edition that was available to Neuhaus. I wouldn't know, but in view of Friedman's etude performances it would seem likely that Evans is right.  W/respect to the CM etude I don't think the size of the hand is that important.  To play it well is achievable with proper training and patience.  To play it like an Argerich is another matter, entirely.  - Two extremely beautiful performances that come to mind in this etude are Ilana Vered and, of course, Moriz Rosenthal. — Geoff

[mozartean]

I like the Maurizio Pollini version of the Etudes.

[schwalbe]

I agree with R. Henry's comments. Chopin himself was noted to have said that a successful performance of
op. 10 no.1 depends on a flexible wrist and NOT handspan.  I do not believe that hand-extension excercises will help for this etude.  It is a tremendous strain on the hand to be in a constant state of extension, even if you can reach a tenth with ease.  Without the balancing action of natural contraction and the aid of the arm and wrist , one's hands will fatigue very quickly and be at great risk for injury.

There is a psychological aspect to this as well.  Undue stress is put on the mind by focusing on "needing to reach a tenth." I found that it helped me immensly in op.10no.1 to think of grouping the notes in this combo: G-C-E-C instead of C-G-C-E.  It immediately put my mind at ease.  Another example of this would be the skips in the beginning of "Feux d'Artifice":  Instead of dreading the 32nd note triplet of Bb-Ab-Gb and the following skips to octaves D-G#-D, my teacher enlightened me to this solution: Treat the skip as being from Bb (the first note of the right hand triplet) to the thumb of the given octaves.  That gives you the feeling that you are traveling a much shorter distance than you actually are. I must add that a very specific rotation on the wrist occurs as well to make these leaps successful.    

Gieseking:  I have the recording you are asking about.  Believe it or not its included in a LASERLIGHT box set called "Great Chopin Performers". Its a compilation of performances (not all of them are live) from the competition by artists such as Argerich, Pogorelich, Pollini, Ohlsson, etc.  Argerich's live perfromance of
Op.10 no.1 is included on one of the CDs.  The only identifying numbers on this set are 15961 and the SKU on the bottom reads 0-18111-59612-1.  Hope this helps!

[Colette]

If you haven't already, buy Askenazy's Chopin etudes. They are a must have for any pianist. He plays op. 10 n. 1 particularly well, and every etude is graced with precision, delicacy, and refinement. Listen to the first (and second) etude if you want to hear something amazing. He's made many many recordings of the cycle, but his work from the 70's is the best, I think. Rubenstein is also wonderful in this etude....it's just effortless. Happy listening!

[e60m5]

First of all, it is a complete fallacy that one needs hands big enough to reach a tenth to play this Etude.

I myself can only reach an octave, and this does not stop me from playing this etude (and curiously, I have not encountered any situation in any piece in which I have had to give up on the piece for want of a bigger handspan).  

The trick here is not to try to "bridge" the span, to keep the hand stretched out to try to reach out for those notes. Rotation of the wrist is assumed for this etude, so no more talk of it will be given here.

When I play this etude, the only way I can stop the accumulation of tension and the inevitable stiffness that comes as a result is by keeping my hand in a relatively closed position (fingers not too outstretched) and instead of extending the fingers to reach, I try to move my hand up and down the keyboard (well, left and right) in order to facilitate my fingers hitting the keys without having to stretch out my fingers.

It's kind of tricky to do, though, and this way makes it slightly harder to get real power and volume out of the keys, although this is just how I get around the problem of small hands when I play this etude... I'm in no way stating that my way is the best way there is to play, I definitely wouldn't be using it if I had bigger hands  

But yeah, just making sure that people don't think that "without big hands, you can't play this etude..."

I don't know why it's a fairly common opinion  

[tosca1]

I agree with most of the comments about the size of the hands for playing this study. A large hand is not necessary but of course the ability to extend  the right hand and fingers is essential in playing this wonderful piece.  Personally, I find the ascending groups easier than the descending in both this study and the opus 10 no.2.
A problem for me is the 5th finger of the right hand which plays the first  note in each descending group. I work on exercises from the Cortot edition of the Chopin Etudes and devise my own to strengthen control of fingers 4 and 5.

Musically this piece expresses heroic grandeur and even at slow practice speeds it is very satisfying  to play.  
If you persevere with it  you will certainly move forward with your techique development.

[Rachmanoinoff]

I'd love to learn this etude!

[rachfan]

As it happens, I just yesterday received a new CD, Earl Wild plays the Complete Chopin Etudes.   It's on Chesky CD77.  Wild does a super job with Op. 10, No. 1!

[tosca1]

Apart from the enormous challenge of playing the right hand semiquavers up to speed in this particular étude the dynamics of the piece are most difficult to realize.  The indications are from piano to fortissimo and at lightening speed it is not easy to achieve a convincing piano effect.

Within the two bar ascending and descending shape, there is a crescendo going up and a diminuendo coming down.

Preoccupied by the tremendous technical difficulty of the right hand,  many pianists  tend to play the study at the same dynamic level throughout without the light and shade that Chopin carefully indicated in the score.
My point is that preparation for this piece must include close observation of the dynamics and slow, attentive practice will be helpful here too.

[Snuffel]

What about tempo? My (Paderewski) edition shows a metronome marking of 176 (quarter note). I believe that this comes from Chopin himself as it appears in all the editions I have seen. This seems to me almost ludicrously fast, I certainly have never heard anyone play it anything like this speed. If the markings on the etudes are by Chopin how seriously should they be taken?

[usandr]

Hello Gieseking;

There is a nice exercise passed to me from my teacher whose teacher studied with Ziloti, who used to be one of Liszt's favorite students.

Anyway - the trick is in very uncomfortable position for second finger!

Play right hand in medium tempo with accents on all notes played by 2nd finger.

another way to improve - play by intervals i.e.
octave c-c, then sixth g-e, then turn wrist over and c-c again.  Try to learn to play this way fast. Helps a lot...

Good luck!

[AvivS]

Of course you know that between every unit of a chord, you must play non-legato when playing quickly. You must play it very freely. And always pose the hand in the direction you are going (i.e. upwards downwards).
As soon as you grasp the technichal idea, this is an easy etude. Simply learn then notes a bit and play it 176.

[kuala]

im replying to this 3months later so i guess ive missed the boat
about the tempo, yes 176 is lightening and i dont honestly believe that any human being can play at this speed with any control
listening to ashkenaky's performance which sounds fantastic (and fast) his speed varies a great deal from 100 - about 140, averages about 120

richard

[JTownley]

If you:
1) love this etude to death
2) are not planning to use it in a competition
3) don't mind being branded a hetetic or a lunatic &
4) want to marvel at the sound of you playing this etude at lightning speed w/ no mistakes, then do what I do: I split the arpeggios between the R. and L. hands. I know, I know what you're thinking: "Cheater!!" "Fraud!!" "Deceiver!!" But before you crucify me on a cross of broken piano wood, listen to my story: I have an injured R.H. forefinger that stiffens badly when I stretch it. Playing this etude aggravate the hell out of it, probably due, no doubt, to incorrect technique. But one day, just on a lark, I split the hands and just listened to myself. Mein Gott! I was actually playing it faster than Pollini - mistake free! Now I know this takes the challenge out of learning the etude - the pride in being able to say "I conquored Mt. Parnassus without sneaking up the back road!" But what the heck, I've accepted the fact I'll never play it legitimately. If I were a young stallion full of ambition -  out to set the world on fire, it might be a different story. BUT.....I'm just a nine-finger hoofer who doesn't mind fooling myself on ocasion that for a few minutes I can sound like I'm walking side by side with the pianistic gods of yore! Makes my day when I'm feeling down. Just a footnote to some excellent suggestions for playing this hellishly difficult piece.
https://www.JoeTownley.com  Lots of piano videos!

[BoliverAllmon]

WOW, if someone was to play at 176, you would finish the etude in well under 2 min. Incredible.

Boliver Allmon

[ericnolte]

Hello all,

  I first looked at the Chopin Etude in C, Opus 10, number 1, about ten years ago, and concluded that I would never master it.  It looked like trying to loft a boulder into outer space with my bare hands.  I never brought it in to a lesson, but I kept coming back to it, with a certain morbid fascination.  Eventually, I found, despite my failure to bring any rigorous work to it, that I had memorized it, and could play it in some halfway accurate and musical fashion, at around 116 beats per minute with four notes to the tick.  And there I was stuck for a long a time.

  What has come to me in the last couple months is a revelation.  First of all, at David Dubal's suggestion (which I got in reading his books on pianists) I bought Alfred Cortot's edition of the Chopin Etudes.  While the music itself is frequently dubious and mistaken, Cortot's wealth of suggestions on how to practice these pieces is an amazing and wonderful course on how to play the piano!

  Secondly, I took this piece to a teacher, and got a few suggestions on how to approach its problems, which can also be so helpful.

  Finally, I have made a crucial decision, unlike any other I've ever come to as a musician, which may take me a moment to describe coherently.

  Perhaps this will strike some of you as so obvious as to be unworthy of your consideration, but, given that I am demonstrably smarter than most, perhaps some of you will also find this useful....

  I have been operating in music in a terribly self-defeating way for many years.  It is not merely that I have arranged things so that I have far too many responsibilities outside music, and can't practice nearly as much as I would like, it also has to do with the very nature of the time I spend at my practice.  I have thought of an analogy to capture the problem here:

  Imagine that you are a pilot, and you want to fly from New York to Paris.  You've settled yourself into the cockpit of an airplane with the requisite performance and enough fuel to make the journey.  You've pushed off the pier, started the engines, and there you are, taxiing proudly and confidently round the ramp, but something is wrong here.  You're still on the ramp!  You're not on the runway, where you can shove up the power, and build up a sufficient head of steam to become airborne!  And once airborne, you would still need to point the machine in the right direction!

  So here I am, taxiing round the ramp in my Chopin Etude No. 1, at 116 beats per minute, but I haven't made any move toward the runway, nor anything like concentrating my efforts in a way that will build up the requisite head of steam to get airborne.  What's wrong here?

  I haven't squared off with the essential problem of the piece.  I haven't concentrated my effort with intelligence and rigor.  

  Well, how should I proceed?  What would this intelligence and rigor look like?

  For ten years, I have known the notes of this piece by memory.  This is not enough.  For ten years, I have known the structure of this piece with respect to its harmony and style.  This too is not nearly enough.  

  A couple days ago, I decided to focus on the idea of trying to capture the available light of my powers,  dim and feeble though I was convinced this light to be, and bend this light, as if through a magnifying glass, with the hope of bringing this light to bear on a tiny spot, so as to bring that spot up to ignition temperature!  Set it on fire!  Concentrate my effort as never before!

  What I did was, instead of going through the whole piece again and again, with occasional attention to some harder spots (like that terrible configuration at the bottom of the second page, on an F major dominant 7th, which calls for the 5th finger to play the E-flat), I decided to start at the beginning, and get it right before proceeding any further.  I've just spent most of two days of practice on nothing but the first two bars of this piece (which, given my limited time, amounts to only about four hours.)  I have done all the Cortot exercises for this Etude, in all these different rhythms and configurations of chord distributions, and... here's the payoff... I can now walk up to the keyboard, any keyboard, from a dead stop, cold, without warmup, almost standing on my head with one arm tied behind me, and I can play those first two bars of the right hand at 176 beats per minute and four sixteenth notes per tick.  I can do this with a certain supple expressiveness as well, and I am amazed and excited by the prospect that I may actually be looking at the day, in the near future, when I will have this piece completely under my conscious and deleriously happy command!

  I have played the rest of the Etude a few times, and the speed has also increased without any further work there.  I'm sure that as I move through the piece, two bars at a time, focusing in the way I have just concentrated on the first two bars, I should enjoy a similar success, especially since it's clear to me that these first two bars are among the hardest in the piece.

  I hope this helps somebody else....

Warmly yours,
Eric Nolte

[debussy_lover]

Gieseking,

First of all, don't be concerned with the metronome mark of 176.  That is extremely fast, and frankly not even worth attempting.  A slower performance with musical sensitivity is far preferable to a mechanical one taken at high speed.

Also, disregard the accents.  Especially on the ascending arpeggios, accenting the fifth finger with only make you tense.  

The most important thing to realize about this piece is that it is not a long, unbroken arpeggio, but is rather a series of four-note arpeggios that are interconnected.  Understood this way, you should practice as follows:

In the right hand, bar one, play c g c e as written, then lift your hand and relax.  Now move up to the next position, and play c g c e again.  Relax, and move your hand again.  Repeat this process throughout the piece.  

Notice, though, that you do NOT need to move your hand at the top of each series.  The last three 16ths of the first bar and the first four of the second are all part of the same group, and should be practiced as such.

When you play the etude at a performance tempo, the idea of shifting hand positions is still very much relevant.  However, the shifts must occur very raipdly, with the aid of a flexible wrist.  That is why it is important to relax between each group when practicing slowly.  The wrist must never become rigid.

[JTownley]

 Before wrecking my finger, I used to be able to play this etude at a fairly good clip w/o having to worry about strain. I stretch a 10th w/ relative ease (and used to be able to reach an 11th w/ my R.H., though it took a tremendous amount of effort - afraid those days are gone for good now) and i recall using a different technique than the ones being discussed here; that of "rolling" my hand from left to right over the keys and just letting my fingers "do the walking" so to speak, rather than using expansions and contractions of the hand to neutralize tension. I found the technique very helpful because the rocking motion alleviated any building tension. Course this would not work for people w/ small hands. I think the player would have to be able to lay his hands on most of the arpeggios and play them as block chords in order to apply this approach to its maximum utility. Food for thought?
https://www.JoeTownley.com  

[eddie92099]

I have just begun to learn this piece and it is much easier than I first thought. Martha Argerich's recording is extraordinary but I also have Ashkenazy doing it on DVD which is very impressive,
Ed

[bop...boo]

Cziffra finishes in 1:45, and i think hits the 175 mark

[chromatickler]

Cziffra doesn't even use the pedal. He gets down to 175 with Finger legato alone. I'm sure he'd muscle over 200 if he sacrificed some eveness/accuray with pedal bluring like the others (ie. Polliini).

[cziffra]

speaking of sacrificing accuracy and evenness, i can play it at 176.  

does this mean i've gotten the fundamental principle of the piece (wrist movement) or does it mean i'm just enjoying making fast and loud noises?

[comme_le_vent]

id like to play this piece at 240bpm, not that im deluded or anything

[chromatickler]

You'll have to jab faster than Lennox Lewis to play this at 240 bpm.  

[thracozaag]

I´m studying op. 10 n.º 1, which is one of my favourites, and I´d like to now what exercises you recomend.

According to Vladimir Horowitz this is the most difficult etude. This etude is for the right hand, and to develop the so called open-close technique. That is the trick, and I practice exercises with the thumb and the five finger.  I would like to now your opinions. Thanks.

Sorry my archaic english...

By the way, does anynone nows the recording of this etude played by Martha Argerich, live in the Chopin Competition?

 You have to cartwheel this etude.

[meiting]

This is not one of the harder etudes, but op. 10 no. 2 is Basically you have to figure out how to rotate (and not OVERrotate), and you should be able to play most of this piece effortlessly. Regarding tempo (and I don't really care about it that much - only mentioning it cuz there seems to be certain elements on this site that concern themselves ONLY with tempo and speed) if you do it correctly then it's possible to play this at about 240 to the quarter note. Not that you'd want to. Cuz it'll sound horrible.

mt

[comme_le_vent]

I'm a speed demon, 240 is the best sounding tempo for my tastes. Try using a midi program, and move the tempo of this piece up to 240, and imagine a pianist playing it with expression. It makes it a different piece, and in my view a better one.

[eddie92099]

Wait until I've finished learning it comme_le_vent, and I'll play it to you at 240  ,
Ed

[sram]

this etude is not so hard if you work it so that you don't accumulate tension.
to me the only sensitive spot has always been  the short black key passage. But by remaining supple throughout, it became finaly quite comfortable.
a certain lightness of touch helps i find and you can still develop enough volume to respect the dynamic indications.
I can reach an 11th but i don't even bother opening my hand more than for the interval of the moment.
i find op10no2 more of a challenge frankly.

[thracozaag]

[This is not one of the harder etudes, but op. 10 no. 2 is

 Yeah right, Mr. "I can play Op. 10 #2 in B-flat minor".  Freak.

[eddie92099]

a certain lightness of touch helps i find and you can still develop enough volume to respect the dynamic indications

...but what about the accents?
Ed

[sram]

by lightness of touch i did no mean playing on the surface of the keys... more of a bounciness feeling, not feeling any downward pressure once you reach the keybed.
this does not prevent you from making any dynamic inflexions. ... the more volume you create, the readier you have to bounce off the downward movement.
this is more a sensation than an actual motion ... haha.. gah, could you imagine bouncing off the keyboard at every note ... quite a sight...lol.

[trunks]

Hi Colette,

I own the entire discography of Artur Rubinstein (did you mean Rubinstein when you typed
"Rubenstein"?) and I am very sure Rubinstein never recorded the Chopin Etudes except Op.10 No.4, Op.25 No.5 and the Trois Nouvelles Etudes.

Just wondering . . . where did you hear about Rubinstein playing Op.10 No.1?
Perhaps a live recital?

Cheers,
Peter (Hong Kong)
amateur performing pianist
part-time piano tutor

[anda]

ok, there has been a lot said about this study, so i'll just add my personal experience:

i have a small hand as well, even though i have done a lot of exercises and it's streched to the max (180 between 1-5 and 90 at 1-2). how i practiced this study:

1. learned it by memory (that's the easiest part)
2. practiced very slowly, focusing on the arm carrying the hand up and down and allowing the forearm to stay relaxed all the time.
3. at half of tempo, practiced with my eyes closed. when i could do that without missing any note or hitting wrong keys, i put the metronome at half the tempo and then i raised the tempo line by line playing three times at every tempo (still with my eyes closed, and the three times that count are the ones played without accuracy problems). at about 144-152 i started looking at the left hand all the time (helps the right hand)

this worked for me.