Masterclass on Bartok op. 18 etudes with Psi-Hsien Chen

[fnork]

Last autumn, I was studying the extraordinary 3 etudes by Bartok and also worked on them with a few different teachers in masterclasses and private lessons. I managed to record my masterclass with Psi-Hsien Chen, a wonderful teacher and pianist especially known for performing contemporary music. She had not played them herself but had very specific insights into the what and the how of playing this music. I'm afraid the recorder was placed far away from the stage and I had to normalize the sound afterwards - every now and then, what is said gets distracted from surrounding noise or my playing...Nevertheless, thought I'd share this, in case someone would be interested. Re-learning these pieces now...always interesting going back to masterclasses I've recorded.

Uploaded it here:

https://www.filedropper.com/r090008

Also uploading a lower quality one in this post.

[fnork]

For anyone who doesn't know about him, Psi-Hsien studied with the Swedish pianist Hans Leygraf during her postgraduate studies and she is referring to him a little bit during the masterclass. I never got to meet Leygraf (he died last year) but I knew his teachings fairly well from others - it was rather on the pedantical and practical side, and he'd make his diploma students (including Psi-Hsien) go back to playing the first Bach invention in slow tempo. Though I'm not sure how practical that is, Psi-Hsien tried to do some similar things in the Bartok op 18 nr 1 - very slowly at times, to feel every finger, every note, every interval - which I think worked very well.


By the way, I wasn't sure if this is more pianist corner or audition room material? Admins, feel free to move the thread