Ondine-That DARN CLIMAX!

[mahavishnu]

Hey all those Ravel players!

I am having the most tremendous difficulty with the climax of Ondine.  The part at which there are those huge sweeping motions with the chromatic scale coming down from the c# is giving me a hell of a time.  How do you coordinate both hands to play in time and clearly?  I swear this passage is the hardest ever in piano repertory.  HELPPPP  :-/

[rachfan]

On a difficult coordination problem like that, I'd be tempted to do a session hands alone with the metronome, then blend the two later having gained impecable precision with each hand.  Most of us doing advanced pieces usually learn the music and practice it hands together.  But this might be one of those instances where it's best to concentrate separately on each hand's difficulties in strict rhythm for awhile to gain independence of the hands, which, paradoxically, will help them to integrate better in those troublesome measures.

[mahavishnu]

But I have already done that!    HMM...I don't know

[rachfan]

Mahavishnu, you're making me work tonight!  It's always a challenge for me to offer ideas in a piece I have never studied.  

I'm looking at the score.  Your diffculty is the part marked ff, un peu plus lent, and in the RH is a scale, c#, b a, g etc. with quieter filigree accompiament in the same hand.  Also you get the pleasure between the hands of doing 7 against 6,  6 against 7, 7 against 5, 7 against 6, etc. none of which is consistent.  Right?  

So here's another suggestion:  Despite the climax with its ff dynamic, don't forget that Ravel has still painted a foreground and a background here.  Think of the ff as applying ONLY to the featured RH, most particularly to highlight the descending scales.  A scale appearing in any piece, this one included, takes on very special significance.  That's where you want to draw the listener's focus.  In your practicing, keep the LH at  p throughout (yes p!) except for the two notes explicitly accented down there.  In performance move the LH up to mf AT MOST.  

Next, don't get overly hung up with exact alignment of the 7's versus 6's etc.  Within the tempo and rhythm, start both hands on the beat of each figure, then "fit" the LH into place to end at the right moment to be ready to coincide with the RH at the start of the next grouping.  So the LH is really a "follower" here, "fitting in" unobtrusively.  Will that allow for a lack of precision in timing some of the notes in the LH?  Sure, but with the listener glued to the showcased melodic RH, the subdued LH will be, well,  background, of course.  Remember,  the LH is NOT playing a duet during this climax, rather its role is primarily accompianment.  

So try those dual concepts of substantially quieting down the LH to enable the RH to assume full command, and also allowing the LH to fit into and support the governing RH.  If you can implement this, I believe it will work like magic for you in mastering the section.