I use fingers (from top to bottom) 2 and 4, so do all the pianists I know who play it. You'd also use this same fingering on Variation 6 in Liszt Paganini Etude no6. Has anyone used another fingering on that other than 2&4? Mazeppa requires so much stamina just to play it from start to finish, unlike TE5.
Just use fingers 2&4 and 4&2. 2 and 4 on both hands.
You have to change hands every 2 notes. Stems pointing down - use your left handStems pointing up - use your right handIt's written clearly on the score. I got the Urtext edition by G.Henle Verlag.
As far as I can make out, Despax uses LH 42 RH 24 LH 42, The Depax is the Liszt fingering, I believe.
That's it. This is how you should be learning TE4. I myself asked a teacher back in 2006 and saw him do it at performance tempo right before my very eyes.There is NO right or wrong to fingering and fingering distribution. This fingering that Despax uses is THE fingering to use. Of course, you can always do your own. There really is no substitute for this fingering. It's a transcendental etude for a reason.
So, it is absolutely necessary to repeat fingers?
It is absolutely necessary to hear the horses hoofs. Liszt believed the best way to achieve that was the repeated fingers 42 24 42 switching hands. It's a brave pianist who argues with Liszt, who generally didn't go on about such details.If you can do the Liszt fingering and then AFTER that decide that you can achieve the same effect a different way, by all means use that other option. Until then, buckle down and get the Liszt fingering working.
Ok...I will try anything once. But what do you do after the 7 or 8 bars at the start of the "gallop" when the intervals get bigger in like 4ths?
how fast do you guys suggest mazeppa be played?? i can get it at 8:00 cleanly, but every single recording i hear(including those by students) are in the 7:30 range. when i try to speed it up, it starts to slop. another thing, it takes me about 40 seconds to play the first variation(pages 2 and 3), while it takes most recordings around 34 seconds. again, should i try to speed it up, or just leave it at that?
Just repair the horse hoofs and your horse will gallop itself at the right speed. In other words: focus on the artistic picture you want people to hear and put your speedometer/chronometer watch back in the closet.
yeah, i do speed up on the "easier" themes(in quotations because none of them are actually close to being easy)
I think the biggest no no is to slow down at the end or later in pieces.
Except in this piece, with the fall and death of the horse, the near death of Mazeppa himself and the subsequent raising of him to King, this piece does slow down towards the end. IMO, the most common fault at the very end is to go too fast and thereby understate the majesty.
I happen to disagree respectfully, stylistically. The theme repeats like 3 times, the later repeats are written out in grouos of 3. Those are played faster. The octaves are a little slower than the triplet themes. But I really don't think slowing down in any way that is not creative or obvious tempo suggestions is good...you may be saying to slow down to express this here idea of a dying horse. But I am also saying, people tend to slow down gradually, and it really shows loss of momentum in what the pianist is doing, not the music. I am totally cool with the idea of slowing down, but to show a musical idea. Please consider this statement to be an extention to what I just said earlier, that I like it when a performer speeds up, as a musical expression. Maybe, speed up to a certain point...idk. play with it.
Some posters here seem to regard the "Mazeppa" as a cheap, flashy toccata, in which certain passages are played faster and other passages more slowly, but it isn't: The pulse (heartbeat) is basically the same throughout the piece with the exception of the final scene. Any feel of difference in speed is given by Liszt himself (the separate details). The only thing we have to do is keep the pulse with dignity and stop complaining about how "difficult" it all is.
Liszt himself gives indications for tempo variations. If you mean follow them, then you are correct, but if you mean they are basically meaningless then I can't agree. They certainly don't lead to a " pulse (heartbeat) [that] is basically the same throughout the piece with the exception of the final scene." The variations indicated by Liszt are there for a reason, and basically follow the ride in the poem in layout.
I would never say that what Liszt writes is meaningless and should therefore not be followed. I am talking about an approach to perform this piece. Going faster where it is easy and slowing down where it is difficult is NOT a good approach.
Yes, Liszt gives us some indications, but are they really TEMPO indications, though? I think they refer more to the atmosphere of the different scenes, not to the speed. They are more like the pianist asking: "Are you kidding?!?" and Liszt saying: "No, I'm quite serious". Even the lyrical part says "Lo stesso tempo" (the same tempo), although the ear will perceive it as "slower" because of the character of the material itself and not because we change the pulse.There's a rather logical "stringendo" somewhere, yes, and a couple of "pocco rallentando"s, but they don't really influence the pulse/heartbeat very much. The only real dramatic indication for change of pace is the last page "pił moderato (non piano)". The closing cadenza is open for debate (is "Vivace" really as fast as possible as some contemporary pianists seem to think, or not?), but I find Arrau's solution appropriate because it depicts majestic victory. At least we know that he got the tradition straight from one of Liszt's favorite students.
There are different paces of the horse throughout, agreed - and that last depiction of the horse is "faster than he has ever gone" using the poem as a guide - and the music is certainly in agreement with that. It's just that the final bit is not depicting a horse ride at all, and must be at the right pace to depict what it is supposed to - a fall, near death and then a majestic elevation. You can't rush that.
People always say technique is not as important as musicality. I really disagree. First, if you cannot play as fast as a composer asks, cleanly, then you are not fulfulling the composer's wish.
I have never said that. Technique is the servant of music and must be adequate (at least) to the task. It must never be master.
Topic: Liszt: Mazeppa?? 