New member + A Scriabin Etude Performance

[shahafdar]

Hello Everyone
My name is Shahaf, from Israel, 24 Years old.
Starting to learn composition here in Israel in October
Here is a performance of mine to Scriabin etude in D #minor fron a concert I did few months ago.
I'll be happy to hear your opinion : )

Peace!

[lojay]

Welcome!

Perhaps post this in the Audition thread for more opinions!

[dima_76557]

I'll be happy to hear your opinion : )

Hi, Shahaf!

As someone who can actually play this work, I want to tell you the following:
The "grounding" (the first layer when you paint something) is ready. You did a good job with that and there is room for growth. Now it's time to work on the artistic image of the piece (superslow practice on expression, tone, touch, dynamics, temperament, etc.), and don't be mistaken - it may take years and years to get such a piece to satisfaction.

[lojay]

After reading dima_ogorodnikov's post I realized how much of a douche I came off as. Although I did put a good bit of time typing up my original response, I feel that I should be motivating rather than critiquing unless I learn this piece myself.

[shahafdar]

Hi Dima,
Thanks for the comment! : )
Yes, to play this piece so well can take years and I know it considered a very hard one.
I will take it again sometime with another teacher after learning a lot of diffrent pieces.
I'll be happy to watch you performance to this piece, please send me!

lojay - one thing is for sure,
It takes no balls to sit with your laptop and wirte a critical response while I took this challening, work hours on it and took it to concert.
Good luck my friend, you won't be a great pianist (or a happy human being) with this approch to life.

Peace : )

[shahafdar]

Yes lojay..
Good luck with the piece : )

[dima_76557]

I'll be happy to watch you performance to this piece, please send me!

I'm afraid I don't "have the balls" yet to play it for bystanders.
P.S.: That was a joke! I am in the process of retraining, so any recordings other than for my very personal learning purposes are not in the picture any time soon, not even "Twinkle twinkle little star".

[lojay]

lojay - one thing is for sure,
It takes no balls to sit with your laptop and wirte a critical response while I took this challening, work hours on it and took it to concert.

Actually, the lack of balls is what caused me to take my response down!  You asked for opinions and I provided mine.  You should have just asked for a bj instead.

Like you said, your playing shows that you only spent a few hours on it (JUST JOKING).

Honestly, if I did spend hours and hours working on a piece, I would rather have people critique me and tell me what they think is wrong.  It's not like I told you that you that you suck and ended my response there. I gave a list of points of what I thought was wrong with your performance with justifications and even a few suggestions.

Good luck my friend, you won't be a great pianist (or a happy human being) with this approch to life.

What's with this hostility?  From your response it appears that you're quite thin skinned. I find it amusing that you're getting all defensive.  However, I find it more amusing that you seem to lack the ability to critically think since you appear to have really focused your response on the first few and the last sentence of my original response rather than evaluate the quality of my response (and accordingly respond to my reasoning).

Yes lojay..
Good luck with the piece : )

I wasn't implying that I was going to learn the piece.

...I know it considered a very hard one.

Let's be real here, no babying here.

This piece may be harder than most of the pieces written for piano, but there's so much music written for the piano that it's a silly comparison.  Why not compare this with something more similar like other virtuosic etudes or other music written by Scriabin?  This isn't one of the easiest etudes, but it isn't really a difficult etude either.  I'm not familiar (meaning I haven't read through them) with Scriabin's works other than his op. 42 no. 5 etude and his 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 8th Sonatas.  Compared to those pieces I listed, op. 8 no. 12 is child's play.

[lojay]

I was curious if my comments were unjustified, so I just took a look at the score to see if your hostility was warranted based on my comments.

Unfortunately, I edited my original post before you responded, so I can't reference all my comments.  A few things I do remember:
-I stated that I had problems with the fact that you don't observe the rhythm written in the score for the left hand.  You clearly don't play triplets (yes this was a pun!).  I checked the score, and you're not executing the left hand properly.
-You played the last pages more like a mp rather than the fff as indicated.  I recall telling you to not be afraid of banging the last page or so.

Sensitive much?

[shahafdar]

You are really young don't you..

Good luck out there : )

[lojay]

I was able to go to my laptop's history and get the original post:

I'm just a casual intermediate adult learner, but I'll give my input.  I should mention that the recording quality is very poor, so a lot of what I perceive may be due to the recording.  I never sat down and learned this etude, but I did read through it several times about a year ago.  From what I remember, I have quite a bit to say.

1) Rhythm.  Maybe it's deliberate on your part and I don't understand what you're doing with the rhythm, but your rubato is very strange to me.  Sure, you can take time SOMETIMES, but you're taking too much time too often.  For me, the main difficulty of this etude is the left hand in triplets over large intervals/spans. The left hand just sounds labored and mannered. I feel that you seemed to avoid dealing with the main technical difficulties of this piece by doing what you do with the rhythm.

I mean it should be obvious to you that you slow down in certain sections; however, I think you slow down too much at certain points.

2) Phrasing.  I don't recall the score 100%, but I think you're taking a note (I think it's the A#?) that's written for the left hand with the right hand (which is 100% acceptable) and you're accenting it.  You also make very strange accents with the octaves in the right hand that disturb the phrasing.  Sometimes you don't phase and just have a flat sound.

3) Pedaling.  I think it's over pedaled.  Perhaps you can argue that it's Scriabin and it's acceptable for this kind of music, but I think you're pedaling to mask technical problems.

4) Dynamics.  For the most part, you don't seem to have any regard for dynamics; this makes your playing sound quite one dimensional.  My main issue, however, is with the ending...if I recall correctly, the last page or so is written in like fff or ffff and you play like mp.  There's no need to be pretty, bang away the last page or so.

5) Tone.  I could probably tolerate just a sloppy left hand, but you're right hand is also a mess.

If you haven't polished this piece yet, good luck!  I do have to hand it to you for having the balls to perform an unpolished work in a recital.


Sure, I might have been very direct, but I think all my comments were justified.

Check out Ad hominem.

[lojay]

You are really young don't you..

Good luck out there : )

Better to come off as childish than retarded.

[dima_76557]

This piece may be harder than most of the pieces written for piano, but there's so much music written for the piano that it's a silly comparison.  Why not compare this with something more similar like other virtuosic etudes or other music written by Scriabin?  This isn't one of the easiest etudes, but it isn't really a difficult etude either.

Without meaning to offend you, but unless you have participated in a masterclass of someone like, say, Dimitri Bashkirov, you cannot really judge about the difficulties in certain little treasures by certain composers. I did the "comparatively easy" Rachmaninoff prelude op 32 no 12 with him, and I felt completely worthless during that process. That little piece turned out to be much like an oversized raincoat for me.

[lojay]

Without meaning to offend you,

I trying to figure out why you think your post would offend me!  In fact, I hope I don't offend you with my reply; hopefully you're not as sensitive as the OP!

but unless you have participated in a masterclass of someone like, say, Dimitri Bashkirov, you cannot really judge about the difficulties in certain little treasures by certain composers.

Bashkirov is an absolute legend.  I'd wager a lot of money that he has made Volodos feel worthless.  I'm jealous that you got such an opportunity!

Anyway, to address your comments: Why does participation in a masterclass assume the ability to judge difficulties of pieces?  Sure, the majority (or perhaps even all) of the students who participate in these masterclasses also have the ability to judge a pieces difficulty; but I think it's silly to make any more assumptions.

I believe that participation in a masterclass with a world class teacher is independent from being able to read through a piece and judge its difficulties. However, I do believe the reality is something like this:
-Students Who Participate in Masterclasses with World Class Teachers: {a1, a4, a6, ...}
-Students Who Can Judge a Pieces Difficulties Accurately: {a1, a2, a3, a4, a5, a6, a7, a8, ...}

I did the "comparatively easy" Rachmaninoff prelude op 32 no 12 with him, and I felt completely worthless during that process. That little piece turned out to be much like an oversized raincoat for me.

Out of curiousity, what do you mean by those quotes?  I'm taking it that you're using the quotes to indicate sarcasm, meaning you think it's actually difficult.  If so, I don't think comparatively easy needs those quotes.  If you put that prelude next to Rach's 2nd Sonata, there is no way you'd consider the Rach Prelude hard.  In fact, if you gave me that prelude and any Mozart Sonata, I would definitely need to spend way more time working on the Mozart Sonata.

Honestly though, I find everything difficult -- even the simplest Chopin waltz or Mozart sonata that's easily sight readable; however, the simplest Chopin waltzes could be memorized, polished, and ready to perform in a day or so while something like a Scriabin Sonata may take me more than 3+ months to just bring the notes to tempo because of the difficult rhythms and the technical obstacles to overcome.

[dima_76557]

@ lojay

I'll just answer all your questions in one move.

I put the "comparatively easy" in quotation marks (Oh, I did it again! ) because that is what you usually get for an answer in all those polls about difficult/more difficult/easy/not-so-easy. "It is actually easier than it looks", "It is only two pages", "If you have played X and Y, then you can certainly do it", etc. are some of the usual remarks regarding this piece. How far from the truth that is! When people say such things, they usually refer only to learning the notes and getting it up to tempo, etc, which is a piece of cake if you have learned certain skills. But the real work starts after that, and it may take a lifetime. Sviatoslav Richter, for example, played this particular prelude more than any other work in the whole piano literature, and every time, he managed to find something new in it.

Working in a masterclass with a genius is a very special experience; it may change your view of things for life, especially if the Master is in a good mood and actually wishes you well. I went there really well-prepared and I really thought I had that simple piece in my pocket. On the other hand, a Schubert sonata that I had thought I would be slaughtered in, even raised some highly flattering comments. You never know, and from that time I prefer to refrain from telling people what is easy and what is difficult.

[lojay]

I agree with you 100%.

I went there really well-prepared and I really thought I had that simple piece in my pocket. On the other hand, a Schubert sonata that I had thought I would be slaughtered in, even raised some highly flattering comments.

For me:
If I feel prepared, I'm usually not.
If I don't feel prepared, I'm screwed!

[jeffkonkol]

shifting this back to the performance, and away from some of the sniping.... (but come on... if you ask for criticism be thankful for it rather than defensive)

I think that there is compression in the recording, and that it kills some of the dynamic quality.  A lot of microphones have that side effect, and I believe that the color shift into the middle section would have been more pronounced in the hall itself.  Your body language didn't necessarily show much of a difference.  In any case, I would use that section to create a greater dynamic depth in the overall performance.  Loud + louder is a lot less moving than soft to loud, for instance.

I didn't have too many problems with the timing of the left hand.  You could benefit by controlling the volume of it a bit more as it would allow you more freedom of range in the right hand that it supports.... but I know that with this piece, that is easier said than done.

I thought your control of the closing sections was pretty solid.  There could be more power in the melody chords, but the supporting chords are fine where you have them.  I am actually glad that you didn't take the Horowitz route of completely killing the piano with the low D# octaves.

All in all, yes there were errors, but bravo :-)