20th Century Music Technicalities

[002517]

Hello. I am learning my first 20th Century piece called "Sonate Pour Deux Violons Et Piano" by Darius Milhaud but am a bit confused about some things, some of which can extend to other pieces in general.

Have a look at my attachments; I have annotated the areas which I have trouble with.

Page 1:

1. Firstly, there is the time signature "4" with no denominator and I am not sure how to interpret this. The beat values add up to 4/4 in every bar, so it must be "4/4" but why wasn't this written instead?

2. Secondly, there is a 4 octave chord that I cannot reach and cannot play together at once; how are you supposed to play this? Are you meant to arpeggiate it?

3. Lastly, I can't hold the bottom chord while playing the top notes; it is too far for me to reach, so what should I do? Am I not supposed to play this at all?

The rest of the pages (Page 2 and Page 4) are just fingering queries; they're also annotated and if you could help me with those that would be great.

Thank you.

By the way, this is my first post ever here, so I hope I'm not being too demanding.  

[002517]

Hm... I can't seem to attach anything... It always comes up with "Server Error".

[002517]

There we go. I think the file size was just too big. Have a look. 

[theholygideons]

ok for the first page, play the fifth in the bass as a grace note, don't arpeggiate it or you will lose the rhythmic element.

ok for page 2, the fingering is 12345, you can't do 12135 cos it takes too long for your thumb to move under lololol. you'll just have to stretch a bit