Chopin 10/8

[awesom_o]

My own personal favourite Chopin Etude for general swashbuckling flavour.

[chicoscalco]

Very impressive playing, very professional as I said before. I like how it's very noticeable how you like to play this etude. You seem very well acquainted with it.

[awesom_o]

I think it's certainly the most joyful of all 24! Quite a few of them are slightly melancholy. Some are menacing, some are bitter-sweet. This one for me really represents the great joy that is piano-playing!

The middle section and the coda are frighteningly difficult to play cleanly!

[noambenhamou]

Wow, is anyone listening to that right hand? I've never even looked at this one closely but I bet it's so easy to make it sound "fingery".

That right hand is so smooth and progressive for lack of better vocabulary.

I've heard this one alot, this is my favorite recording.

That steinway D is no turd either is it? hahaha

[awesom_o]

It took quite a while to make the RH that smooth. I'm talking years, not months!

But the REAL melody is in the LH!

That D is a very powerful instrument. I do recommend the combo of NY Steinway + Abel hammers.

[noambenhamou]

Yes when I had my NY D and didn't like it I was recommended by an "expert" to put abel hammers. He said it completely transforms a NY Steinway. But I wasn't going to alter a new piano.

Yeah, I've heard this etude so many times, I don't even listen to the LH anymore. I'm over the LH on this one haha

[awesom_o]

The thing with a NY D is that it takes quite a while to break in. Hamburg D's come virtually perfect out of the box. NY D's come out of the box needing about two full days of voicing work from a concert technician.

There is a big problem with high worker turnover at the NY Steinway factory. People work there for a few years, then leave and go work for a rebuilder somewhere, or they start their own rebuilding business.

At the German Steinway factory, people keep their jobs their for decades....

In the German Steinway factory, workers are paid by piecework. In NY, workers are paid an hourly wage.

You can imagine how this might impact quality of workmanship!

However, I will say based on my not inconsiderable experience that NY D's often age more gracefully than German D's. The soundboard design is different, as are the hammers themselves.

German D's undoubtedly project over the orchestra better. NY D's need a tone of dope on the hammers to project as well, and that often makes them sound kind of nasty.