Rachmaninoff Sonata 2 movement 1

[classicalnhiphop]

How hard is this piece to learn, just the first mov for now.  ya, i know that people don't like these posts, but there is very little info online about this piece.  Also, do people play the Rach revision or the Horowitz revision more, or which is more widely accepted.  Just wondering how much of a beast this piece is really.  Thanks again guys

[mjames]

Technical and musical difficulties are on par with the concertos, and I've heard pianists play the Rach revision more often.

[awesom_o]

I play the original version, myself.

It is very difficult, although not as difficult as the 1st Sonata.

The original is a big thick. The revision is a bit thin. Most people play the revised version, as it's quite a bit shorter overall. Some people go for a mix of both, a la Horowitz.

Good luck with the piece! Post a recording when you're happy with it!

[pytheamateur]

Ashkenazy has his own patchwork revised version apparently.

[visitor]

Again as the old,adage says, if you have to ask you probabably can't _________...


I am being serious.  Think about it.  For example, if you are at a level 10 of 10 in terms of  possesion if basic technical apparatus and in creative but appropriate expression and Interpreative skills, you should be able to look at just about any score from 8/10 down to 1/10. And almost immediately know how difficult it would be for you and how long it would take to learn which could range for. Sight read at respectable finish to working on it for a few months.  

If you look at a score and cannot make a fundamental judgement on its relative and subjective difficulty, then it indicates a big whopping hole in your experience with other literature of similar difficulty and and inability to study scorser for the basic demands it will require of the performer.

Ask yourself.  Do you have to ask this question of pieces of music at the same level as works you learned in your first or second year of study of the instrument.  Similar deal but on a larger scale for these mammoth works of the standard.  

If you will just poke around  in it for your own personal study , hey have at it.  If you are considering the work for formal study and performance, I would caution you to table it ( it's not a never, just a best if not now...l) and look to eithe ra similar large scale work of considerable less complexity or a similarly complex but much much smaller piece of music.

[steinway43]

I strictly play the original. To me Rachmaninoff's revision was a gutting of the first, it seems mutilated to me. And if you look at his letter to Medtner about it he was afraid of boring people with something too long, and in my opinion it's not too long, in the right hands of course. I think his worry about boring people was just paranoia. Apparently he thought a single cough from the audience meant they wanted to leave.

Before I started learning it my teacher and I went back and forth over which version I should go with, but in the end he said, "Maybe you're right, and maybe the fact that he told Horowitz to make his own version suggests that once he started second guessing himself he didn't really know what to do, or where to stop revising."

There are places where memorization was harder for me. And of course it requires the most of your abilities, technically. Just be patient.

[aklvkk]

The original is a monster though. It also depends on you technical capacity/ability, as well as patience.

[mjames]

Yeah man, let's all comment on a post that's almost 6 months old.

[classicalnhiphop]

ya, i know I'm digging up old stuff.  But I'm thinking of just taking on the first movement as a side project.  Unless it goes faster and better than I think I will, I probably won't be using it for competitions for pre-collegiate.  Does this sound like a good idea?