Virtuosic Etudes for competition/competition audition recordings

[throwawaynotreally]

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[stevensk]

Wait whith the competitions till you  "gets 100% of the notes right" !  ..and can make music of those notes. (which is way more important!!).

[awesom_o]

I also recommend you wait until you are capable of technically-perfect, expressive playing before you apply for competitions.

If you are not yet ready to play highly-exposed pieces (like Chopin Etudes) with near-flawless execution, you are probably not ready for competitions.

[throwawaynotreally]

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[throwawaynotreally]

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[awesom_o]

Most of these errors (which actually don't happen as much as I think they do, come to think of it)  are a case of fingers barely audibly slightly brushing neighbouring notes...would that count as "near-flawless.
I compete a lot at national level, but it's international (U18) competitions I was looking at.

At this level, quality of tone, sophistication of phrasing, articulation, voicing, rubato, and pedaling all count for much more than finger scuffs.

The thing is, somebody who has all of those above-mentioned things in the quantities required to succeed at the international level will typically have very few, if any, noticeable scuffs.

[visitor]

You need to play a piece that you feel you totally own.  If you attempt to compete with something you doubt yourself on it will show in your performance and you'll portray a weaker musical picture as a result.  Better to play something not as difficult  as the next guy but play the hell out of it than to over reach and just be another pretty good renditions.  Pretty good doesn't win.

[j_menz]

Better to play something not as difficult  as the next guy but play the hell out of it than to over reach and just be another pretty good renditions.  Pretty good doesn't win.

+1

If you choose a piece for a competition or audition (or a concert), it is reasonable for the audience/judges to assume you believe you can play it and so be interested in what you do with it.

If it turns out you can't actually play it - that you are not in control of your choices - they have a right to be doubly disappointed. Not only is it not good, but you have wasted their time. It also reflects poorly on your judgement.

I may not agree with the choices someone is (actually) making, but they are always at least interesting. If they are not making choices, but merely doing the best hack job they can, it's profoundly dull.

[throwawaynotreally]

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[cabbynum]

Thank you all. Think about it, one of the biggest reasons why I'm choosing this is that I actually have the confidence to "own" it.

Listening to recordings of international competitors playing these virtuosic etudes, I think my previous projects can be comparable to theirs, but it's just that sometimes I have low confidence in certain sections of a piece, which probably shows.

Do you have good octaves? Because if the final section of the octave arpeggios isn't nailed then the whole piece falls apart. That's what it's building too you can't have any mistakes there or it sounds like crap. The middle section can have a few fudged notes and it's no big deal. But after those runs and the chromatic leaping octaves come in you have to be perfect. Even with those leaping chromatic octaves.
This is one if the easier transcendental etudes but it's still a transcendental etude so it's gonna be very challenging especially musically for this one. Creating the character that this piece depicts is quite difficult.

Liszt was a confident and cocky guy, try and channel your inner liszt whilst playing this. (Lolly there it almost rhymed

[throwawaynotreally]

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[cabbynum]

My octaves are one of the few qualities I can be proud of. I can play the section quite cleanly already, but I'll properly learn that section a bit later. I was afraid of one or two "fudged" notes here and there, but it seems to me that this kind of imperfection sounds good.
I like this etude because, well, it easy enough technically for my standards, and there's a lot of character in it, so it'll show off quite a lot for me, and hopefully expose a bit less flaws.

It's considered a virtuoso etude right?

It is a virtuoso etude.

I mean obviously we want to strive for zero missed notes. But you can't always do that. I mean unless you're ABM... But he's a little too amazing for the rest of this world ...

Anyway. I'm gonna give some extremely cliche advice.

Practice extremely slowly , count, always place your fingers in the center of the key when going slow. If you can play certain chunks at full tempo, great! Now stop that and play everything evenly! Just slowly bring everything up to tempo.
Have you looked at the douze grandes etude version of this? It's a lot more fun...

[throwawaynotreally]

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[awesom_o]

But you can't always do that. I mean unless you're ABM... But he's a little too amazing for the rest of this world ...

Nothing against ABM, of course, but I strongly suspect that if he had actually performed Chopin Etudes, he would have had to live with the occasional missed note like the rest of the world's elite concert pianists. 

[throwawaynotreally]

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[awesom_o]

Of course!

[cabbynum]

Of course!

I agree with you there, but what he has recorded. Holy cow! Perfect in my opinion. Musically and technically. Listen to op.111 wow...

[awesom_o]

Absolutely! Everything he recorded remains superb to this day.

It's strange though, given his high standards of technical and interpretive perfection, that he never recorded the complete Chopin Etudes.