Rachmaninoff Prelude Op 32 No 10

[erick86]

It's amazing how much you learn about yourself just by simply hitting the record button once in a while, and being your own critic. 

This is my first time posting my playing here.  I'm eager to hear your personal impression and suggestions, as that is precisely why I am putting this out there. 

Couple of comments:

The two most difficult things about this piece for me, are:

1.  Having a nice, perfectly flowing, evenly phrased melodic line in the largo sections
2.  Playing repeated bazillion-note-chords at volume ffffff without sounding like a whale convulsing on the keyboard.  I have watched countless youtube vids of this piece where the "climax" was just horrifyingly pounded out with no musicality.  Basically, the challenge is finding a way to calm the *** down, yet still capture the absolute desperation and agony that is being depicted by Rachmaninoff.  That is the real trick of this piece that i'm not yet satisfied with in my own playing.   

Additional note: Yes, the recording "equipment" sucks.  It's my tablet.  It has a way of trying to equalize the volume of anything it picks up, which makes legato sound much more clunky and linear.  Although Let's be honest it's not as legato as it could be anyways. 

I'm interested in hearing your suggestions on mics that are less than $100.

merci beaucoup, tout le monde.

Eric

[verqueue]

I play it too recently, so I've seeds of my interpretation in my mind.
I would play the first and last part of this piece softer. I think you can add more accel in poco piu mosso section. For me your performance is a little monotonous. The stormy section compared to the others should be like in different worlds. The articulation in melody should be different in these sections for me.
Because you play these stormy chords so soft I think there are at the beginning of this section almost meaningless without power.
For me in this piece is desperation mixed with total calm and perspective. In your performance I don't hear desperation .
I think that it may be that too slow tempo stops you from maintaining a flow.
Of course, it's just an opinion and my feeling of this piece.

My approach is more histerical, I think I'm an example of convulsing whale (if you are curious it's here: https://youtu.be/gcqCLNOyb40) and still far from perfect. I'm also at the stage when I'm looking for more interpretation clues.

[erick86]

Thanks for the feedback!  It is greatly appreciated! 

Just a comment about the beginning and ending being too slow, I did listen to your recording of it and had a question as to the speed that you play through the quarter note beats in relation to how you initially set the tempo with the opening triplet.  Either the opening triplet is being played half of its written speed, or the quarter note chords or 'bells' are being played at twice their written speed. 

Not sure if that makes sense, but I'm not feeling 4 beats per bar. 

I'm wondering if you cheat those quarter beats intentionally (like vladmir ashkenazy does, very similarly).  Sooo different than the score!! 

Here's a version with the beginning played closer to how it is written by Steve Osborne.

   From the very first opening triplet, start counting 1-2-3 for each quarter note, with there being four sets triplets per bar.  Between each bell, there should be one full 1-2-3 of rest between the upper bell and the lower bell, and I find I don't even barely get to "2" and you and ashkenazy are already onto the next 'bell' chord. 

Trust me I not criticizing how you play it, because clearly it seems strangely out of the norm to play it more true to the score.  I'm just curious is this intentional exaggerated rubato?

[verqueue]

Thanks for the feedback too! For me it's still in progress (I play it for a little more than month), so there are a lot of mistakes in my playing - for example the stormy part is in a completely different tempo...
The thing about you mentioned - I didn't do it intentionally. I think I just used to this after listening the recordings (I liked Ashkenazy)... Rhythm and pulse will be the first thing I'm going to change in my performance of this piece, I like Osborne's performance more.
With real rhythm it is harder to play the beginning softer, maybe that's the reason why people are doing it (but Ashkenazy? he could do it...). Or maybe it's because they are playing triplets in stormy section faster and when they try to fit the tempo of the beginning to this tempo it doesn't sound good?

Thank you, because without you I would miss this important issue (don't have a teacher).

[erick86]

I think that is so wild about this prelude -- more than all the other preludes, I think this is the one with the most varied interpretations. 

 

Eric 

[goldentone]

2.  Playing repeated bazillion-note-chords at volume ffffff without sounding like a whale convulsing on the keyboard.  I have watched countless youtube vids of this piece where the "climax" was just horrifyingly pounded out with no musicality.  

The middle section is emotionally intense, yes.  A titanic struggle Rach depicts here.  No need to put the piano in agony, though.  Somehow we must be able to create the intensity from within without it physically taxing the ears to the multi-molto fortissimo (Say that 20 times as fast as you can).  I would supply the softer flesh tones as your own feedback to calibrate the sound commensurately to the need (as we can magnify the mote in our piano's eye) without applying that harsh edge, but you could be by the Pacific for all I know.  It's a challenging, supreme kind of piece.  Godspeed.