Looking for advice on the Grieg Piano Concerto

[rspianist]

Hello all! This is my first post here - thank you to those who read/reply!

I am a high school student, but I have studied at the Manhattan School of Music PreCollege for 10 years. That is to say, I am relatively advanced. However, the Grieg is my first concerto! I've got about 2 months to learn the first movement which is not very much time at all. I could really use any advice you have for tackling it. Mostly, I'm concerned with the volume - there's just so much to do. How do you guys organize your practice time with such a large work?

Also, if it helps, I do not need to memorize it. Just learn it to a performance-ready level.

Please help me out, I really am quite desperate!

Thank you!

[visitor]

Number your measures if your edition doesn't. That's what I did when I set out to learn my first concerto to play w a conductor and ensemble in concert.  

Then begin outlining phrases or small sections ie 4 or 8 mm chunks. You can use letter or Roman numerals for these

Allocate how many you must learn each day to be completely done by 15 days or so from your deadline. Yes.  If you are not ready two weeks away from your  rehearsals w your accompanist you are not ready.  You should know the work better than the conductor.  Study the piano II reduction too.  You don't need to be able to play it but you must  know the music and score.  Your teacher should  guide you along.

Hopefully you are not too fond of the concerto.  Because you will likely be sick of it for a while ( two years later as I still cannot stand to listen or play my old concerto).  It is a wonderful way to ruin a work for yourself .  There are exceptions ie if you have a longer amount of time to learn it but prepare yourself mentally and emotionally to need Tobattle through the piece when you start tiring of it

When also organize the piece by periods. It outline the form.  Each day you should be pulling phrases to learn from each section.  That means you will be jumping around a lot at first . Each day you'll want to review precious section and link them to that days learned phrases. This means you play more and more of it the further along you get.  Usually you should be playing the whole thing through roughly by your 50%mark. So that means you really have 30 days to learn the bones of it.
Then 15 days to being it up to snuff

Not a lot of time unless you are unusually gifted w rapid leaning.  Shame on your school if this is the first big project like this they give you under such a strict deadline.  But it is doable with a high level of natural skill, good guidance,  ad lots of plain old hard work/ie lots and lots of time

[8_octaves]

Hi rspianist,

cannot help with manual or "by heart" issues, but some general ideas (of course of subjective value) making associations may be allowed:

The Grieg concerto:

Norway! Severe cold! Fiords! Vast icy landscape! Dark, sinister forests! Primal mountains, glaciers, and devastating storms roaring through them!!

Norway! A tough human race, whose individuals inhabit the -partly hostile, partly friendly- country, but there are elves and dwarves, goblins, gnomes, giants and trolls, too... .

Expertly braided (or "pigtailed"), fair and beautiful damsels,   who dance the traditional round dances, and young, strong swains, who try to pay their respect to them:

Bring that to life! Awake them!! Be part of them, while learning it!

Greetings from 8_octaves!

[thalbergmad]

Problem solved then, just think about expertly braided damsels.

If you were learning Beethoven, then you would think about beer cellars, iron crosses and leather pants.

Thal

[8_octaves]

Problem solved then, just think about expertly braided damsels.

If you were learning Beethoven, then you would think about beer cellars, iron crosses and leather pants.

Thal

Super, thalberg 

Very many greetings from: 8_oct! 

[diomedes]

Find the nastiest technical spot in the movement and work from there. Find the second nastiest spot and start that at the same time. And then casually work on a couple spots from other parts of the movement. I'm not familiar with this concerto, looks like the second theme with those double notes (or is it a closing theme?) since it appears twice and deal with the cadenza.

What's the occasion you're learning this for, an orchestra rehearsal?

And then think vikings. Maybe a dragon or two. Perhaps a big hairy beast.
 
When i learn Scriabin i think inappropriate thoughts, weightless floating bottles of alcohol and sensory overload. Maybe some drugs on the side.