Recordings of Chopin; Beethoven and Bach - what's your opinion?

[panolof]

Hey
Well this is my 2nd time posting as I got no feedback in the performance section. I think it was the wrong section😅

The four links are below.
I previously posted Chopin's Ballade no 3 on pianostreet, and I got great feedback. A really great forum, because of great people. Thank you 😉

What's your opinions - truthfully.

Old post:

New Posts:
1. Bach Prelude and Fugue BWV 847in c minor

2. Beethoven Sonata No 9 Op. 14 No. 1 in E major

3. Chopin Etude Op. 10 No. 8 in F major

4. Chopin Ballade No 3 Op. 47

Constructive criticism is perfect! 😉👌

Pano

[torandrekongelf]

I never get any reply on anything I post either. So you should not be let down about that.

I think your playing is great. If I was to critique anything it would be matters of taste and such which is pointless. You seem in great control, give character to the piece and I hear that you own them pretty well. My suggestion is only that you continue on what you are doing.

[panolof]

Hey torandrekongelf

I really appreciate it. I don't have wifi, only data, at the moment so looking at your recordings is impossible.

I've noticed, the more one posts the more experience one gains on how to use these forums.
Never be let down by that.

Have a great December, and I'm looking forward to hearing your recordings, i think the one was Beethoven's appasionata sonata.

Best wishes Pano

[chopinlover01]

Listening to the Chopin etude now.
The fact that it's 3 minutes long is telling 
With all due respect, mate, you aren't ready if this is your recording tempo. You're making modern Ivo Pogorelich sound fast...
All sarcastic remarks, here's my critique; you aren't ready, and the reason I say that is because it's clear you aren't able to play this any faster than you already are. You're not doing it for artistic reasons (and even if you were I'd still have to question how exactly this tempo conveys sunshine).
You're also speeding up all the areas you know well, but stumbling the ones you don't. Common student thing, but you can't do it with repertoire like this. That being said, your ending wasn't terrible.
Ballade;
Overall the whole thing feels choppy and heavy, especially those trills before the arpeggios. Your ending to the A section wasn't terrible
Also, you let the A section drip into the B section because of your pedal. Sometimes this isn't huge, but in a case like this, the first theme is sweet and sometimes big, and the second one is light and dancelike; you want it to be two clear themes.
Some incorrect voicings in the RH and LH. Very muddy as well.
The whole piece is really metronomic, in fact. That, along with the constant pedaling, is probably my biggest with your playing XD
Alright, the third section; the really light and fast stuff.
Needs to be light, and fast XD It's currently neither. Make sure you aren't holding any tension in your wrist, and your arm carries your fingers. Your bass is also very overpowering, amplified by the pedal, though that could be a recording issue.
Your trills need some work overall, especially in the beginning like I mentioned before.
The bass line in the C# minor section, in the beginning, really should be a soft growling, slowly growing.
Your climax in the C# minor isn't bad, but again it feels like it's holding back because I can hear a n imaginary metronome going in the back of your mind 
The coda also suffers from the same issue, as well as the middle voices being too dominant.
The stretto section has no energy to it, and again, the metronome is ticking! I just hear chords being played, rather than energy building up to a theme coming back again.
As for the final runs, again, they lack oomph because of the control and lack of speed. It's better to be slower and not be a mess, but with repertoire like this, if you're going to actually record it (for whatever purpose, even just youtube) you need to be able to do both, lol.
Moving on to Bach:
Prelude: One of the things you need to decide is how you want to pulse it. Right now it's just one note after another, sometimes a sort of half note pulse, but you should decide if you want to pulse to the quarter bar, half bar, or the entire bar (it's even possible to pulse every 2 bars, since that's when the harmonies change). But, all things considered, not bad. This is the kind of repertoire you should work on to improve a lot
Also, just an optional thing, one thing you can do in the section right before the presto, is hold those first three notes; this was a common Baroque practice called finger pedaling (still used a lot today, just slightly differently than back then when they didn't have pedals) and it was used to hold the harmony while you were improvising something else. I hold these down for this piece, and I think you should too
Good job with the presto.
With the adagio, a couple of things; one, I'd take the decoration lines a little faster to convey the idea better. Also, with the mordent, it's only one turn, you played it as a slow trill.
The fugue, I have nothing to comment on, it was quite good!
I'll listen to the Beethoven in a minute

[panolof]

Listening to the Chopin etude now.
The fact that it's 3 minutes long is telling  
With all due respect, mate, you aren't ready if this is your recording tempo. You're making modern Ivo Pogorelich sound fast...
All sarcastic remarks, here's my critique; you aren't ready, and the reason I say that is because it's clear you aren't able to play this any faster than you already are. You're not doing it for artistic reasons (and even if you were I'd still have to question how exactly this tempo conveys sunshine).
You're also speeding up all the areas you know well, but stumbling the ones you don't. Common student thing, but you can't do it with repertoire like this. That being said, your ending wasn't terrible.
Ballade;
Overall the whole thing feels choppy and heavy, especially those trills before the arpeggios. Your ending to the A section wasn't terrible
Also, you let the A section drip into the B section because of your pedal. Sometimes this isn't huge, but in a case like this, the first theme is sweet and sometimes big, and the second one is light and dancelike; you want it to be two clear themes.
Some incorrect voicings in the RH and LH. Very muddy as well.
The whole piece is really metronomic, in fact. That, along with the constant pedaling, is probably my biggest with your playing XD
Alright, the third section; the really light and fast stuff.
Needs to be light, and fast XD It's currently neither. Make sure you aren't holding any tension in your wrist, and your arm carries your fingers. Your bass is also very overpowering, amplified by the pedal, though that could be a recording issue.
Your trills need some work overall, especially in the beginning like I mentioned before.
The bass line in the C# minor section, in the beginning, really should be a soft growling, slowly growing.
Your climax in the C# minor isn't bad, but again it feels like it's holding back because I can hear a n imaginary metronome going in the back of your mind  
The coda also suffers from the same issue, as well as the middle voices being too dominant.
The stretto section has no energy to it, and again, the metronome is ticking! I just hear chords being played, rather than energy building up to a theme coming back again.
As for the final runs, again, they lack oomph because of the control and lack of speed. It's better to be slower and not be a mess, but with repertoire like this, if you're going to actually record it (for whatever purpose, even just youtube) you need to be able to do both, lol.
Moving on to Bach:
Prelude: One of the things you need to decide is how you want to pulse it. Right now it's just one note after another, sometimes a sort of half note pulse, but you should decide if you want to pulse to the quarter bar, half bar, or the entire bar (it's even possible to pulse every 2 bars, since that's when the harmonies change). But, all things considered, not bad. This is the kind of repertoire you should work on to improve a lot
Also, just an optional thing, one thing you can do in the section right before the presto, is hold those first three notes; this was a common Baroque practice called finger pedaling (still used a lot today, just slightly differently than back then when they didn't have pedals) and it was used to hold the harmony while you were improvising something else. I hold these down for this piece, and I think you should too
Good job with the presto.
With the adagio, a couple of things; one, I'd take the decoration lines a little faster to convey the idea better. Also, with the mordent, it's only one turn, you played it as a slow trill.
The fugue, I have nothing to comment on, it was quite good!
I'll listen to the Beethoven in a minute

I want say a huge, thank you.
In the next couple of weeks I will take great note of all that you have said. At the moment, I'm about to head off to bed so I've taken your experienced critisism lightly.
Alot of it is intersting to say the least. With the metronome remark in the ballade, I actually have never used a metronome, but keeping my playing metronomical is something that I thought was of  importance, even with the performers rubati and all in Romantic music.

With the Chopin étude: I picked it up two days before recording it - for a competition recording round.
It sounds better then last time(roundabout a year ago) but I can easily speed it up. I didn't know the tempo was of so much importance in this piece. My teacher left it as it was in the past, and even now.
I'll have to do some self studing of the tempo Chopin left. Anyways two minutes I reckon I'm capable of, I just have to perfect the right hand legato before upping the tempo.

In the prelude, the advice you give is something my teacher told me but I seemed to have forgot.
The pulse is in minims. Listening back to the recording yesterday I noticed a change in pulse - minims at the beginning to crotchets before the presto section.

The advice you have given me will not be ignored, I can assure you of that - even discussing it means I've gained some insight. So you can rest assured that that was a worthwile critique.

Thank you Chopinlover01
By the way, my favorite composer is Chopin