Piano Forum



International Piano Day 2024
Piano Day is an annual worldwide event that takes place on the 88th day of the year, which in 2024 is March 28. Established in 2015, it is now well known across the globe. Every year it provokes special concerts, onstage and online, as well as radio shows, podcasts, and playlists. Read more >>

Topic: Pieces to prepare me for Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2  (Read 2355 times)

Offline spenstar

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 44
Pieces to prepare me for Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
on: April 15, 2016, 03:56:15 PM
I want to learn Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, but its still a bit out of my level and I don't wanna just learn it anyways because that would end up ruining it.  So what are some good pieces to prepare me for all the difficult things encountered in it?
Sign up for a Piano Street membership to download this piano score.
Sign up for FREE! >>

Offline visitor

  • PS Silver Member
  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 5289
Re: Pieces to prepare me for Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
Reply #1 on: April 17, 2016, 12:08:03 PM
The question you pose is mire appropriste at beginner through early advanced stages and also more futting in the context of a graded and progressive  repertoire teaching series.

pieces at.this level and similar usally fall beyond that context. Its the type of question that usually is best answered by "if you have to ask then you are not ready"

Geberally you will want to be familar w having a high achievement.level of
1. Multiple other liszt works from his output at this time wuith similar stylistic charactertistics
2. Other "hungarian" or "hungarian sounding works"
3. Other works if similar length or longer

You eventually will be able to guage your skill set and learning capabilities to the point where you can visually browse the score and just sort of know in your mind , yes or no, in terms of being able  to handle it

the best approach is just start learning it. btw.you dint always have to start at the beginning, pick the hardest sections first.  After about 4-6 weeks see how far you progress, if you still struggle it means its beyond you at the moment so best to play some other works and then revisit the work in 6 months to a year and re evaluate your learning pace.

Offline mjames

  • PS Silver Member
  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 2553
Re: Pieces to prepare me for Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
Reply #2 on: April 17, 2016, 02:50:59 PM
I don't think I dislike these kind of posts anymore, I understand now. There are two possibilities that come to mind when someone asks this:

1. Like Visitor said, definitely not skilled enough to attempt this
2. Or, is skilled enough but wants to address certain technical parts in the piece that might be his/her weak points in other works.

So going along with #2, along with what Visitor said, I would look for pieces that address your weak-points. I don't know your weaknesses so I'll just go along with mine (even though I'm way too behind to even thinking about tackling this)..

La Campenella certainly focuses on aspects of tremolos and stuff all over the keyboard:



Similar style in use of ornamentation/grace notes and scale runs


Good piece to further develop your voicing skills in octaves



+be skilled in working with large scale works (9mins+), though I feel like this aspect of the piece wouldn't be too hard to grasp. To me it isn't musically dense, and the music is pretty straightforward and transparent.

Don't have to be these etudes or etudes in general, I'm just listing pieces I would work on before working on HR because they address the stuff I would have issues with.
 

Logo light pianostreet.com - the website for classical pianists, piano teachers, students and piano music enthusiasts.

Subscribe for unlimited access

Sign up

Follow us

Piano Street Digicert