A work still in progress - Chopin 25/6

[jimroof]

I have been doing a diary in the Performance forum of my progress with this.  It is STILL not performance ready and there are definitely little hiccups and inconsistencies.  Velocity lacks about 10-12% as well. 

I will get this thing under my belt.  Got a ways to go yet...  but here it is for now...

[kawai_cs]

Great work in progress! Sounds like you will be there in no time. Musically very pleasing.
Congratulations!

[ahoffmann]

Well done!
I think you can relax about the speed now. It's really not suffering from lack of speed.
What I'd work on mostly from now on is lightness and accuracy of touch. You might find it becomes easier to play faster after that too.

At this point I think you've shown without a doubt that you can handle this piece.

[pjjslp]

Wow! Very nicely played! Impressive progress since the last recording you posted.

May I ask whether you are learning this piece to perform or purely for enjoyment and challenge? Just curious.

[jimroof]

Wow! Very nicely played! Impressive progress since the last recording you posted.

May I ask whether you are learning this piece to perform or purely for enjoyment and challenge? Just curious.

Mostly... torture.

No, I always wanted to learn this for my own enjoyment and sense of accomplishment.  It is purely personal at this point, though I would like to get this up to performance standards as the final goal.  That would mean getting the tempo from about 60 (half note...) to closer to 70.  I took my recording and sped it up 10% today to see how ~67 would sound.  That would be a good performance tempo, but in order to perform it at that tempo I would need to be able to practice it around 72 I think.  Need to have some headroom built into it.

[pjjslp]

Mostly... torture.

No, I always wanted to learn this for my own enjoyment and sense of accomplishment.  It is purely personal at this point, though I would like to get this up to performance standards as the final goal.

Very cool. I'm glad to know I'm not the only crazy one working on difficult pieces for their own sake, even when it gets torturous and frustrating at times. I've been on a journey to learn the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata (lifelong goal) and relearn the first two, but I'm not as brave as you to share recordings. I think you will get where you want to be with this piece.

[chopinlover01]

Nicely done!
I would call the current tempo a very good tempo for performance, actually. My main complaint would be that the thirds are somewhat metallic and heavy sounding (though that could just as well be recording equipment).

[jimroof]

Nicely done!
I would call the current tempo a very good tempo for performance, actually. My main complaint would be that the thirds are somewhat metallic and heavy sounding (though that could just as well be recording equipment).

I recorded this with a small Olympus stereo recorder and it was placed on the seat cushion right next to me.  I am not sure if I succeeded in getting the auto-gain and compression turned off.  It could also be my piano.  It is a Yamaha U1D upright that has seen a lot of hours.  Recently had the hammers re-shaped but they came out a bit on the hard side and had some voicing work done too.  Still sounds pretty bright to my ears as well, in person.  The room is also not very large and there is not a lot of sound absorption.

I think I need to experiment with some various placements for the recorder to see if I can achieve a more mellow and round sound. 

[briansaddleback]

Jim you have done an excellent job on this one thus far. Lot of painstaking work has produced a beautiful rendition along w your educational blog thread on your progress. Cheers.

[toughbo]

I don't know jimroof, this is really starting to sound like music to me :-)

[adodd81802]

Great progress on this, I imagine you'll smash 3rds going forward after getting this piece finished. Not sure if it would inspire you or shoot you down, but there's another posting of this piece by a pianist called electrafingers I believe, I cannot tell if it's legit, or if they are a fantastic amateur or very dodgy professional, but it might give you some ideas!

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=31055.0

[pencilart3]

Nice job. This sounds exactly like the place I was at when I ditched it in frustration

[jimroof]

Nice job. This sounds exactly like the place I was at when I ditched it in frustration

Why would you give up on it when it was 85% there?  Did you reach a plateau at that level that persisted for months?

[pencilart3]

Yes exactly. I couldn't go forward any more so I said heck with it. I might pick it up again one of these weeks.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I don't think the velocity is really the issue here, tbh. The rh needs to be lighter, to shimmer. If it's lighter, I suspect it will give the illusion of velocity. The other thing which you need to do is to eliminate the tempo inconsistencies: there are little surges here and there. Could be adrenalin but I suspect it's because you are preoccupied with increasing the velocity and it manifests itself in you pushing the tempo in the "easier" (so to speak) bits. Other than that, you're doing fine; it is hellishly difficult.

[adodd81802]

Jim,

Have you seen Paul Barton's exercise tips on this piece? He gave me the impression that the real focus is on the top melody notes and so practice can be done by playing this piece as single notes, with just the outer 3/4/5 and get that up to speed.

He also compared it to being very similar to OP 10/2 in terms of the difficulty.

[jimroof]

I don't think the velocity is really the issue here, tbh. The rh needs to be lighter, to shimmer. If it's lighter, I suspect it will give the illusion of velocity. The other thing which you need to do is to eliminate the tempo inconsistencies: there are little surges here and there. Could be adrenalin but I suspect it's because you are preoccupied with increasing the velocity and it manifests itself in you pushing the tempo in the "easier" (so to speak) bits. Other than that, you're doing fine; it is hellishly difficult.

Other than recordings made in the 1950's and earlier - EVERYONE has tempo inconsistencies throughout this piece.  Some of mine are likely due to technical issues, but many are a conscious decision.  In fact, when I have this under my belt, there will likely be some spots where they are even more apparent.  I was listening to Kissin's version and he does something very funny...  The broken G7 thirds are very easy, but the set of F7 broken thirds that follow are anything BUT easy.  Kissin plays the G7 set with a rubato in an interesting place that he then repeats for the F7.  I guess it just so happens that the rubato just so happens to line up with the toughest spot of the F7 measures.  It's as if he sets up the listener for the rubato that he wants to use to ease over a rough spot.  Not sure what the shape of his hands are, but it can be very difficult to to work in and out of the black keys in the F7 passage.  If he has pudgy fingers that might explain his take on this spot.

My Chopin has always been pretty free of a metronomic feeling.  It is a matter of taste, I guess.  I recall being called out pretty strongly for my rubato in a ballade just months after I won a piano competition with the very same rendition being the centerpiece of the program. 

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I completely agree it shouldn't be metronomic in nature. It's always difficult, as a listener, to know how much rubato is genuine rubato, and how much is expedience/accident; the person who knows best is almost invariably the performer! Anyway, though I haven't really been following your progress thread on this piece, it's obvious you are most of the way there.