Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata 3rd movement (Presto Adagiato)

[stylerpiano]

Hello All!

This is my practice of playing Moonlight Sonata 3rd movement.
The speed is not 100% yet. You said on this forum, that I must learn some faster piece after Pathetique and Chopin Nocturne, so I learned it.

I have been playing piano for 3 years now.
I must take an exam after the next week, and this will be one of the three piece what I will play(Pathetique 2nd movement, Chopin Nocturne op9.no2. and Moonlight 3rd). (Moonlight 3rd will be only for fun, because it's not 100% ready, but my teacher said that I must play it)


P.S.: My piano record the sound very low and when I put a compressor to boost the sound level, then the dinamics a little bit gone.

[pjjslp]

Have you done much practicing with a metronome? The tempo changes pretty drastically from one section to another. Also, in my opinion, you may want to lay off the pedal a bit. As you increase the tempo, some passages will start to sound pretty muddy with that much pedal. Otherwise, you seem to have a good start! It's a very challenging piece.

[stylerpiano]

Have you done much practicing with a metronome? The tempo changes pretty drastically from one section to another. Also, in my opinion, you may want to lay off the pedal a bit. As you increase the tempo, some passages will start to sound pretty muddy with that much pedal. Otherwise, you seem to have a good start! It's a very challenging piece.

Sometimes I practice with metronome. I will practice this pience with metronome in the next days until exam. There are some tempo change in my playing on video yes.

[stylerpiano]

Have you done much practicing with a metronome? The tempo changes pretty drastically from one section to another. Also, in my opinion, you may want to lay off the pedal a bit. As you increase the tempo, some passages will start to sound pretty muddy with that much pedal. Otherwise, you seem to have a good start! It's a very challenging piece.

"you may want to lay off the pedal a bit" - I have a quiestion about pedal in this piece. Somebody says that the piece need lots of half pedaling, somebody says(as my teacher too), that play the piece without any pedal.

Which is true?

[pjjslp]

"you may want to lay off the pedal a bit" - I have a quiestion about pedal in this piece. Somebody says that the piece need lots of half pedaling, somebody says(as my teacher too), that play the piece without any pedal.

Which is true?

When I play it, I use pedal where Beethoven indicated and then where I need it to keep the flow, for instance to sustain a chord while my hand jumps to another chord. I definitely don't use pedal, for example, on the scale passages in the right hand (m. 33-35, 37-40, etc.) or on the opening arpeggio passages. Where I do pedal, it's rarely held down for long. I can't really half pedal well on my digital piano so I try to be cautious. I do find it's a bit dry and choppy in some places without any pedal at all.

[stylerpiano]

New version in conservatorie (acoustic piano - Bössendorfer):

Piano is old

[tenk]

You have it memorized, which itself is an accomplishment, but definitely some areas of concern technique-wise. In my opinion the two biggest faults appear in the first 30 seconds:

1) Your playing appears tense, and your fingers are like little hammers with very little involvement of anything above your wrist (elbow, arm, shoulder, body). It may be the camera angle, but the opening arpeggios seems to played with only finger-action, and not incorporating any wrist rotation.

2) In some cases, such as around 0:23, your pinky looks completely flat, and your wrist is almost collapsed below the key line. This is a recipe for future struggles with tension as your repertoire increases, and will hamper your playing at best or cause pain/damage at worst. You are losing the natural curvature in your hands/fingers and therefore will have great difficulty in getting a concert tone without straining to accomplish it.

Anything to do with phrasing, pedal, etc. is a distance 3rd place these issues.

I'm not sure who said you should "learn something faster" after Pathetique and Chopin Noctures, but Moonlight 3rd Mvmt is definitely not what I would have recommended. People probably get tired of seeing me say this but with your technique as it is, I would recommend spending a good deal of time with Bach Little Preludes/Fugues, then Inventions/Sinfonias and WTK. You want to get pieces such as those to a point where your playing is fluid and effortless, then consider moving up to more difficult repertoire.

All that said, kudos do you for posting! Not an easy thing to be willing to hear critiques from other players. Best of luck on your exam.