Need help with Träumerei [Kinderszenen] by R. Schumann

[JimDunlop]

This bloke must've had some enormous hands!  I thought I was doing well and I was pretty proud of myself being able to play a 10th.

But THIS:




How should I play this?  The score doesn't call for a broken chord like it does in measures 3 and 7 for instance.  Plus, the LH is happily playing a 10th of its own, so it's not available to help the RH.

This isn't the first time I've encountered this.  I've found some other classical and jazz pieces that have a similar situation.  But I never quite know how to handle it.

Thanks everyone!! :-)

[Floristan]

OK.  So you can play the 10th unbroken, right?  So is the problem the chord in the right hand?  The bottom two notes are played by the thumb, if that helps.

[JimDunlop]

Hmm... I think so...    Ok.. I think I got it... But that's gonna take some practice and getting used to...  (I'm also trying this again after a couple hours of playing... Maybe my fingers stretched out in that time.  I dunno...)   

Um, so what does a person who can't reach a 10th do out of curiosity?

[Daniel_piano]

Ironically Schumann himself could not reach a 10th and he injured his hands by using the most absurd method to enlarge his span
First he had the skin web between the index and the thumb cut, then he put weight on his fourth finger and eventually he even used to sleep with his whole arm hanging from the ceiling tied with a string to his fifth finger

Um, so what does a person who can't reach a 10th do out of curiosity?

Roll the chord, use the pedal,  release the bass note and hold only the superior ones or leave the piece alone
You should ask this question to Robert Henry, who can parely reach a 9th and play the whole reportoire and all his performances have always been higly prized and acclaimed

Daniel

[SteinwayTony]

The only advice I could give you with Traumerei is to NOT PLAY IT.  Unless you have plans to let it "gel" for a couple of years before you perform it in public, or you are playing the entire Kinderszenen cycle.  The reason is that this piece is just so overdone, and usually done poorly, with no regard for feeling.  Do not perform this in public if it not accompanied by some other selections from Kinderszenen, unless you choose it as a encore, as Horowitz often did. 

[rafant]

I have a record of this piece by viennese pianist Ingrid Haebler, and she simply plays both chords as arpeggios. It sounds very nice to me, absolutely coherent with the previous arpeggios of the main theme, and so, since she was so eminent pianist, and I have small hands, I think I can allow myself to play such chords rolling them as she did. Having heard also the solid chords of Horowitz and Koczis, I still prefer the Haebler's way.

[JimDunlop]

Heheh.... Thanks for the answers guys.  As for those who suggested to just not play it....  Well, I guess that's always an option, but I want to learn it so I can play it.... For myself.  My own enjoyment.  I don't actually have any plans to perform this piece in public like I do some of the Bach I'm working on....

I have many "pet" pieces that I enjoy for my own enlightenment, and this is one of them... I just want to be able to fully appreciate the piece and be able to play it properly, AS IF I were to perform it, even if I never actually do.

/Just a thought.

JD

P.S.  I was just on carolinaclassical.com and they had a nice little biography on Schumann.  This is the article they had about his hands:

From this time until 1832, he composed some remarkable piano works, including the Papillons and Die Davidbundlertanze. But he soon afterwards had trouble with his hands, allegedly due to a machine to strengthen his fingers, but more likely through the application of remedies (mercury treatments) for a syphilitic sore. Performance at the piano became increasingly difficult for him and eventually impossible, since his right hand became crippled. Schumann's view of himself shifted from composer-pianist to composer-critic as a result of his physical ‘ever-worsening weakness’ or ‘laming’ of the middle finger of his right hand. As he put it emphatically to his mother in a letter of November 1832: ‘for my part, I'm completely resigned [to my lame finger], and deem it incurable’. However, he immediately devoted his time to his remaining interest in music journalism, and he continued to compose unwaveringly.

From: https://www.carolinaclassical.com/schumann/