Chopin Revolutionary Etude Op. 10 No. 12

[kairosophia]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqL0JDcTvjs (if embedding YouTube didn't work)

Happy about comments!

greetings,
kairosophia

[pianoman53]

Hi there!

Welcome to the forum

You might want to work a bit on clarity and tempo. I'm not at all a fan of these etudes being only about speed and clarity, but it loses its dramatic effect if the tempo changes too much. Also, some of the melodic notes disappeared, which isn't ideal. The short g right in the beginning is quite important,  but I didn't hear it.

Keep working slowly and carefully and I'm sure it will be very good

[kairosophia]

Hello there,

thank you for your critical remarks! I agree with you about the tempo, I practiced with Metronome for a while but shortly before the Video I stopped because I wanted it to be more organic, but I see that it's losing Momentum. Yes the G in the melody is barely audible, but it's there, just not emphasized.
What do you mean about clarity? The pedal? I was very unsure about the pedal, taking it at quarter notes mostly, which totally obstructs the flow - I wonder why nobody hears it, it bothers me a lot. I can't take it whole bars, no pedal at all sounds much too dry, maybe quivering the pedal all the time.... I don't know. If you mean by clarity that every single semiquaver should be audible as a singular note I don't agree, those should sound like one formation, like a wave.... there, too, some notes get subdued.
Well, I didn't have that much time, the piece will grow over time.

Best wishes,
Irmela

[pianoman53]

My favourite pianists are all early 20th century,  and change tempo a lot. I don't mind tempo changes when it has a musical purpose, but in this performance it sounds very random which makes me commenting on it.

Pedal is very tricky to comment on, as it's not on or off. And I also really hate when it's audible when there is a change, and I agree that it's killing the flow.
What I mean is for example the run at 10 seconds in - The hands are not really together, and it's very uneven.
For it to have direction,  one still needs to hear the notes, I think. But if you don't agree, that's of course fine.

The g in the beginning probably shouldn't be too emphasized, but now it's so unproportionally soft that it's barely there...

[kairosophia]

Really?? I mean... are there any other opinions apart from this rather destructive one?

[pianoman53]

Oh, sorry if it was harsh. I genuinely didn't mean it to be. But then I will keep that in mind!

[kairosophia]

Well, usually there is at least one good thing to say about the piece before you go on to critisize it. Like that I feel that I should throw that video in the trash altogether, and I really worked very hard on it, others like it, and I really don't think that it's uneven. I would like to hear others on this so that I can form an objective opinion.

[dogperson]

After your reply to what I read as comments intended to be helpful, I hesitate to post. I, too, found it to be uneven, with the RH melody of uneven dynamics and some of the notes swallowed by the LH. I also agree about the temp changes needing consideration. FWIW which is probably zero since you don’t hear it, and have commented  others have liked it. I am just providing another opinion.
I didn’t see that you received any comments to ‘throw it away’ as per your reply.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I definitely think there are nice things about this performance, but I get the impression that you're putting so much of yourself into making it sound musical (which it *does*!) that you've missed out on some other aspects. Firstly, there is a repeated issue with the melody in the Ab, G, F' passage where the G is almost inaudible, and this is disrupting the internal consistency of the repeated dotted rhythm motif. Secondly I think the tempo is fluctuating in places in a way which is more abrupt than would be the case with a smoother rubato. Nonetheless, definitely some things I liked hearing in the performance and I'm left with the notion that you have a lot of musical feeling for it.

[kairosophia]

Thank you all for your comments, and sorry if I got a bit emotional, it's only that I want to use this video to apply for a competition and if it's no good I have to do it again and I do not have easy access to a concert grand. And yes, I do hear that the G is barely audible and I am getting far too slow in the middle section and then abruptly going back to tempo at the Quasi-Reprise. I think one could possibly live with that if the musical thought behind it is still clear enough - what I couldn't live with is when the playing is uneven. Maybe it's an effect caused by the shifting of the pedal.
Overall, it's not ideal, yet maybe still usable??

[dogperson]

Thank you all for your comments, and sorry if I got a bit emotional, it's only that I want to use this video to apply for a competition and if it's no good I have to do it again and I do not have easy access to a concert grand. And yes, I do hear that the G is barely audible and I am getting far too slow in the middle section and then abruptly going back to tempo at the Quasi-Reprise. I think one could possibly live with that if the musical thought behind it is still clear enough - what I couldn't live with is when the playing is uneven. Maybe it's an effect caused by the shifting of the pedal.
Overall, it's not ideal, yet maybe still usable??

I can’t answer if you will be accepted based on the recording; but if it were my submission, I would decide to re-record it, even if on a lesser piano. If I were not accepted, I would never want to question ‘what if I would have’ .  I think it depends on how much risk is acceptance to you personally. Im not much of a risk taker so I’m sure my response is clouded by that perspective.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I don't know. It's a tough call, especially if hiring the setup to make the recording is problematic. It probably depends on the level the competition operates at, tbh. I would, personally, retake it, but you are in a better position to know how you feel about the performance and the extent to which you can improve it at short notice under the pressure of a recording situation, something which different people respond to in differing ways. Good luck in any case.

[quantum]

There are a lot of good things about this recording.  You have an overall sense of flow and structure for the piece. 

The unevenness mentioned above did not bother me much.  There is an obsession in current day piano practice to always sound notes together.  If one listens to recordings made at the beginning of the 20th century, pianists of the day often used intentional unevenness of notes an effective musical tool.  To be clear there is a difference between sloppy unevenness, and intentionally placing notes out of alignment - one has intent and purpose, the other does not.   Even stepping out of the piano world today and into chamber and orchestral music, one can observe that the design of various instruments necessitates the onset of speech at varying rates.

Pedalling.  Try fractional pedalling.  With the runs occurring in the lower end of the piano it becomes more difficult to balance clarity with resonance.  The pedal does not have to be off and on, it can be part way in between.  Some call it 1/2 pedalling, but I rather refer to it as fractional, as the ratio can be minutely adjusted to be anything you want.  It is the fine line where the dampers are in partial contact with the strings.  Also don't tie pedalling to beats, use your ears to adjust the pedalling.  Pedalling will be different on each piano you play, and every acoustic space you play in. 

The main point I think you could work on for this piece is melodic shaping and a supported singing tone.  Chopin was a piano composer that was greatly in love with vocal music.  Much of what he composed for the piano was inspired by vocal music.  A large part of the challenge of Op 10 and 25 is projecting melodic elegance at the same time as playing technically brilliant passage work.  For Chopin's music, melody often receives top priority.  Gather a few your singing friends, get them to sing excerpts of the melody for you.  Observe how a singer breaths, projects, and shapes a melody. 

As for using this recording as a competition entry, I would suggest minimal video edits.  If you prefer more artistic videos with multi camera angles and so forth, just make a separate video with different editing style and use this for sharing.  For the competition entry use a video with minimal editing. 

[kairosophia]

Thank you for your detailed and informative comment! Especially about the fractional pedaling. I was thinking about other ways to do it, and now I see clearly that changing on beat is really not going to work. The melody can be improved as well. I am going to keep working on it und make a new video for the competition, probably with different pieces.

I am very grateful to you all for giving me such Feedback. Your ears are really better trained!

[lainienc]

Thank you for posting this.  I very much enjoyed your playing of this beautiful piece.  It was lovely.