Beethoven – Tempest Sonata (3rd mov.)

[pianowhisper]

Hello there guys!

It's been a long time since my first (and last) post on PianoStreet; I've been away from the piano for years, but in the past few months I finally came back to it for a while. (Besides, I must confess I felt unsure for ages whether to ask for feedback or not, cause I have no teacher but honestly some people here scare me with the way they treat non-professional pianists like myself... lol), but after (re)working on Beethoven Op.31/2, here I am.

Without further ado, if someone could give me some advice on how to improve my playing in this particular movement, I'd be very thankful. (: There are obviously a handful of wrong notes here and there, I tried not to let them bother me too much. I didn't repeat the exposition for the sake of simplicity.
(Sorry for the low quality recording by the way, it is what it is...)

Thanks in advance. (:

[dw4rn]

Dear Pianowhisper,

I think this is very impressive playing from a non-professional pianist, and very expressive and interesting to listen to.

My feedback concerns interpretation more than actual piano-playing. Since this movement is a perpetuum mobile, with all the sixteenth-notes that never stop, I think the tempo needs to be more uniform. I'm not saying there can't be fluctuations in speed, but in this recording you tend to get really fast when you play forte, and quite slow and sedate when playing piano. And 'sedate' is not a word I want to use when describing this movement    

[pianowhisper]

Dear dw4rn,

Thank you so much for the feedback!!
Although I could say the issues in that recording in specific could very well be because of the circumstances behind it (I was quite tired from playing when I was recording that, having played for some hours before, so maybe it showed ahaha), I must confess I do always struggle with the tempo in this piece, a lot!
Listening to my recording again after reading your reply, I believe I can see what you mean by that and will definitely try to improve on it. I feel that the perpetuum mobile makes it extra hard in that regard (I maybe end up subconsciously tending to vary the tempo to feel the different moods throughout the movement).

It's absolutely something I'll be working on in the future!
Hoping you have a good day; thank you very much.

[andrew_s]

I agree, it is a pleasure to listen to your recording even if the audio quality, piano tuning and "the circumstances behind it" was far from optimal. 
I think it has something to do with your clear effort to communicate with every note and phrase in a very warm and organic way! That's of course a good thing that you should keep, but I think like dw4rn that the perpetum mobile effect must be more convincing in this movement.

Perhaps it is a style approch. In my opinion, your style of playing where the the mood and expression of each phrase is of higher  priority than the overall structure and tempo can be more suitable when playing for example Chopin. But in Beehoven that does not work well. The tempo and structure must come first and within that you should "struggle" be expressive.  That struggle is perhaps the most important part of the DNA of Beethovens music. It should never sound or feel too easy.

My suggestion would be to only practice the movement with a metronome for a while. First slowly (tempo 120 on 8-notes) and then in full tempo (one beat per bar). Always focus on keeping the metric structure your main priority.
Hope this helps!

[pianowhisper]

Dear andrew_s,

I appreciate your words and your feedback. Thank you!

Perhaps it is a style approch. In my opinion, your style of playing where the the mood and expression of each phrase is of higher  priority than the overall structure and tempo can be more suitable when playing for example Chopin.

It's curious you mentioned Chopin because I believe I've learned only two or three of his works before, and by today I'd have to relearn them from scratch. I've always thought most of his pieces were unreachable for me; maybe I should give him another attempt ahaha

Anyway, I understand your point! One of the reasons why I love Beethoven's music so much is that it never fails to sound so powerful, and I think I see what you mean by it making us always "struggle" to make the most out of its expressiveness. I will definitely try working on that and follow your suggestion whenever I can! (hope it will be soon... I've been unable to play the piano for about two weeks now because I'm in a lockdown quarantine ) Thank you again for your kind words and insights. It was a pleasure to read your opinion and it surely helps!

Hope you have a nice day.