Please Critique My Performance Chopin Prelude No. 2 in A Minor Op.28 No.2

[ericapiano]

Hello,

I am an amateur pianist. I recently created a YouTube Channel to share my performances, and I've decided to start the channel by playing one of my favorite pieces of music written by Chopin. Here is a link to the video.

I would greatly appreciate any feedback as to how I can improve my performance of this piece, thank you.

-Erica

[debussychopin]

I can say a whole lot but will just resign myself to a few points, try speeding up the piece a bit, it is a bit too slow at your tempo,
Quiet down the left hand , a lot of romantic (esp chopin) you will need to suppress the left hand and bring out the right hand a bit. Even in a piece like this.
The time signature of half 4/4 becomes cut time 2/2 or what you see there C with a slash through it.
4/4 is used in a lot of ballad style music, nocturnal music, music with a lot of breath and melody flow within it, the time frame gives it a beat that allows for a lot of movement expression , but a 2/4 is done more for march type of songs where you get a lot of curtness in the expression of the melody, the melody is simpler, or the tempo is to be picked up a bit more to showcase the beat rather than the song itself to the audience.
(This is just my interpretation of what I have learned and experienced, if anyone has a correction , let me know).

But a suggestion by Chopin here to make this cut time 2/2 is saying that this piece will have more melody expression than a march, but however, wants you to contstrain it within a double frequency of beats, ie cut time having a down beat in the beginning of the measure, and another down beat at the middle. So it sort of runs like a march, but it is not.
So in order to be faithful to chopin's instruction here, you have to play this a bit quicker, to manifest that beat to the ear, im not saying make it a literal sforzando on each beat, maybe you practice that way at first, but when performing, you will in your mind have that cut time beat in place so that when you do play it, we  can feel out that mild heartbeat thumping of the left hand, which makes it more interesting, than just an 8 chord sludge through each measure, ...which the listener will not understand really what is going on with that left hand.

Now , there is a rub here.. in the composition, the left hand is phrased out, all the parts have long phrase slurs over even a course of a few measures. This is the advanced part of the piece, and where lot of students can be separated from advanced from intermediate, is to be able to express that cut time beat throughout the piece (not forcefully) but at the same time show that each set of left hand chords belong together in a meaningful phrase.

When I practiced (not this piece) a song that had something like that, a cut time  but phrase over longer measures, I had difficulty bringing both of those together. Either I had the beat in hand and lost the phrase, or had the phrase in place, but lost the beat.
What I found out was that as a student, it is more important at first to get the beat out and be faiithful to it, then later work on expressing the phrase out of that section. Rather than phrasing the section, then later trying to work in the fundamentals of the rhythm/beat at that point. But this paragraph is more an advanced discussion.

..

Hope all this makes sense. It is easier said in person than typed out .

[anacrusis]

Hello Erica,

I can tell from your performance that you love this piece and I enjoyed listening to it.

My main tips would be
- Try it at a slightly faster tempo to give it a bit more flow
- See if you can get the left hand to be softer so we can hear the wonderful melody more! This can be a bit tricky but relaxed, smooth movements help. At the same time, you can play the melody a hair louder to make it sing out more.
- Experiment with using the pedal like you do now, but pressing it down less, so you get less pedal resonance but still some extra colour to the sound.

I

[quantum]

One of the challenges with this piece is to both maintain the continuity and direction of long melodic lines, while at the same time balancing a sense of Lento indication. 

Just as we practice fast music slowly, it also helps to practice slow music fast.  This can give us clearer insight into a sense of line and direction. 

Your interpretation is reflective of the overarching idea of the piece.  What can be done next is to work on the shaping and expression of line, both in the RH melody and the LH accompaniment.