Piano Forum

Tangent to the OP, but I wonder what are the actual skills required to play these pieces, and what is the actual difficulty. When have you "really" played a Chopin waltz or nocturne? How do you judge that? I can comment on the notes -- that if you have some familiarity with Chopin, I think it's entirely possible to memorize a waltz in 1-2 weeks -- the structure is usually quite simple, and if you can make sense of the chords from a functional perspective, they aren't that hard to remember eventually imo. Of course, this will depend on your level among other things. Also, keep in mind that every successive piece will be easier than the last, and so it's better to try and learn a piece well than rush it, because the skills will transfer to the next one and you will learn it faster and better.

I think Fantaisie Impromptu is harder than most of the waltzes. If you don't have a lot of experience with playing fast passages, you are almost guaranteed to fudge the notes. It's definitely easier to comfortably play the waltzes as compared to the FI at tempo.

I'm not a teacher, so take my advice with a grain of salt. If your teacher thinks it would be reasonable, I would try and work on the Berceuse or Fantaisie Impromptu. If you can't directly reach those pieces, then it means that you need to get better at certain techniques, for which it might be a good idea to work on specific pieces where the same techniques are used, but are easier than the original, as exercises. At the same time, it's not ideal to focus all of your attention on a difficult piece, so it would make sense to simultaneously learn a waltz or nocturne, or multiple, in parallel.

The reason I say this is because, given your description, you have already played 3 waltzes and a nocturne. So you are presumably aware of the form and typical areas of difficulty you might encounter in those kinds of pieces. However, Chopin's larger scale works can have things which you are unfamiliar with and which you might not be able to get better at just by working on the waltzes or nocturnes. If you encounter those difficulties a year down the road, you would then have to start working on those, possibly from scratch. So I think it would be better to identify and start developing those skills (but not necessarily the pieces themselves) from now on. I'd say that would give you the best shot at completing your list as fast as possible.

At the same time, it's not clear from your post what your comfort level is playing Chopin waltzes. You mention there has been a break in your studies -- how well can you play the ones you listed? If you can't play at least 1-2 waltzes/nocturnes already, there's no point in working on the harder pieces.