[VIDEO] Scriabin sonata No. 8

[paxxx17]

Our university has been donated a Yamaha S6, and I am allowed to practice on it! Now that I have access to a good piano, I wanted to record one of my favorite pieces. I feel like I am hitting my maximum with this piece (apart from a few sloppy sections that I just need to practice more), and since I have been playing on my own last six years (since I graduated high school), I would love to get some feedback from you folks on what I can improve. Even though I am not a professional pianist, I have a feeling (justified or not) that an objectively good level of playing this sonata is not out of reach for me, and that one day I might be able apply to amateur concerts and play this in front of an audience, so criticism is welcome!

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMSmUq7psmaZtPXWIRkYQYo6MaK0cnqFA5FxbDGjWlF0OFmCLy91XVIn62Vasm7zQ/photo/AF1QipOlJHW_BBha1WYvUaOhmZfJi_xRTD_1IL6JkdGG?key=YjdJVHF3ZGs0NHBZNWFTOFgyVTJUOERGdTdYWHJB

It's not on youtube; I didn't know how to embed it so I provided an outside link. Recorded on my Google Pixel 6; the clarity of bass notes is terrible for some reason, and sounds like the phone is artificially turning down the volume of loud sections. Sorry for that!

[thorn]

This is definitely on its way to being something you could program in a concert. I'm impressed that you memorised it and you sound comfortable with the technical demands too.

I think the main thing to work on is paying close attention to the instrument you're playing on and the acoustics of the room. You say this is a new piano for you and I'm sure you'll master it before long, but at the moment the brightness of the piano combined with the room acoustics means that many pp/ppp dynamics are lost, the pedalling can sound blurry in places, and the balance of voices aren't always there- in the development there were parts where the fourths overshadowed melodies (I don't have the score with me to specify bars), but this got better towards the end- e.g. when the Allegro Agitato theme returns amongst the quintuplets your balance was perfect.

As I said I think these things will improve as you get used to the piano. I'd also try and practice on as many different pianos as you can so you build up a toolbox of how to listen for and solve these things when you're faced with them on random concert pianos in future. (I play a lot of this sort of music so I fully appreciate how annoying it is trying to create the same effects on a new piano in front of an audience!)