Rachmaninov op. 32, #5, G major

[brahms51]

Does anyone have any “helpful hints” about how to practice this piece? Hands separately, of course. This hauntingly beautiful little gem is deceptively difficult, at least for me.
Thanks.

[lelle]

Is it the polyrhythms you are having trouble with, or technical stuff? For the polyrhythms and pentuplets etc I'd practice focusing on the beat, and just sort of tucking in the other notes in between. So feel the beats, you can even remove the notes that are not on the beat, until you can really feel the beats steadily, and the try adding the notes that go in between back in.

[brahms51]

Technically, I’ve just about trained my left hand to auto-play the repeating 5-note pattern. I will definitely follow your advice to practice using only the on-beat notes until everything comes together. Thanks, excellent suggestion!

[nightwindsonata]

I would also recommend practicing beat-by-beat and measure-by-measure, as well as half-tempo, to really nail down the texture. It's definitely a tricky piece!

[pianobern69]

Play pretty much every first note of each right hand legato phrase with the thumb (at least when the melody goes up). The left hand is definitely the tricky part. I wouldn't pedal too much in this piece as long as you hold the quarters in the left hand.

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