Chopin Etudes! My forever project.I have also worked on some of the Liszt Etudes.My goal is to be able to comfortably play Gaspard de la Nuit or all the Chopin Etudes, but I'm not quite there yet. I don't need to play all the crazy Godowsky, Alkan, operatic paraphrase stuff or the hardest Liszt pieces. The musical results are not worth the effort for me.
Islamey. Played it for my final doctoral recital at USC along with Prokofiev Sonata 6 and the Beethoven G major Rondo. Did the whole Op. 10 set of Chopin for masters degree at IU way back, which wasn’t easy either…Other notable mentions are Carnaval, Ballades 1-4 on one concert (with the Beethoven Sonata 10 for violin and piano), Pictures at an Exhibition, Rach 2 and 3. At the moment it is Appassionata and Chopin Op. 25 for this school year. Not sure why, but the Appassionata connected really quickly for me so it’s basically performance ready after a month and a half or so. Same thing with the Ballades last year. No. 4 took about two months but I was practicing it for like 2 to 3 hours a day. I’m turning 50 soon and I feel like I don’t have much time left considering my perspective when I was a grad student. That’s probably why I’m blasting through all this repertoire I’ve always wanted to play but didn’t think was attainable. Oh, and I forgot Scriabin Op. 42/5… used it as an encore for the Russian program when I played Pictures. Holy mackerel what a crazy bit of 5 pages that thing is.
I played Scriabin 42/5 as well but never finished it.That piece is like the textbook definition of how to tense up hands. The bell like bass on the third page is so satisfying to play though...
I'd say Gaspard is pretty doable if you can handle any of the Chopin Etudes comfortably. Chopin Etudes are so beautiful too, especially Op.10 No.1 for me.I think it's completely understandable to not believe Godowsky etc. to be worth the time and effort, some of them are almost unmusical imo anyways.
Did you perform Op 10 live? Sounds terrifying haha
For me it's the opening figuration in Ondine with the repeated chords that's the main difficulty. I can't do it quick enough yet. And ofc Scarbo is just hard. Scarbo is probably the main difficulty actually
Sure did, and sure was!
Yeah, I've sight read all 3 and played Scarbo specifically. Ondine is a horrible choice to open a competition or audition when you aren't familiar with the piano (The chords are so quiet that if you mess up, you're done...) Le Gibet is also certifiably musicially insane if you want to play it well.
How did it go? I dream of doing that one day, but some of the Etudes (Op 10 no 2 in particular) are not technically secure enough to not fall apart when I'm dealing with nerves. My hands tend to get slightly more tense in those scenarios and then Op 10 no 2 just falls apart immediately haha
Why play just Scarbo but not the others? :O are you planning on playing the full collection?
I did Scarbo first so I could feel safe about the technique aspect of the set. I have other projects that are time consuming right now and I plan learning the whole suite some times soon
Beethoven's Op90 and Chopin's Op55No2 come to mind. I'm not sure if Beethoven's Op10No3 counts.
Why wouldn't it count? That piece is very challenging both musically and technically
Beethoven Op 10 no 3 is hard, man. Both musically and technically challenging to hold together.
Yeah, that's what I thought. I got through the first and fourth movements, I'll probably tie the second and third soon. However, quite a few rankings that I personally disagree with place it under the easier section.