Beethoven Op90 (Sonate 27) - 1st Mvmt

[flyusx]

First time posting here. The audio file was taken from my piano competition on Friday (7th Oct). I can't seem to get my internet to upload full videos to Youtube just yet.
I'm feeling as if my playing is somewhere in the mediocre range. I'm generally looking for ways to make the music more exciting and interesting as I still work out the technical difficulties (voicing, those bloody tenths, and perhaps a few uneven runs or arpeggios).

[lelle]

Hey, nice playing!

Your recording has got a lot going for it, with nice color changes among the strongest points. I listened through the entire recording and my main feedback in regards to your questions is:

* Sometimes the music feels a little bit like it's lacking direction or treading water, which takes away some of the excitement and interest you are looking for. I would experiment with the idea that you can use the notes between the beats to give a sense of direction or forward momentum to the next beat. Sometimes you do this, and sometimes you lose it a bit, especially in the main theme and related passages IMO. Listen to the notes between the beats when you play. Do they sound like upbeats that are creating forward momentum to the next beat? Or are they just kind of there? Or do they even feel like something that's tapering off or belonging to the beat before them? Experiment with this and see how you feel about the different results you can get. Feel free to ask me questions if anything about this is unclear.
* To add to the above point, I think you sometimes need to zoom out a bit and hear the phrases as longer lines, not just in terms of individual phrases but also entire sections of the piece. This is similar to the direction between the beats, but over longer chunks of music. The music is almost always departing from something or on it's way to something - a small or large climax, towards a resting point, towards a harmonically important chord, you name it. If I were your teacher, at any given moment in the piece, I would want to be able to stop you in mid playing and ask you, where is the music going right now? Why is this passage here? And get an answer with supporting arguments, including what interpretative choices you are making to subtly highlight the direction. I think this sort of work can spice up anyone's playing. I know this is potentially a lot, so it's something to think about experiment with and see how you feel about it

[dw4rn]

Your recording has got a lot going for it, with nice color changes among the strongest points. I listened through the entire recording and my main feedback in regards to your questions is:
* Sometimes the music feels a little bit like it's lacking direction or treading water, which takes away some of the excitement and interest you are looking for.

I agree. My impression is that you lose some urgency when the note values are bigger and there is no  eighth- or sixteenth note accompaniment to drive the music forward.
Nevertheless, I think you did a very good performance.