Piano Forum

Hey all,
I recently performed Chopin's second ballade in a regional competition and won first place in my division. The performing venue didn't allow recordings, so I'll upload a recording of my rendition sometime in the future. I've attached the comments provided as proof.
Supposedly, the second ballade is somewhere in the middle of the Ballade difficulty scale (I've seen 3-2-1-4 and 3-1-2-4), and the earlier scherzos (the first and second) are considered slightly easier than the Ballades. However, when I try to do any sight-reading of the third ballade or the first two scherzos to gauge their relative difficulties, I find it to be more difficult than anticipated, and I'm not sure I have the capability of playing fast notes for such long periods of time. I suppose one reason I was able to learn the F-minor Ballade without too much difficulty are the interpretatively difficult but technically easy slower passages separating the Presto con Fuoco's. The hardest Chopin excluding Ballade No2 I've learned so far would be either the ninth etude in F-minor or the sixteenth nocturne. I have no experience playing Polonaises/Mazurkas/Waltzes, and even some of them seem to be harder than expected when I do the gauge-the-difficulty reading. Any advice as to what I should proceed to do with Chopin would be appreciated.