Longer romantic work

[resurrectcodeblack]

Hi all,
I have a question, wondering if y'alls had some answers. So I have to, among others, play a longer romantic work for a competition. I was looking at the Chopin Ballades and scherzi, and was wondering whether, based off my rep, you think I'd be ready for one of these eight amazing pieces. Of course I'll ask my teacher, but right now is summer break, and multiple opinions are always good. Below is my previous repertoire to give you a feeling of my level of proficiency.

Beethoven Sonata No. 1 in F-Moll, erster Satz
Beethoven Sonata No. 8 in C-Moll, zweiter Satz
Beethoven Sonata no. 14 in Cis-moll
Erster und zweiter Satz
Beethoven Für Elise

Mozart Sonata V, K 283 in G-dur
Erster und zweiter Satz
Mozart Sonata VIII in B-dur, K 333(?)
Mozart Sonata in A, K 331, Türkischer Marsch

Gustav Lange: Blumenlied

Mendelssohn: Jägerlied

Brahms: Hungarian dances for four hands  - 1,5,6

Bach Preludium und Fuge in B dur Band II

Rachmaninow op.3 no 2

Chopin etudes op 25 no 1, 2

Thanks

[resurrectcodeblack]

Other suggestions are most welcome too!

[lelle]

After a casual glance on the list, it seems like you have played individual movements from many sonatas but typically left out the most difficult/quick movement. Apart from Chopin op 25 no 1 and 2, do you have experience with passagework and arpeggios etc in a quick tempo?

[resurrectcodeblack]

I love to improvise with that technique when I'm just playing around or accompanying choirs, which I do a lot. In that regard I've done a lot of it, but I've never really properly played classical pieces with that technique.

[resurrectcodeblack]

Oh, I left out the Brahms intermezzo op. 118 no. 2 in my rep list. This was definitely the hardest piece I've played what with interpretation. Brahms remains an enigma to me.

[lelle]

Aight, difficult to say how you'll fare. I'd argue 3rd ballade and 2nd Scherzo are the technically easiest of the lot, and the 2nd scherzo is easiest of the two. Why don't you read through them, identify the hardest passages and see if they seem doable within a reasonable time frame?

[transitional]

I second what lelle said. Just try something out if you're not sure, and do the easiest one since the difficulty is questionable. That's the Scherzo No. 2.

[resurrectcodeblack]

Thanks a lot! Just out of interest, does anyone have suggestions for other longer romantic works in this length roughly, so six to ten mins?

[transitional]

Not sure what you're interested in, but the first thing that came to my mind is what I'm working on right now - the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. There are many other hungarian rhapsodies you could try

[lelle]

Check out the Brahms Rhapsodies Op. 79, they're not too difficult and might be more straightforward to interpret than the Intermezzi.

[resurrectcodeblack]

Thanks a lot.

[thorn]

Liszt's Sonetto 123 del Petrarca is a really popular choice for pianists here in the UK, as it's on the first performance diploma syllabus (as is most of the repertoire you mention having worked on). It's in the same style as a Ballade really, since you mentioned Chopin's above. Romantic composers loved their literary titles (Ballade, Sonnet, Poeme etc).

[resurrectcodeblack]

That looks cool. Liszt is another composer that I have trouble comprehending. This may be because I've never played anything by him, only listened. This piece might help me to understand him more.

[resurrectcodeblack]

Wierd question, is anyone out there good at persuading people? Any tips on how to persuade my teacher to do the Scherzo with me? I've decided on the Scherzo btw. My teacher is not easily swayed, I suggested the third ballade before having played the op. 25/1 etude and after having played the 25/2 etude. She put her foot down, nothing I could do would persuade her, even though she didn't explain herself, I didn't see very many patches that would cause me tons of trouble. Maybe I was egotistical back then too though...

[thorn]

I doubt her stance on the Scherzo would be any different to the Ballade. So rather than getting into a tug of war over it, maybe approach it like "I really want to be able to play this Scherzo/Ballade one day, and if you don't think I'm ready for it right now can we create an action plan of pieces to learn, and an order to learn them in, which would lead me to a place where I'm ready to work on it in a year or two?". My friend took this approach when she wanted to learn the Heroic Polonaise and many pieces later she's preparing that piece for an exam.

[resurrectcodeblack]

True dat! Thanks. I'll try that out.

[klavieronin]

Another approach would be to just start learning it on your own, then when you can mostly play it show your teacher the progress you’ve made. If you can demonstrate that you are capable of playing it then she’d have no reason not to work on it with you. Just start slowly, don’t rush the process, learn little bits at a time and in the meantime keep working on your teacher approved repertoire.