Piano Forum

Greetings all,

I would like your insights on an issue I've been dealing with lately.

A bit of background. I have been studying piano for about 14 years and have a Bachelors in piano performance. I have been able to play the Schumann Concerto and Fantasy in Scriabin in concert.

It's been a few years since I graduated from the conservatory and I have since self-studied. Now, my ambition is to do my own lecture recital featuring works by Liszt.

For this programme, which I hope to deliver in several months' time, I have been studying his infamous 'La Clochette' fantasy for around 5-7 months and have had trouble executing a few extremely difficult passages.



These include 1) Two rapid double octave passages (3:25 one before the theme in E Major, 13:32 and the ending one in A Major), 2) 2:54 a rapid alternating double note chromatic passage in the RH in the "Allegro moderato" section in the Intro, 3) 5:21 the leaps in the "Variation ŕ la Paganini" section.

Up to now, I am not able to execute these properly. I foresee the octave sections as the most difficult to overcome; I am unable to play them at a rapid tempo as the score demands.

I would say I have made some progress since the beginning of course, but I fear that I may never reach my goal. Perhaps the piece is just too difficult for me?

I actually forced myself to do a performance last year where I managed to play Kapustin's étude and a Tatum transcription. At that time, I grew to hate the process since I had to record myself and the whole ordeal was really grueling. The result was that I technically managed to play them at the tempo I aimed at (albeit with a lot of mistakes) but thought they could have been much better (so it wasn't really at a level that satisfied me). And I only got to play them that way after many takes. These two pieces were the type of piece which I felt was beyond my technical level and I self-studied them.

My situation now is that I am currently unable to find lessons since my job is in a region where there are no schools or piano teachers.

I can envision several options:

1) Force myself to continue practising in the hopes that perhaps I might slowly, but eventually, reach the goal;
2) Continue practising the piece but only as an exercise and not as something to be performed;
3) Continue practising the piece but with supplementary technical exercises from Hanon or Liszt's own book of technical exercises to hasten the progress;
4) Abandon the piece altogether and instead select repertoire that is more attainable for my technique level.

For option #3: I had actually tried some of these exercises in college but my experience was that they were not necessary (granted, my repertoire at that time was probably more within my capabilities) because they only tired me and I saw more development when I simply tackled the pieces directly.

For option #4: If I simply abandon the piece, is there any possibility at all that I could one day manage to really perform it to standard? If so, what must be done to get to that level of technical proficiency?

I would certainly grab the opportunity to go back to formal lessons but I can only do so once I leave my job so it's not really something I can see myself doing in the moment.

Would love to hear your advice on this, thank you.