Ravel's Toccata

[fnork]

I'm doing my best to learn this piece for a concert in less than three weeks - I started practicing a few days ago and have about 6 pages memorized so far. I really want to play it, but of course, it's incredibly difficult, especially to get it up to speed. Right now, I can play the first three pages at 120, but not without errors... My teacher says that the tempo should be 132 (only a few pianists can play it at full speed). However, just two days ago I could hardly play it at 100-105, so it's really going better.

Anyway, if anyone here has played it, could you give me some tips on how I should practice it? And tips on memorizing everything? I've been breaking it down to small sections and just played those small sections, then bringing several smaller sections together, and that has worked very good. For practicing, I play it really really slow at first (around 40-50), but I also practice it in different rhythms. For instance, I play the first two notes of each beat as 32-notes and the next two as they are written, instead of playing all of the notes as 16ths. It has been very helpful, too. Some sections are notated uncomfertably, but my teacher has helped me to find better ways to play it.


I really want to play the toccata on this concert! I had planned to learn this for a very long time, but I never did. Anyway, if I learn to play it well enough and I'll play it on the concert, I'll post a recording of it for you
As I said, any tips with practicing and memorizing are very helpful.

[fnork]

 Btw, any thoughts on how strics the tempo must be? I think most of it should be played very very strict, but I think that the places where he writes "sostenuto" or marks that it should be played a bit slower, you can play it much more free, with a lot less metronomical feel.

[fnork]

After a few days of practicing, I think the first three pages sound okay, and it's not too demanding - comparing to some other places in the piece. But I have problems with a few places in the remaining pages of the piece, and if anyone could give advice, please do...

1. Bar 86 - 93. Hard to play the repeated notes with your RH and LH thumbs only. Some very uncomfortable hand positions too, in bar 90-93 (when changing from the Gminor chord to the D7ad13 chord on the 4th beat). Don't know how to solve the hand position problem really...

2. 94 - 121. This section didn't seem too hard at first, but it really is. The hard thing is to play all the 16th equally soft; it's quite easy to, by accident, play some of them louder. Since I use pedal in this section (Ravel didn't mark pedal, but the recording I've heard are with pedal and I don't think it sounds good without any pedal), playing some notes louder will spoil the sustained chords, and you'll hear a few of the notes in the chords much louder than other notes.

3. 132 - 144. Not a hard part, but the chords in the left hand usually get very uneven - they almost sound a bit arpeggiated.

4. 164 - 167. Not a big problem here either, but the fingering and hand positions are quite uncomfortable. Anyone else experienced it in these measures too?

5. 191 - 203. It's hard to make the melody legato.

6. 220 - 232. VERY hard to play in tempo. My hands and whole arms get very tired after a while by practicing this section.

[lostinidlewonder]

It is quite a hard piece to play right, I mean you can't trip up once or it is detected so easily.

1. Bar 86 - 93. Hard to play the repeated notes with your RH and LH thumbs only. Some very uncomfortable hand positions too, in bar 90-93 (when changing from the Gminor chord to the D7ad13 chord on the 4th beat). Don't know how to solve the hand position problem really...

Fingering is of course key importance, if you choose ones which are not the most efficient for your hand then you are limiting your speed and then the piece becomes hard to play. I would use these fingers

Bar 86: pp sempre staccato section
RH: (25)1 _ 1    (52)1(53)1
LH: (31)_ 2 _    (31)_ (52)_

which should make 87-89 also logical using the same fingers.

bar 90: The RH can remain the same but the LH will change to these fingers
(32)1(32)(15) to deal with the transposed position.

what fingering do u use for the other challenging parts you mention?

[DarkWind]

If anything, I can tell you that the best speed is 140. Anything higher than this and the piece will sound like mush. Some pianists go above this speed, and it angers me. It sounds incredibly terrible. Anyways, it is a very tricky piece to pull off, due to the huge hand shifts you have to perform in the blink of the eye, and it is a piece I dream of one day being able to play. If anything, the tempo can be very fluidly controlled when shifting from phrases. For example, you can ease in to bar 23 starting at 20 by making a miniscule slowing of the tempo. It also works for the other pieces in the Suite. I am learning the Forlane, and it can be done in many situations.

[fnork]

If anything, I can tell you that the best speed is 140. Anything higher than this and the piece will sound like mush. Some pianists go above this speed, and it angers me. It sounds incredibly terrible. Anyways, it is a very tricky piece to pull off, due to the huge hand shifts you have to perform in the blink of the eye, and it is a piece I dream of one day being able to play. If anything, the tempo can be very fluidly controlled when shifting from phrases. For example, you can ease in to bar 23 starting at 20 by making a miniscule slowing of the tempo. It also works for the other pieces in the Suite. I am learning the Forlane, and it can be done in many situations.

Good point about slowing down when shifting phrases, I think it sounds good that way. I never really thought of it, but just as you say it works for other pieces in the suite too.

By the way, didn't you say that you were learning the toccata (and the prelude)? Or perhaps I'm confusing you with someone else.. I really love this suite, would love to learn everything one day (although I really think the Fugue isn't near as good as the other pieces, and with all of the voices so high on the piano, it's hard to hear which is which..). I've memorized the prelude too, but it's incredibly hard to play well. I guess it's good in a way to start working on the toccata as the first piece - that way, you've done the hardest thing first, and the rest will look much easier

[fnork]

 I might make a little recording of it before the concert to see what you guys think. I've got most of it memorized by now, but the hard thing now is to get it up to speed. Practicing in rhythms, however, has helped a lot. I'm really doubting that it's possible to make it to the concert, because the problem is that I have so much other things to do at the same time; two gigs with different bands next week, a lot of practicing with other ensembles/groups, and much school stuff...

[lostinidlewonder]

I wouldn't think it would be suitable for concert peformance after just 1 month of having it under your hands. The piece has a real way of making you sound crap if you don't really crack the form, tempo, volume issues. Small errors have a way of totally mucking up the entire sound of the piece so it is a very risky to peform this.

As for the tempo I personally play it at around 140-145, but the tempo is rather flexible , I slow down a little like in the first "pp expressive". The small broadening of melodic lines will naturally slow up the tempo throughout. But the foot gets put down a little near the end and other ff sections or "pattern parts" which dont really have a strong melodic line but rather want to just act as an entire body of sound. i really feel that increasing the tempo a little is encouraged there, but we slow down with the important melodic lines. I have known this tocatta for 4 years now and still I wouldn't play it in concert eheh. To me I cant stand playing pieces where I do note errors and i always do at least one when I play this which @)#(*@#()$ me. That is what the icnreased tempo does, if you play the entire thing at 120 it is a walk in the park, but speed it up and it becomes stupid.

[tds]

I wouldn't think it would be suitable for concert peformance after just 1 month of having it under your hands. The piece has a real way of making you sound crap if you don't really crack the form, tempo, volume issues. Small errors have a way of totally mucking up the entire sound of the piece so it is a very risky to peform this.

i will have to agree with lostinidlewonder. but then again i also realize that everyone is different. if you think you can do it at a reasonable tempo without too many wrong notes, then you can do it. OR, if you dont mind if you mess up, as long as you can learn something from the experience, then you can go ahead, too. best of luck, tds.

[fnork]

I realize that it's hard to make a good interpretation of it on concert so soon. Anyway, I think it's a good idea to do as much as I can with this piece in these few weeks, just to see how good it can get in so little time. I'd really love to play it on the concert (I wish I thought of this earlier!), but I won't do it if it isn't good enough.

[SDL]

Im not familiar with this piece - has anyone got it in PDF format or know where I can get it from?

thanks

[fnork]

Take a look here, you'll find it:  https://www.piano.ru/ravel.html


Anyway, I think I might do a recording of it tomorrow and post it here. It won't sound good though! hehe... It keeps getting better, but I'm still having trouble with it. The ending is the most difficult part, it's impossible not to slow down in that part, I think. It's also very tricky in the last 8 measures or so to hit all of the right notes. For most of the time, the two hands have been close to each other, and suddently one hand is playing octaves on low notes, and the right hand plays fast chords up and down the piano... it's hard!

Anyway, I have the whole piece memorized since a few days back, I'm quite proud of that It didn't take me more than 3-4 days to memorize basically everything. There's just one problem left with the piece - to get it up to tempo...
But, if I can play it well in 120-125, it's good enough for me.

[SDL]

Am I missing something here.. I went to the link and couldnt find it.  Is it called something else as well 

[fnork]

Press "save as" on this link: https://www.piano.ru/scores/ravel/rav-coup.pdf

This is the "Le tombeau de couperin" suite - the toccata is the last piece in the suite.

[fnork]

I just made a recording of the toccata - slower than the actual tempo of course... Remember than I've worked on this piece for a very short time, so it's obviously far from perfect. I'll post another recording of it when I feel that it sounds better...

https://www.angelfire.com/music6/fnorkfnork

The sound is quite bad.

[fnork]

I made a new recording of the toccata, plus a slower "practice" version... I actually played it a bit slower, I tend to hit more right notes that way

At 1:30 I made several mistakes because I've changed fingerings in this place and I'm not used to it yet.
The end is quite messy, and I did the last thing you're supposed to do in the end of this piece - hit the wrong last note  hehe...

[fnork]

Forgot to say that the mp3 files are on the same link as the last recording, which is:
https://www.angelfire.com/music6/fnorkfnork

And the first four bars didn't get on the recording for some reason... but enjoy listening anyway... I'm uploading it now, it should be up in 15 minutes.

[etudes]

i listen at this moment
i think you did better job on second record (maybe about the system of recording)
some of is more clean
in the first recording becareful about bass its like underwater sound (esp.in the middle til the end)  but i never play this piece (just read it)but its a great job with a short time great!
i wish i could play like this
GREAT!

[fnork]

good thought about the bass, I'll think about that when I practice.
The first recording was done 2 days ago and I've practiced a lot and slowly since then, so the playing is better in many ways. However, the first recording sounds very "heavy" and bad because it was recorded in a very small room. The new recording was done in a large hall.

[etudes]

its great
so next time record in a large hall      better sound
agree that the first record is sound heavy and seems like everything went very loud (should i turn my volume down  )
btw great job
ps.how long you practise this piece since u started?

[fnork]

yeah, the larger the hall, the better the piece gets
I've been practicing it for about 2 weeks, some days 5-6 hours. Other days I haven't practiced it at all because I've been having other things to do... I'd say that I've had about 7 days of practicing it for 5-6 hours, then a few days with 2-3 hours practice, and a few days with almost no or very little practicing.

[etudes]

very great for 2 weeks
ooh i think 2 weeks for me just play through at very slow speed would already please me
very great
just record more (can i ask what are you playing at this moment)

[fnork]

You mean what other pieces I'm working on right now? Well, since I play the toccata now, I don't have time for other things... but a few things I'll take up again after the toccata are:

Brahms trio no 1
Bartok - Two romanian dances op 8a (the first one)
Chopin 2nd scherzo (perhaps, not sure if I'll do this one)
Schubert impromptu Gb major

and other things...

[lostinidlewonder]

Listened to the recordings. I really felt that the sharpness of the single repeated notes throughout didn't have enough bite.  They seemed too legato, rather than short and rapid sounding. To me it seemed to get better as you went along, but work on accuracy. This is a piece where it is easy to think you get away with a wrong note, but to someone who knows the piece well all slightly wrong notes will disrupt it all. I think there needs to also be a little more variation in your accent touches and furthermore increase your volume changes. But it sounds like you definatly can keep the piece under the hands, really good work for the short time!

[fnork]

I played the toccata on concert tonight. Surprisingly, I didn't get very nervous (I though I would be shaking and unable to play the piece...), because after the number that was right before the toccata, I thought that someone would present me and the piece before I went on stage. And as nothing happened for 15-20 seconds, I guess the only thing to do was to walk out and play... actually, I'm very glad that it ended up that way, because it made me think of something else, and I wasn't too nerous as I played it.
The concert was our schools yearly "spring concert". It usually takes place in our school, but this time, we got to play in the philharmonics concert hall - a really beautiful hall. The acoustics are great there, and they had a very nice Steinway.

On the whole, I think the performance was okay. Actually, I thought that people who've heard the piece before wouldn't like it at all, but then I talked to some people who heard it before (and liked the music), and they liked how I played it too. Surprisingly to me, they didn't comment the tempo - even though I played it at 120-125... I made some stupid mistakes, like on the second last chord, I missed it and it sounded terrible.  So when I hit the last note, some people probably were unsure of if I was finished or not...

It was a good experience, because now I know that if I want to do something this hard on a concert again and still want to make the best of it, I have to start practicing earlier. Because even though I was able to play the piece all the way through, it's hard to make it sound fresh after almost three weeks of so much practice. I could have played it in a more interresting way, but now it was a bit too "mechanical". I'm glad I did it after all. Anyway, there's another concert the 19th, where I'll probably play it again, together with one of Medtners fairy tales - another piece I have to learn in a short time. Looking forward to it.

But from tomorrow and until monday night, I'm on a class trip to Prague! Have fun here without me, see you soon again