Four of my old performances on my Bechstein piano. Chopin and Mozart have been recorded in January 2008, Schumann in August 1989.

This is a bit of a mixed bag.

To start with the Schumann Novelette, the sound quality is not good enough for the site, sorry. The playing is very competent but your sense of rhythm and tempo doesn't seen very secure here, and articulation is rather soggy.

The Chopin preludes are well sound good. Of course this is a competitive area, just about everybody has recorded these two. Actually, these two hardly count as first submissions. No.20 is very slow but we've had worse Glad to see you are an E-flat minor man.

The Mozart is cleanly played, with very nice dynamics. I find it a bit literal though, as if played through at an exam by a skilled student.
All the right notes are there, but somehow it doesn't sparkle. You wrote earlier you are very good in playing ornaments but I find them to be a bit labored here. Maybe your Bechstein does not have a very light touch ? It's a nice sounding instrument though. Except for the what seems really close miking here. The hemmer/damper noises got ion my nerves while listening to this one with headphones. No such
problem in the Chopin preludes.

If you want to be a pianist on the site, I'd like to hear a couple more pieces, and get an idea of your plans regarding new recordings and participating in the forum. We like people to be regular contributors.

I listened to all of them. The Chopin and Schumann sound well played, despite the poorer recording quality of the older one, but I'm not familiar enough with them to comment in detail. I like the way the tempo in the Schumann keeps manically pushing ahead and falling back again. Of the Chopin preludes I liked No 4 better, No 20 is rather too slow for my taste.

The Mozart is reasonably competently played on the whole, but I'd like to comment on some details:

Bars 2 and 4: I prefer these trills to start on the upper note, but that's just personal taste.

Bars 26 (0'50"): You seem to be scared of the left hand triplets which begin here. They sound uneven, and you even speed up - a sure sign of panic. Once the danger is over, four bars later, you relax again.

Bars 37 (1'11"): There is something not quite right about this trill. You seem to play it as a 5-note turn, which is fine, but you seem to be treating the following F# as something different. If you were to think of the 5 notes of the turn plus the F# as a 6 note unit, and to give equal duration to each of these 6 notes, perhaps it would be more fluid. Even that is probably too academic, it should just be played naturally, as it comes, without thinking too much about lengths of notes which are really just decoration. The trouble is that you arrive late on the 2nd beat G, which should be avoided.

Bar 43 (1'24"), and also 6 bars later: Something not quite right with the first two Gs in the right hand. Perhaps it's just that the second one has too little weight, but it feels as though it comes too early, almost as though your mental speed after playing the 32nd notes in the previous bar did not manage to slow to the 16th note speed quickly enough. One bar later it's still not quite the way I'd want it, but a further half bar later (and in the next bar after that) it's good again.

Bar 47 (1'34"): Just a matter of taste, but I find this trill too slow. Or maybe it's not that. Maybe it's that the 5 notes all have the same weight. Again, I'd rather start this one on the upper note, so that you would get either 6 notes or perhaps even 8, but all but the first two of them need to be much lighter.

Bar 56 (1'53"): There is an unwelcome hesitation before the 4th beat (i.e. before the last 4 notes in the bar). The rhythm for the 2nd half of the bar should be exactly the same as two bars earlier, which you do fine.

Bar 58 (1'56"): This is not the end of the movement, so the rit is not appropriate here. Oh, and I can hear the page turn!

Bar 67 (2'16"): Probably just an accidental stumble, but the 2nd note in the right hand comes too early.

I listened to the Chopin. I'm fine with the tempo in no.20; in fact I rather liked the rendition. I'm a bit troubled by the l.h. accompaniment chords in no.4 however. I'm not one to believe they should be absolutely metronomic but I did find the frequent tendency to elongate the first chord of each bar group a bit disconcerting.

Hello Claudio and welcome to Piano Society.

I only listened to your Chopin. Both are okay, but I think what Chris said about the sound being a little funny is correct. I almost thought it was a digital piano; I also think your mics were too close to the strings. And yes, there is quite a lot of noise from the mechanics in the recordings too. As far as your playing goes - on no. 20 - too bad you are an e-flat man . Also, I'm not crazy about the long pause you took before repeating the section near the end. But your dynamics are good.

If you submit any more recordings, please make them new (or newer) recordings.

Ciao Claudio,
I listened to all and must say that I enjoyed the Schumann the most. I find it well-played and well-interpreted. Yes the sound quality of it is not as good as other submissions these days -- mostly sounding remote to me -- but I don't think the sound quality is as bad as others may think and would accept it if it were up to me (but it's not); I have a tendency to listen more to the music than the engineering, however. The Chopin is competent, but those preludes are are not masterpieces either. IMO the Mozart needs just a bit more command of the performance elements, but not far to go either. Thanks for the submissions.

Best wishes,
Eddy

Hi Claudio,

I had a listen to two of your recordings. First, the Schumann Novelletta, IMO you play this with confidence. I just noticed something interesting I don't know if you have played Schumann's Kinderezenen but in your recording at 1:16 (I don't know where it is in the score, I do not have the score but I thought I heard a quote from "the poet speaks." Interesting. For criticism the only problem I have with it is the audio quality. At some points it sounds like you clip the top of the waveform as I hear distortion.

Second, the Chopin Largo, I like how you play it very slow (indeed, actually largo) and the difference between the mf and p. The sound is much better and I think this is much more of a professional type recording, I didn't hear any distortion as from the Schumann recording.

Overall not half bad and I hope you can re-record the novelletten on better equipment,

Riley

pianoman wrote: "I just noticed something interesting I don't know if you have played Schumann's Kinderezenen but in your recording at 1:16 (I don't know where it is in the score, I do not have the score but I thought I heard a quote from "the poet speaks." Interesting."

Very well said, RIley, it is clearly a quote from Opus 15.

Thanks to all of you for your comments.

I add a recording of "The poet speaks". This piece is quoted not only in the Novellette No. 1, but also in Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 42 (beginning and end), in the Andante und Variationen for Two Pianos, and in the Fantasiestück Op. 12 No. 2 "Aufschwung".

I had not seen this posting before. A lovingly crafted performance.
I think all you posted is more than good enough for the site but I hesitate about the Novellette on account of the sound quality. To be honest I would rather not put that one up. Maybe you can provide a new recording some day ?
So if you want to be included as a PS artist, please provide your bio and photo and we'll take care of it. In your bio, it may be good if you are very clear on your acoustic vs. digital work.