Grieg Arietta anew

richard66 · **Joined:** Thu Mar 25, 2010 6:18 pm **Posts:** 921

Continue like this and any future biography of mine will read: "He is best remembered for his exquisite interpretation of Grieg's Arietta."

rainer wrote:

This is much better in terms of getting rid of the inter-phrase gaps.

Bar 12 is still broken (and the same comments apply to bar 22). I think you manage to make it roughly the right length overall, so that you arrive at the beginning of bar 13 at the correct moment in time, but you are playing the second chord (G and Bb) much too early. It should come on the 4th beat but you've shifted it forward to almost the 3rd beat, presumably to make room for the two grace notes. You almost seem to be trying to play the grace notes as timed semiquavers, but that would be wrong. Play them independently of the other notes. Make them as fast or slow as feels right to you, subject to the constraints that all the non-grace notes should be played without (or with only the merest hint of) rubato, that the E grace note should come after the 4th beat chord, and that the G grace note should come as far as possible halfway between the E and the G main note. It's perhaps too mathematical, but a starting point might be to play the grace notes as the 2nd and 3rd notes of a triplet which starts with the 4th beat chord.

Towards this end it may help to play both notes of the 4th beat chord with the left hand, leaving the right hand free to concentrate on the grace notes, and to play them in whichever way is most comfortable. I would suggest playing the E with 2nd finger and the G with the 1st, so that you have 1-5 for the G-G octave. But before you decide how to play the grace notes, make sure the 4th beat chord really does come on the 4th beat, by playing bars 11-13 a few times while omitting the grace notes.

I shall look into that, though my hand is free when the appgiature come along.

rainer wrote:

You took our encouragement of the previous recording "flowing better" too much to heart, I think, because it is now (for my taste at least) too fast, losing much of the lyric quality this piece should have. If that is what you meant when you said "I am not sure I like it all that much", that's wonderful. But increasing the speed to this extent was not wasted effort. It proves that you are capable of it at well above target speed without making those ugly gaps; you have built up a "reserve" of technical ability and now no longer have any need to worry about notes. Now you can drop the speed back a bit again, and relax enjoy it more, and think a little bit more about general musicality and phrasing.

Indeed, too fast. I have lately been practising just that: playing above speed. In the end it easier and I am more confident at this higher speed. Now it needs to slow down and it should solve the creeps problems.

rainer wrote:

In that department I found that there is too much focus on each bar, too much accenting the 1st and 3rd beats. This is particularly evident in bars 1 and 3, slightly less so in 2 and 4. Think in longer phrases. During all of bar 1 you want to build towards the beginning of bar 2, then slope away again, and so on.

Do you think of bars 7 and 8 as being an echo of bars 5 and 6? You have made a big reduction in volume here, which seems too much.

On those bars I used the soft pedal. To me they are an echo, yes.

Thank you for this exhaustive analysis.

techneut · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:51 pm

So now we have two newer version of the Arietta. I'm starting to lose track... Does either one need to replace the one on the site ?

pianolady · **Joined:** Wed Jun 14, 2006 12:38 pm **Posts:** 7994

Neither of the attached files are going up. Perhaps you can clear all the attachments in the Audition Room via the admin control panel? I'm losing track too. Or I will do it.

techneut · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 9:00 pm

pianolady wrote:

Neither of the attached files are going up. Perhaps you can clear all the attachments in the Audition Room via the admin control panel? I'm losing track too. Or I will do it.

I think there is such a function. But I'm always afraid to delete something that should have been kept.
Need to check if there is an expiry date for attachments :!:

Makes me wonder how PianoStreet does this. They gets lots of stuff attached and it never goes anywhere.

richard66 · **Joined:** Thu Mar 25, 2010 6:18 pm **Posts:** 921

None of them is good enough. If you want me to, I can delete them.

Done.

richard66 · **Joined:** Thu Mar 25, 2010 6:18 pm **Posts:** 921

Ahem...

rainer · **Posted:** Sun Mar 25, 2012 9:57 pm

The rhythmic continuity in bars 12 and 22 is very much improved in this version, especially the way you handle the grace notes at the end of those bars; well done. Still not 100% there, though, and the same is true of bars 10 and 20. In all 4 bars you are holding the first chord on a tiny bit too long, so that the 3rd beat in bars 10/20 and the 4th beat in 12/22 is a touch late. Not by an awful lot, but by enough for someone who is listening out for it to notice.

You have had, in bars 9 and 11, a continuous semiquaver pulse going (except that nothing happens on the 7th pulse), and you should be able to keep that pulse going in your head while your hands play the slower notes of bars 10 and 12. Pretend that in these bars you also had to play a bunch of silent semiquavers in addition to what is actually there, and take care to play those silent notes in exactly the right place in time. Then the slower notes will look after themselves.

I'm still bothered by the thumpy accents (I'm exaggerating a little) on the 1st and 3rd beats of the opening bars. This is not a military march. Heed the hairpins, shape the phrases.

pianolady · **Joined:** Wed Jun 14, 2006 12:38 pm **Posts:** 7994

This is pretty good now, Richard. Except two bars, nos. 12 and 22, where your rhythm is off. Your pulse is going along fine until you get to these bars - you are holding the half note too long. If you feed two beats in your head while you are playing, then these bars are just the same thing. You play the E-flat, hold it down for two counts and then on the last upbeat you stick in the 16th notes. Hope that makes sense....

richard66 · **Joined:** Thu Mar 25, 2010 6:18 pm **Posts:** 921

You both agree and this is obviously brought about by the new fingering for the accacciature. Too much attention diverted to that caused a bit of anticipation. Understandable, if you consider I only practised once before with the new fingering!

I seem to have lost the fear of the recorder, which is perhaps the best thing, and I have gained the capacity to retain the performance, that is, that playing the piece well is no longer a question of luck, but design. Thi, of course, increases confidence.

pianolady · **Joined:** Wed Jun 14, 2006 12:38 pm **Posts:** 7994

richard66 wrote:

You both agree and this is obviously brought about by the new fingering for the accacciature. Too much attention diverted to that caused a bit of anticipation. Understandable, if you consider I only practised once before with the new fingering!

I seem to have lost the fear of the recorder, which is perhaps the best thing, and I have gained the capacity to retain the performance, that is, that playing the piece well is no longer a question of luck, but design. Thi, of course, increases confidence.

"fear of the recorder"...see? Piano Society is good for many reasons!

Now try VIDEO recording! :lol:

But please Richard, practice your new fingering more than once before recording.... :wink:

richard66 · **Joined:** Thu Mar 25, 2010 6:18 pm **Posts:** 921

I have practised the new fingering. I hope this one is better.

rainer · **Posted:** Tue Mar 27, 2012 10:45 pm

richard66 wrote:

I have practised the new fingering. I hope this one is better.

It is better. The timing in bars 10 and 20 is pretty well perfect now (10 more so than 20).
There is new problem, though, or an old one come back: An inter-phrase hesitation has crept in, in the form of a gap between bars 16 and 17 of about a 16th note duration.

In bars 12 and 22 the 4th beat is a little bit late, and the next beat (the 1st of the next bar) is still quite a bit late. You are making too much time into which to fit the two grace notes.

I notice you making the effort to bring out the hairpins centred on the beginnings of bars 2 and 4, but you could make still more of them. But that doesn't mean you should get louder at their peaks, you should start quieter instead. In fact, although the hairpin is only marked to begin in the middle of the bar, I feel you should begin bar 1 quieter too, and with less accent (or better no accent) on beat 1. The volume you play from bar 5 is lovely and gentle. By comparison bar sounds harsh, and I think the piece would work better if you started bar 1 at a similar volume as you have in bar 5.

pianolady · **Joined:** Wed Jun 14, 2006 12:38 pm **Posts:** 7994

Well....sorry, but I don't agree with Rainer. I still think bars 10 and 20 are off the mark. Like you are holding the A in the RH and the F# LH too long. Also you should make the next notes, the RH B and LH G softer. Right now, you tend to accent these notes, whereas they should be the softer of the two-note phrase. One more thing...it sounds like your recorded is closer to your LH than to your RH; your RH sounds a little underneath the LH. Either that, or your LH is playing too loudly. You're almost there, Richard. Don't give up...

edit: very weird...I just went to the home page and "today's Composer" is Grieg!

rainer · **Posted:** Wed Mar 28, 2012 10:51 am

pianolady wrote:

Well....sorry, but I don't agree with Rainer.

You don't? I think you do.

Quote:

I still think bars 10 and 20 are off the mark. Like you are holding the A in the RH and the F# LH too long.

But bars 10 and 20 don't have an A in RH or an F# in LH, so I think you must mean bars 12 and 22, about which we are in agreement: You said he holds on to the (dotted quarter) A F# too long, I said the (8ths) B G are late; same thing.

However, this timing business can be pretty subjective, and things can play tricks on our internal clocks. Clearly we both felt that Richard's 4th beat is late enough to remark on it, so I tried to get some impartial corroboration. I managed to synchronise my metronome to Richard's playing, by loading the file into Audacity and preparing it up to start playback at the beginning of bar 11. I set the metronome to 144, which is the 16th note speed here, and started it ticking, then started the playback on a tick. I was stunned :shock:

to find Richard's 4th beat in bar 12 come in the right place after all.

Maybe it is the syncopation in the 2nd half of bar 11 that throws our internal clocks off track. Maybe it's also Grieg's fault, because we kind of expect something to happen on the 3rd beat, and when nothing does, our clocks get in a bit of a panic and speed up, making us think the 4th beat, when it comes, is later than it really is. Another possibility is that when the 4th beat finally comes, there is something inside us that wants to interpret it as a very late 3rd beat.

Still, there can be no doubt that Richard's 1st beat of bar 13 is significantly late.

richard66 · **Joined:** Thu Mar 25, 2010 6:18 pm **Posts:** 921

Most of the time I was counting but, as you say, tempo is subjective and might need correction. It is something like Greek columns, that bulge outwards half-way through, to compensate the fact that the eye actually sees a straight column as bulging inwards if it is straight.

Grieg Arietta anew

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