This is the XIV prelude of Timur Ismagilov's 24 Preludes (on all keys).

I know nothing about the composer, esxept that the must be in his 30s, has brown hair and seems to gravitate around Moscow. I do not believe him to be Russian (indeed, his name points to a Turkic origin - Edit: indeed, he comes from Bashkiristan).

These were composed between 2005 and 2008, so we have XXI century music here!

I cannot even find out if these preludes have been published, but some of them are played on YouTube, from where I fished them (print screen, paste on Photoshop, trim them, reconstruct each page on CorelDraw, convert to PDF and print.)

I am planning on recording others in future, but for now let this one begin the series.

Ismagilov - 24 Preludes No 14 in E flat (1:27)

I listened to your recording but quite frankly I believe you still need to master some technical aspects...

Hehe, only kidding, although I did notice two rhythm mistakes. I won't tell you what they are; you should be able to work that out for yourself if I only say that they're in bars 17 and 18 (which are between about 0:57 and 1:04). Even listening without score, one can notice that something in bar 18 breaks the continuity of meter, whereas what's amiss in bar 17 has no wider ramifications, so you need the score to see what it is.

Musically, you seem to have formed an idea of what the piece wants to say, and then you say it. That's good. For me your performance evokes a sensation of floating slowly, as if in a hot air balloon, over a peaceful landscape, in a dream.

A couple of extra comments.

You are paying serious attention to the "Lento" marking, and are therefore playing the piece significantly below the metronome marking supplied. But then the composer himself doesn't play it quite as fast as 78 either, so one is left wondering what he really meant. I suspect it should flow more, but that might upset your perception of what the piece wants to say, giving too much urgency to the dream, with a stiff breeze blowing the balloon along too quickly to enjoy the view.

Notice how the right hand basically plays two voices, but is written so that (with only two exceptions) whenever either voice plays a new note, the other voice sustains its previous note. This means the performer needs to work hard to allow each voice to keep its own identity, probably by playing the lower more quietly than the upper. At the moment it sounds much as though you are playing a single melody which consists of all the notes the right hand plays.

Thank you Rainer: I find this much more helpful.

Yes, bar 17, left hand. The tendency, of course, is to keep to the established pattern, but here we have two dotted crotchets (6/8 instead of 3/4) and,it doesnot even sound wrong, that is the thing! But wrong it is and must be corrected.

I myself thought I might be playing too slowly, but the composer (if it is he playing) plays it maybe a tidbit faster, but not much. I find that faster it does not allow enough time to free the fingers to play the other voice.

Speaking of that, the composer also seems to get a bit lost with the voices: at times it is quite plain there are two, but often he also plays them as if they were one.

I think the best solution is not to play one voice softer, but to apply some Bach technique to them; that is, to release the last note of the phrase and thenm, when that voice returns, to stress the first note. The composer says as much, if one observes the phrasing he indicates.

Here is the prelude, hopefully with the rhythm corrected on bar 17 (it took time to sort out!). There is not too much time at the end, but that was because I cut a little too much and got just at the end of the note, but as the original was not saved (which I normally do), I did not want to add silence at the end. I am not going to redo this one, at least not for a year or so.


Ismagilov - 24 Preludes No 14 in E flat (1:27)

Hi Richard,

I've never encountered the piece before, but you seem to have a good overall grasp of it, and it's a pleasant piece to hear. It has a very fresh, open sound to it. This will sound odd, but if you asked me who composed it, I probably would have responded that it was a composer influenced by Bax and Ireland!

David

Thank you, David. I too have noticed, in other pieces, this "English pastoral" sound to his music. Why a 30-year old Bashkir composer who gravitates around Moscow and Ufa (the capital of Bashkortostan, one of the republics of the Russian Federation) should sound thus is to me a mystery. Maybe the key is in folk influences and the folk music of both countries is similar, though one is Germanic and the other Turkic.

Indeed the piece is reminiscent of a calming, impressionistic pastoral; I suspect the similarities between unheard folk music and the impressionistic idiom (mostly in their use of modes) may be quite extensive.

As for your interesting performance, floaty and dreamy sounds like the best way to describe it. You do very well in shaping the melody on the small scale, but I would suggest that you make some tiered dynamics on a large scale (that tender episode from 0:53 to 1:02 seems to warrant a call to attention as such, a small diminuendo and crescendo).

Hi Richard,

Yes, that's the mistakes fixed, and a better tempo. As for the silence at the end being too short, I don't think that matters, because the sound has faded away to almost nothing anyway, giving the impression that the silence is longer than in fact it is.

On the point of separating the voices, your suggestion, it seems to me, would help to separate the phrases within a voice, but not really to distinguish the voices from each other. I think there are limits to what it is possible to do in this respect, given the way the piece is written. I'm beginning to suspect that the composer didn't really intend the two voices to be independent, but to make sense only when put together.

The following, for example, will make no sense at all when played hands separately.

This piece reminds me more of Satie than of Bax or Ireland. Pretty weak stuff but worth a hearing I suppose. Nothing much to nag about the performance, it's a straightforward rendition of a straightforward piece (I did not listen to the first version).
A word on the ID3 tags:

- in e flat - is that E flat major or minor ?
- http://pianosociety.com instead of http://www.pianosociety.com
- Composer tag was missing

Corrected these but please take heed in future. I'll put this on the site but so far don't see a reason to add a composer page.

Of course, in these days he cannot claim not to know those composers, which makes it all more difficult.

The composer does indicate dynamics in the passage you mention, but only from mp to p and back. Did you mean more contrast than that? I could do it, I suppose, but that would no longer be what the composer wrote, but who says the composer is the best judge of his own work?


Yes, the voices complement each other and make no sense on their own, but still, the slight stress helps to call attention to the separate entrances of these.


Thank you, Chris. This might not be a masterpiece and I do not think it is meant to be, but we cannot spend all our time listening to the great masters. After all, you only see the mountains if you have the valleys in between. This particular one at first reminded me of one ofg the Gymnopédies, but soon the impression faded.

I am sorry about the tags. My latest submissions have all been in this style and no one protested, so I had assumed I was been a good boy and all that. When writing scales I differntiate between capital and not: E flat means E flat major and e flat means e flat minor. Is than not the convention?

True, and I've done my fair share of presenting minor masters.After all, you only see the mountains if you have the valleys in between. This particular one at first reminded me of one ofg the Gymnopédies, but soon the impression faded. I admit I'm a bit prejudiced by that silly blurb that passes for a bio : Thinks musically. Sometimes gustsy and romantic or contagiously humorous. Combines freely any contemporary composer technique with deep perception of the sounding matter. Trying to involve national element in his works (tatarian, bashkirian, sometimes russian). Duh

Seems I'm just being more picky than Monica

No, although it would make sense. For better or worse, we've always written A minor and A major. So I'm a bit reluctant to change that now.

Yes, had I read the biography first I might well have been prejudiced too and never even looked again. What nonsense can people write! Anyway, there are far better preludes in that set, but there is still work to do on them.

I created a template for the tags. I shall change it and that will be that: no more worrying if they are right or wrong.

Well, I can write major or minor, as this is the site's convention.

PS. I have eliminated the biography.

PPs. One thing, Chris: if I wish to add extra tags (such as the piano brand and the publisher of the score I am using), is that allowed?