Hi!

I haven't been online for a month or so... there are plenty of new recordings I got to check, and also reply comments on my last one.

But it is holiday here, so I DO NEED to go to the beach right soon.

This is my last recording. The support to my performance are my studies on Baroque practice (Baroque articulation and inflection), one masterclass with Judy Tarling and the inspiring historically informed recordings by Bob van Asperen and Lucy van Dael.

I've also made a video of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vEd40U7Itw

I hope the MP3 and tags are okay. This is the first time I edit a recording of mine on Ubuntu (no, Windows no more!)

Bach/Brahms - Chaconne for left hand alone (13:52)

Hello Luis,
Beautiful ! I know by heart this piece, and I have played it in concert many years ago, so listening your recording reminded me good memories. I like your interpretation, and the way you conduct the variations, with nice changes in atmosphere, but keeping a quite constant tempo (except when D major is coming, but everybody does that, and I think it is permitted...). There are minor simplifications in your version (like octaves being replaced by single notes), but maybe it is a matter of edition. Also, I have noticed that you play a 'great tenth' (from Bb to D) without arpegiando: therefore I conclude you have really a wide left hand, or maybe the right hand has to do with it . Well, even if this is the case, this is a minor cheat, and it serves the music. A last question about the piano: at the beginning, on my bad computer headphones, it sounded as a digital piano, but finally I'm not sure (and I think you told us that you had recently purchased a new piano).
Regards,

hi, Francois!
thanks!

No, there's no right hand here. hehe.
There'll be a video soon, and I think that proves. haha.

Wow... there are differences in your edition? Mine is Eusebius Mandyczewski.

About the piano... you got to wait for the video to check, but this is a Yamaha C1.

Hi Luis,
I just listed to and enjoyed your performance of this wonderful work. I think you did a very excellent effort of playing it. I have performed the Busoni version and I am amazed at how rich and fullfilling this rendition of Brahms for LH alone is (my edition is the Peters/Emil von Sauer {the best for Brahms IMO}). It is just more evidence to the genius of Bach that whether performed on solo violin, piano LH alone, piano both hands, guitar, orchestra, or whatever transcription (not basson), this work is a towering masterpiece! I found you only in rare moments to lose the voicing of the melodic line. My strongest (but not strong) criticism is that you certainly slow down from your established tempo when you get to a few of the really technically difficult parts. It is also amazing to see that these are the same sections that are difficult in the Busoni rendition (I refer in this version first to the section in sextuplets followed by the 32nd note section for a few pages prior to the D major; and the 8-bars leading to the return of d-minor). To have a truely masterful performance of this work, IMO, it needs to hold together quite well from a continuity-of-tempo (this is not meant to preculde judicious rubato, to be sure).

In summary, I really salute your peformance and celebrate the addition of this recording to the library of PS! Thank you for allowing me to re-live this great work again!

hi, Eddy!
thanks for listening.
You're right: in the pp section, I dont voice the melody properly.

I used to play the Siloti romantic transcription (little similar to that of Busoni) which is already on here on PS. But after studying Baroque style, I wanted to play a less romantic version, and this one is really faithful to the original score.

This left hand version is usually played slower (there's a 20-minute long version on YouTube), but I realized that it would sound more Baroque-like if played faster. Bob van Asperen and Lucy van Dael take 12 minute for it. I tried to keep this timing in mind, but then I relaxed when I noticed that some passages (like the major section) need to breath differently on piano.

About the technical difficulties, one of tge worst passages is right in the first page: from the 8th bar, there are a series of difficult arpeggios which are quite discouraging when you're reading for the first time. Hopefully the piece gets easier after this scaring first page.

Good job ! This piece is not insanely difficult, but it is long and tiring, especially if you do not have big hands (I guess yours are adequate).
Twenty minutes seems impossibly drawn out, but maybe on a string instrument it can work. The piano version should IMO not take so long.
I practised this piece some years ago when I had a painful RH thumb, and submitted a work-in-progress recording which received mixed feedback on account of its (minor) technical flaws.

Interesting to take it as a series of variations each with their own character. I feel it as more monolithic somehow. Your broken chords/arpeggios from 9:44 onwards sound a bit awkward, and the section starting at 11:00 sounds quite insipid. Apart from that is is a good performance despite
some wrong notes especially in the fast runs. I never found the first page especially hard, for me it's the wide arpeggios near the middle that are really painful.

I will put this on the site tonight. I have to say your piano does not sound its best here, especially not in the beginning. Later on it's not so
bad, or maybe the ear adjusts.

Mine is Durand. However, I realize that I had long added octaves where there are none neither in my edition nor in your interpretation. Then, forget about my point !

I was about to put this on the site but I can't work out whether to put this under Bach or Brahms. Damn transcriptions

And Felipe, its nice you use Ubuntu now, but can you please provide all the ID3 tags next time ?

Also, in case of a double name, you should use a slash in the Name tag (not sure if we've documented that), so:

Bach/Brahms - Chaconne for left hand alone

These details matter because my shell scripts and C programs rely on this naming.

Hi, Chris!

Despite the slash and the missing composer and genre, are the other tags okay? I never feel these two tags because they are optional according to the topic explaining how to write tags, and besides the MP3 players do not take them into account when showing the information on the screen. So they're not *so optional*?

Well... I think that minimun changes on how I set the microphone position makes a lot of difference on the recording. This time I just put it some milimeters farer, since last time the recording got too much noise from the dampers. I didn't expect this slight change would sound so different. I noticed it was strange, but I couldnt yet activate my Sound Blaster card on Ubuntu, so I thought it was my soundcard, not the recording set. Or maybe it's the way I added reverb on GVerb?

Yeah right. As an IT guy I should know better than to make things optional. I'll go and make them mandatory now... because people never do anything unless they absolutely have to. Problem solved ! And who knows we may want to start using these tags one fine day.

I'm sure the couple of mm's would not make all the difference. If you ask me, the piano is simply out of tune. Or at least some notes are. It happens

Chris, did this piece go up to the site?
I checked in my page and I didn't find anything, not on Brahms or on Bach. I also checked on your page, because you also recorded this transcription, and I found nothing.

No, I was still undecided whether it should go under Bach or Brahms (was hoping for some advice as I never get the hang of transcriptions) and then forgot. My version never made it on the site.

Just my opinion, but I file my Bach-Busoni Chaconne score with my Bach works. Since my Bach-Brahms score is in a volume of collected Klavierwerke of Brahms, that one is in the Brahms drawer.

To take this decision is really difficult. I remember you've been discussed long ago.

I don't know how PianoSociety is written (I mean, the software), but a good decision would be that the transcriptions be available in both composer and arranger sections, like it is in IMSLP. I think this is not the case, right?

I myself always like to see those pieces in the Composer section, because it seems easier to find (you may even discover a not so famous transcription of a famous piece). But in some other cases, there may be rare pieces, from rare composers, being transcribed by famous composers, so in this case the easier way to find would be the opposite. Just my opinion.

Your filing system is a marvel of logic, Eddy