Chopin etude op10/4

Hi GUYS,
I am back for another assault. I am almost dead last time but decided to come back to PS and to give another go. Have your say?

 

It surely is getting better. You got the drive and the stamina, no problem. Now aim for accuracy and clarity, practised at a slower tempo. There are far too many notes that are fumbled.

 

Etude

I concur. John; you are getting better and better. You only have a few weak spots now. More daily slow practice and careful work isolated spots where you hear a weakness is my suggestion. Of course, you also need to push the tempo after practicing slowly, but multiple times playing it slowly and then try pushing the tempo. Then, of course, back to more slow work. I know. It's a drag sometimes.

I play this Etude on a regular basis but still don't have the audacity to post it.

 

thanks for your supports. Yes, thats my easy relaxed tempo and after 3 months the speed went up by itself, I slashed around 15 sec as compared to my 26/5/06 recording at the same "relaxed" speed. Meanwhile, I am working on something else.....

Good to hear from you guys...

Sorry, GUYS= BOYS and GIRLS :lol:

 

By the way everyone. I forgot to add, its my happinest day to do this recording. AND I have added an extra C# to make it more dramatic. I am sure Chopin would be more happier...again, its my own transcription of this study.

Tell me if you all can locate that note)c#, especially you Chris.... :lol: It would be a hearing challenge for you. You might need to wind up your "fumble " note detector....

 

Hey John, thought we'd lost you!

I'm glad you're back. You missed a little "Weber" contest that was fun.

If you look here

http://server3.pianosociety.com/new/php ... highlight=

you'll find that place where participating pianists will submit recordings of the Debussy piece.

Pete

 

I think this need a bit more polishing. There are still many errors and practicing slow and with patience will do the trick. Welcome back by the way.

 

thanks Robert and everyone, from every now and then, I will just try to improve my articulation no matters what. This is the most intersting thing about the piano playing.

Meanwhile, have you found that C# I added?

 

I didn't find the C# you added....
But you should know that this piece is played in legato and you should take extra care on the slurs and details in the piece. This kind of music is not a piece that can be mastered in a short time.
But anyway where is the C#?? :?

 

The C# he added was the first note of the second-to-last measure, where he played an octave rather than a single C#. It also seems like he added an E into the octaves at the end of that measure, but that might have just been overtones tricking my ear. He also left out the left hand notes in the third-to-last measure.

This is a very difficult piece, John, as I'm sure you know - props to you for working on it. As others have said, there are quite a few missed notes, and I agree that it needs to be much more legato - it often seems that your right and left hands are not quite in sync with each other, which causes the harmony to sound off at times.

One example of a wrong note that I am quite sure is a reading error rather than a simple goof - Hunwoo made the same reading error in the recording he submitted not too long ago - the last beat of measure 4 has an F double-sharp that is carried from earlier in the measure. Both you and Hunwoo simply played an F#, I believe from simply not realizing that the Fx carries from earlier in the measure. The chord of course repeats in the recapitulation of the main theme, and the same problem is observed there in both recordings.

Good luck cleaning this one up, John - I think I might try this one next year. This year, I'm working on the 25/12.

 

thanks , Hunwoo and Terez. And You have found it and congradulations. And 20$ money order will be sent to your address. As I said, I will further polish this piece every now and then. I will aslo check the wrong note yopu mentioned..... and good luck with op25/12...

thanks all.

 

lol...that's if I'm willing to submit my address to the internets, huh? I already feel special for finding it, so don't worry about it.

My suggestion for the next time you put a bit of polish on this one - concentrate on legato (Chopin always lamented that so many pianists, especially his students iirc, did not know how to "join one note to another"), synchronization, and most importantly, at a workable tempo. In this one, it's difficult to tell in most cases if you are missing notes because of misreading, or because you aren't playing at a workable tempo.

I've personally read through and practiced a lot of Chopin, and performed little. I know how difficult it is to slow-practice with Chopin, in particular pieces like the 10/4 etude, especially at a tempo where the melody cannot support the phrase. You want to make those phrases sing! (lol...or at least, I do) I also practice particular pieces in phases, because if I practice one piece for too long, I get sick of it. And certainly not by any fault of Chopin's - I get sick of my inability to make a piece sing properly. My inexpert rendering of something perfectly beautiful starts to shape it into something less beautiful. I have to move on to something different before I kill it. I've never been totally happy with any of my performances of Chopin - they always could have been so much better.

Fortunately, there's degrees of that - I have been happier with some performances (those that aren't so technically difficult, mostly) than with others. I haven't studied with anyone in nine years, and though I've definitely still played over all of those years, I didn't practice as much as I would have if I had been working toward two or more performances a year. That's why I'm looking forward to going back to school next month. I'm terrified, but excited.

Anyway, I'm telling you all this so you'll know that any criticism I'll offer to you is only a smidgen of what I give myself. And if you submit another recording for your next polish, I'll probably offer another smidgen.

lol...I can see it now...when I finally manage to post a recording here (which I hope to be some time by the end of the year) it will probably come with a nice long post detailing all of the things that I already know are wrong with it. :lol: I hope you guys can stand it...

 

thanks Terez.

I just about to email you about your address. and you beat me to it.
Yes, I did not sound some notes due to lack of articulation. I have played it but not clear enough.

At this stage, I am working on workable temo with p playing. I did this on purpose. I also tried to be 100% that with p playing without loosing clarity as Chris have pointed out.

So now I focus on "p" or soft playing, to reduce muscular tension and thereofre this can generate more speed later on. The current practice tempo is around one crochet =120. I am working on CLARITY first before anything else. At the same time I almost finished the black key study. But It need at least 1 year to polish up. All my work is played by memory as medatory.

thanks again.

 

[ One example of a wrong note that I am quite sure is a reading error rather than a simple goof - Hunwoo made the same reading error in the recording he submitted not too long ago - the last beat of measure 4 has an F double-sharp that is carried from earlier in the measure. Both you and Hunwoo simply played an F#, I believe from simply not realizing that the Fx carries from earlier in the measure. The chord of course repeats in the recapitulation of the main theme, and the same problem is observed there in both recordings.

Terez, I just went home and double checked he last 25 bars starting from FF section.

Before I go any further, my edition is schirmers one(yellow cover). Chopin marked first double sharp indeed, but when the second F# in the same bar reoccurs, he remove the first # and it becomes to a single #. By analyse his pattern , he had both hands decending in half steps or chromatically. Therefore, this is the only way it can be played. Fist F# note played double sharp and second F# only played sharp once. So, this is what I did. And IF you heard Hunwoo "make" the same error as me. May be its due to the same edition we used. Otherwise, its physically unplayable.

I would suggest, that use the software program and slow down the tempo by 50% and you can tell me if we played the wrong note or not....(only if you got time and patient).

Otherwise, I indeed added C3 and E# on purpose to make it more ramatic. You spot it 100%.

 

Hi John,
you play that difficult Etude pretty fast - my respect for that. Still, it could come out smoother and more relaxed. I am sure you will come to this with calm and slow practise - you know, the slowest will be the fastest at the end.

Regarding that F#, my score has F double sharp too. Since many play F double sharp it seems to be physically playable too, and since the following measures have always F double sharp it also seems more logical to me, and sounds also better. Why do you think it is physically unplayable? If you use the thumb for the c# and d#, it seems to me not that difficult to grip (however I have large hands).

 

Thanks Olaf. Yes, I am doing soft slow p-pp playing now as I said, I work on clarity now with soft touch. also without loss of speed. This is my last goal in my life.

Back to F double sharp. Wthin the same bar, it started with double sharp, but the second F# is no longer doubled sharped. "Playable" means....if I had to play f## and the note before that is a G natural. This crashes/? right It seems playing G natural or F## twice with thumb it does not sound too musical. So as I said, It should be played F## then followed by F#, this patterns repeats at least 3 times in the last 25 bars.

Thank you for listening....

 

I don't have the Schirmer version of the Etudes, but from what I was able to find out, the Schirmer publication of the Etudes was edited by Arthur Friedheim. I have a Dover edition edited by Mikuli. Ordinarily I would trust Mikuli more than any other edition just because of the access that Mikuli had to Chopin's input (he sat in on lessons, and made several corrections to editions that had already been published based on Chopin's comments) but that is not even the reason why I'm sure it's supposed to be an Fx.

Have you studied functional harmony? A modulation from any key to its dominant key is best served by using a II7 as a pivot chord, primarily because it creates the leading tone. In this case, Chopin modulated from C-sharp minor to G-sharp minor (the dominant key in relation to C-sharp minor). The II7 chord - in this case, D#7, which is spelled D#-Fx-A#-C#, and would be analyzed as V7/V - resolves in this manner to the G-sharp minor triad (G#-B-D#) that follows: D# (the root) becomes the fifth, A# (the fifth) leads by half step to B (the third), C# becomes by whole step in either direction the third or the fifth - and the most important lead in the resolution is the Fx that is the leading tone in the key of G-sharp (major or minor).

Using F# rather than Fx in that chord makes it a D# minor 7 chord, which is a very awkward chord to use as a pivot in this case, and something that I don't think Chopin would do. The laws of functional harmony agree with Olaf - the dominant 7 simply sounds better. I'm not sure what pattern you are talking about, but I do know that the dominant 7 pivot chord is used far more than 3 times in the last 25 measures.

And, as Olaf says, it is not difficult to play - in your right hand, you are only using your outer fingers before this, which leaves the inner fingers totally free, and you play both the C# and D# with your thumb whether you use F# or Fx, so I don't see what is difficult about it. It also sounds like you don't play the full right-hand chord in the first beat of measure 5 - the highest note I hear is the G#.

Also, in measures 13-14 (and again in 63-64), are you playing E or E# in the left hand? There is something wrong in that chord, and I think that might be it.

 

My apologies; I double-posted accidentally.

 

thanks Terez, I will check meaure 13 again. and what you have pointed out.

You are a very complex person indeed. So much chord to study....haaa. May be chopin was a bit crazy and tried something that is against common theory....