Schumann Albumblatter Op. 99

I've been busy with work, but now have some freetime. I've heard this piece on YouTube, but couldn't find it on here, so I wanted to record it.

I am somewhat confused how this piece should be categorized. Op. 99 shows up as Bunteblatter, and it's truly the fourth of the set, though the title above the music is "1. Albumblatter" so that settles it, I suppose. This was written in 1841, the same year Schumann wrote his Spring Symphony in B flat, his first if I have that right. I'm planning on playing the rest, but for now, here's no.1 of Albumblatter.

Bunte Blätter, Op. 99, no. 4, "Albumblätter"

 

Hi Riley,

I hadn't heard this piece before. Your rendition sounds very well prepared and played. To me by its nature it seems very searching--perhaps like a meditation or a lament. Thanks for sharing it here.

David

 

It's nicely done indeed. In addition to the suggestions already made, I think you should get a bit more flow into it (i.e. a bit faster, it's terribly slow) and make it sound more confident (i.e. a little more weight, louder as it were). It sounds just a tad apologetic. Also, take care about evenness of attack, some chords are not ideally together.

 

Yes, good job.
Very good catch on Monica's part; I suspect "Albumblatter" is a generic term for "piece within a suite" or something like that, and is not meant to be the title of anything. Perhaps the German readers will enlighten us.
If there are to be no other pieces from this suite, I agree with Chris' comment about more movement and authority. But then I'm not acquainted with the rest of the work.
If the surrounding pieces are heard, the present interpretation may make more sense in addition to being well played.

 

Thanks all for the comments. I got a new digital, which is what I'm using here, and I wish I could say I was working with a well-modeled piano. The good of it is that it's a sample set from a Steinway, the bad is, their are only about 4 velocity layers, which is hardly as many as an acoustic piano. I notice that when I hit a triad, there are two notes that are emphasized, but the third just doesn't sound quite as clearly as the other two. Anyways, enough of my pouting. You know a man named Dale Carnegie wrote a book called "how to win friends and influence people" wherein he writes the worst thing you can have in life is self-pity! :lol:

I re-recorded the piece and fixed my tags. They should be perfect (I think) it's been a while since I've submitted anything here. Hope this redo is ok.

 

I notice that the suffix of Riley's attachment is .MP3 in capitals. That is why the upload program does not recognize it. Everything should be lowercase (recall the the server is Linux, a case-sensitive operating system).

 

Sure you can. Just rename it.
But Windows may be too clever to consider renaming foo.MP3 to foo.mp3, reasoning that it makes no difference to self.
So we outsmart Windows, first rename foo.MP3 to foo.bar, then rename foo.bar to foo.mp3.

 

Windows is so immensely clever that by default it hides known suffixes, assuming you'd rather work it out from the icon. First thing I always do is turn that idiotic setting off. In Explorer, click Tools->Folder Options, then click the View tab, and un-check the box that says Hide extensions for known file types. Click Apply, then Apply to Folders to make suffixes be displayed everywhere (unless you want this only in your mp3 directory).

 

:shock: Wow, that's a strange error. I never thought about that that they take away the .whatever extension. I guess windows is trying to be like Mac... :roll: I can't upload from my laptop because the upload program I have isn't compatible with my OS, don't know why that is. I tried to download the mp3 on this computer (a cybercafe near my apartment) and was able to make mp3 lower case but it won't let me change the ID metadata :evil: . Odd, as I don't remember saving the file as write-protected.

 

Thanks, Monica. Wonder how you were able to edit the ID tag info? It just gave me option to "remove properties and personal information" but didn't allow me to edit it.

 

I'll put my tech support hat on for a moment You need to provide details about issues like this. Just saying "I can't" or "It won't let me" does not cut it. Exact error messages and screenshots are in order.

 

I think this certainly sounds more confident now. More could be made of it, but it's good as it is.

Not sure what your problem is with adding ID3 tags. Windows Media Player and iTunes can do it, and there are several free ID3 tag editors available on the web (just Google for free ID3 tag editors). If you have a specific issue, please post the details. The devil is in the details, is one of my favourite sayings.

 

I use XP at home but have Windows 7 Professional here at work. In the control Panel there is no such item called "Appearance and Personalization". The settings must be made on your current folder in Windows Explorer, then (if you wish) apply it to all folders. Microsoft is great at putting things in different places depending on their current mood.

Nice, but this would not convince me it has indeed changed the name on disk. To be sure, better to rename to another suffix, then rename back.

If I had not somehow lost the source code of my upload program, I could change it to convert uppercase to lowercase and avoid this once and for all. I'll see if maybe I had the good sense to put a backup copy on the server.