Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Rach and his 2nd sonata

From all accounts Dolce sfogato is a highly competent pianist (if not professional) ...
and prefers the first two Rachmaninoff sonatas (op, 19 and op. 28) to the third op. 36.

Some of us (who can’t play the sonatas) like to be guided by his judgment.

You don't have to be able to play a sonata to judge it's merit.

Who here has played Rach 3, Prokofiev 2, Brahms 2, Beethoven's op.106/111? We've all heard them, studied the scores, loved them, but we can't play them. We can do the same to op.36 as well.

Why? Don't you have a brain for yourself to decide?

And since when has rachmaninoff ever liked a composition of his? He was incredibly insecure.

Horowitz played the second, not the first. At least not to my knowledge. How would you explain that?

I would be very surprised if Horowitz hadn't learned and played the 1st sonata privately. Why he never played it publicly (at least in later years), is anyone's guess. (And why the heck didn't he play any of the concertos besides the 3rd?) Sadly, it's our loss- Horowitz could have been the ultimate interpreter.

No gallant defense here as Angelina stands up for herself very well. I do defend, however, the sonata's merit. It's a work of great quality and fits quite nicely with any repertoire including your LVB sonatas/Chopin nocturnes. I'd be willing to bet that most repertoires sans the sonata appear so due to limited ability more than anything, but surely not quality in regard to the work itself.

Overall though, Horowitz did not seem to perform many concertos live it seems.

Ok that is more of a question...Did horowitz play that many concertos?

In his rep (as far as I know):

Chopin 2
Brahms 1 and 2
Rach 1, 2, 3
Liszt 1 and 2
Mozart K. 488
Tchaikovsky 1
Beethoven 5

I would be willing to bet he also knew the Scriabin concerto and probably a couple of the Medtner's as well.

For what it’s worth Angelina ... the MIDI format gives me the advantage of playing
any keyboard masterpiece prima vista ... including the 40 measures of the Rachmaninoff sonata op. 36 earlier shown ... by this graphic method Beethoven Opus 111 sonata ...
(which is beyond the reach of Kuanpiano) becomes a breeze, when transcribed.

My heart goes out to my respected Forum colleagues slogging at fevered practising ... when the MIDI format would change practising into instant playing .. like reading a favourite book.

With respect chaps ... what a bunch of dodos ... our schools provide the graphic format by which we all learn to snap fluctuations in the gold price ... and yet we persist with an antiquated (grotesquely distorted) music notation.

But then, you chaps can’t change ... once trapped into the abcdefg mind-set.

pleeeeease explain
Do you mean that you read an alternative notation (in MIDI format) which makes it much easier for you to play the piece when sitting at the piano?

You don't mean just pressing playback button after entering all the notes at your leisure do you?

I like your graphics btb but I never realised you read them!!

Edit: C'mon btb! I am so curious to see what the page actually looks like. Could you post the first page of op111 that you read? It can't imagine reading the graph above, but maybe if it was much bigger I could see it. Thanks

I'm at a loss as to what this post even means. You said you couldn't play the sonatas so you can't be suggesting that you can if you can see them in some faux-piano-roll style of a midi editor. Unless you just let a midi sequencer press the keys for you, how is Opus 111 a breeze to play? If that is the case, then I don't see the worth. What am I missing? Am I up too late?

Too true Canonie from Oz,

I can read the MIDI format ... I call it by that name so that the folk don’t throw too many stones at me ... nobody likes a smart-alec ... as a fresh 26 year old architect visiting London (and working in the office of Sir Basil Spence - designer of the New Coventry Cathedral) I dreamt up the graphic format , using the Pathetique Sonata as first prototype ... 40 years later I am fortunate enough to be able to download, print and play some thousand transcribed keyboard masterpieces.

Here’s what you asked for ... MIDI of the opening 32 measures to the Beethoven sonata
Opus 111 ... I’ve just re-visited the gem at my Grotrian Steinweg and came all over goose-bumps ... images of stone-deaf Beethoven crashing those dramatic chords in the opening 4 measures ,,, and repeating the Theme higher at m5-8 (those racy arpeggio runs need some working on) ... then those glorious chiming converging chords from m9-16 ... ominously dropping the LH chord at m19 to maintain the meeting arms ... the chord at m21 drips with the finality of doom ... only to rumble into an even more macabre passage at 21-24 ... while m25-28 is positively ghoulish ending in a sepulchral pp trill.

You will notice on the graphic the six octaves of the keyboard ... divided by bold C lines ... pitch is accurately measured up and note duration across ... sharps and flats fall away by giving equal space to each of the 12 basic keyboard notes ... and numbering the notes
similar to the familiar 5 minute divisions on a clock face:
60 (C) 05, 10 (D) , 15, 20 (E) . 25 (F) , 30, 35 (G) , 40, 45 (A) , 50, 55 (B) , 60 (C)

After you’ve had your nervous breakdown ... you might like to chat some more ... it should be pointed out however, that the mind-set of the alphabetic notation makes change nigh impossible.


PS The success of the format lies in snap-reading the overall picture of the music ... where the individual notes merely articulate the shape... the grey areas represent compound sound (ie chords)

Wow btb, I'm having a good look at it now. There are dynamics and performance indications! I've seen these when you've posted them before but never realised you used them for reading. Sorry for this thread derail but I don't spose it matters too much at this stage.

I assume this works well when you have a good sound memory of the piece, or use a recording alongside - is that right? I can see the bold lines inside the grey areas to accurately mark the notes of the chords.

And have you ever tried to read a new (to you) piece notated in this method, or got someone else to try this? It's hard to imagine that this is possible except for much simpler pieces than this. Would you say there is less detail possible in this format? or would it be possible to develop the language further?

Thanks for the explanation, I find alternative notations fascinating. My students occasionally come up with bizarre methods of notating their early compositions - things I'd never think of.

My apologies I forgot Beethoven loved MIDI. It really is the best way to learn music, how insightful!

Yet you still have the balls to criticize the rest of us, who actually devote time and effort into learning something.. Yeeeah you are always right aren't you. To heck with the proper format. Oh and the second sonata is sure a piece of crap.

I think I'm goin to stop wasting my time with your amazing words of wisdom. You should feel special - you're the first user I'm ever going to put on my ignore list! Yay!

My search for anything new to process is like blotting paper ... anything to make my day ... but to give you some idea of the vast territory covered ... here’s a popular song by Leonard Bernstein from "West Side Story" ... the haunting "Maria".

You will notice that the lyrics are neatly perched above the keyboard outlines ... in this case there’s even a snap of a youthful Bernstein (sadly smoked himself to death ) ... I tend to play this party-piece at the drop of a hat ... don’t tempt me.

Anything new which might be spotlighted by one of our colleagues is accessed through IMSLP as with the Rachmaninoff sonata op. 36 ... thus the 40m graphic posted ... by which the content is discovered as a graphic shape ... in this case, because of the scattered nature of the note patterns and the spread between LH and RH roles, it took a few play-throughs before the music gelled.

Kind regards,

I don't understand the point of these when it's all too obvious from the score.

And yes, op.111 is beyond my reach, but I don't see how it becomes any closer when translated into midi. Heck, I don't even know what you're talking about any more.

I don't think anyone knows.. hahahahaah..