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Well yeah!
Or maybe I just handle the Ballades unusually well.

But seriously folks....what I said about the 4th Scherzo is far from an idiosyncratic view.

Well, for technique, of course not. But I think that the scherzi are musically less challenging than the ballades. I think tackling one or two of the scherzi before any of the ballades is a good idea. Once a pianist can make a scherzi come together as a whole, then it's time for one of the ballades. I don't think it must be done that way but I just think it's a good idea.

They're all staggeringly difficult. Don't buy into this "technically more difficult" or "musically more difficult" talk. They are all staggeringly difficult in both regards. Also, what makes something more difficult than something else, especially with pieces these difficult, is entirely different for you than it is for me.

scherzo - singular
scherzi - plural

Whoops, made a typi. Thanks, Bruce.

The ballades are so difficult because there are so many sections and themes its very hard to hold them together. Often performances sound fragmented and as if the pianist is playing many different pieces together. The technical difficult is immense too. But I would say for someone who has never attempted a Ballade before, start with Ballade 1.

Ballade 1 is the most straight forward to begin with. Its not the most difficult in all aspects. Put in some work and it will sound decent.
Ballade 2 is too technically difficult.
Ballade 3 is very hard to "narrate" with and people often lost the plot somewhere in the middle. Ballade 4 is most difficult all round.

Mark, I believe you have written an entire wall of text concerning the 4th scherzo's transcending difficulty, but I have no idea where to find it. What about it is more difficult for you than the rest of the ballades or scherzi? (and don't hesitate to write another wall of text)

I was hoping somebody would ask.

Some of it is hard to describe so I'll save it for last. The easy part to describe is, the passagework is so crystalline and transparent (unless you slosh it all with the pedal, in which case you're not really playing the piece), and so, IMO more so than in any other Chopin piece, the slightest imperfections, especially in evenness, will, ahem, shine through. In order to do the piece even half-justice -- or, if you don't want to see it that way, in order not to embarrass yourself -- you need the highest level of technique, aural sensitivity (because without that, even the highest level of technique will somewhat fail you), and poise. In this respect, the piece combines the challenges of playing Mozart with the challenges of Romanticism, and IMO it combines these challenges more than absolutely any other piano piece. (I'm open to suggestions of other pieces that would vie with this Scherzo; I'm sure some pieces of Liszt would be up there. But to me, this piece outstrips them all on this count.)

Now for the aspect that's harder to describe: There are some little brief places which (a) are extremely awkward, and (b) require complex voicing and/or coordination between the hands. Well actually they're not awkward and don't require complex voicing or coordination if you don't care about what's going on and don't care to try to make sense of it.
But if you do, the mere 'fingers' aspects are very hard, and even harder if you're trying to make music. The main example that occurs to me is the snippet from 8:29 to 8:32 on here (I'd give measure numbers but don't have them handy):



I'm sure it won't sound like much of anything to most people, but all I can say is, try it! -- and see if you can get it up to some semblance of tempo while feeling like you're making sense of the melodic lines in the treble and bass, and without your brain being scrambled by the subtly clashing voices.
I found it the hardest 3 seconds of Chopin I've ever played, and that includes pieces like the 4th Ballade and the 3rd Sonata.

That was a typo on my part. I meant to say that he might have been less comfortable with the 4th Ballade than he was with the 1st Ballade (the Ballade that he frequently played). Horowitz seldom played the 2nd and 3rd Ballades.

While I'm at it, same goes with the Scherzi, although they are a much different kind of piece in character than the Ballades.

Of course, there are more specific issues and comparisons to be made with and between all these pieces that could be discussed, but I'm not in the mood for that right now, hehe. I'm too busy putting my new Tallis Scholars and John Ogdon 17-disc set onto my computer right now!

Oh -- I thought you had already meant the Scherzi too.

But nevertheless, another thumb up.

How about the Beethoven piano sonatas?

Would someone be able to order them for me from easiest to most difficult?






( j/k everybody)

Check this out........

https://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubb...2/topic/002368/Number/0/site_id/1#import

that's hilarious. i was being facetious.

Could somebody please number the Beethoven sonatas for me, from 1 to 32?

And just like all hard pieces, the best way to start learning is to start soon!

Very often the better one gets, the more nuances are found in the music which makes it even more difficult to pull off well. I revisit old pieces that I've played and find that there are new problems each time that I hadn't thought of earlier, so I think that each time I perform something, it gets a bit better in some regard.

And as for the E major scherzo, its hellishly difficult, especially all of those staccato passage which rise up in chords. Though surprisingly, I listened to the section that Mark brought up and found it to be one of the easier parts...

I was hoping someone would say that too.

I'd love to hear you (or anyone!) play it (at some semblance of tempo, as I said) -- and we'll see if you're doing what I think is there.

Of course one could argue about what I think is there.
But what I'm talking about is playing what I think is there!

But I'm with you on the basic thing about the difficulty of the piece, and, speaking of those rising staccato chord passages, and of scrambling our brain (as I said in the previous post): I have a feeling that people who doubt the difficulty (and the complex difficulty) of the piece haven't much gotten to trying (really trying!) the snippet from 8:57-9:04 on the Rubinstein video:



BTW in re-listening to it for this post, I was horrified to see that it seemed I've been misreading a note for my whole life.

But I re-checked the score, and I wasn't. Either he misread it, or he's playing a variant found in other editions. Gotta check it out.

The note in question: It's at 9:02 in this video....let's see how else to describe it: The top note of the 2nd beat of the 3rd-to-last measure of this phrase; or, the 6th-to-last chord of the phrase. My edition (Joseffy) has F# on top; Rubinstein plays F##.

Let's see other editions on IMSLP....

AHA -- I see the issue.

The note appears in the previous measure in the left hand clef, as a double sharp. When it appears in the chord in question -- in the next measure, in the right hand clef, while Joseffy indicates a regular sharp on the note, most editions indicate nothing -- which is how I'm guessing it appears in the manuscript(s).

So....what are we to make of that -- i.e. 'nothing' being indicated on a note in the right hand clef, which according to the key signature would be a regular sharp but which in the previous measure appeared in the left hand clef and was a double sharp?

I think it's pretty clearly a single sharp, and that Joseffy was right to clarify it as he did. But I guess you could argue that the double sharp from the previous measure carries over.

Oddly enough, most of the time, the more nuance I find in a piece, the easier it is for me to play well. Don't really know why that is - maybe it focuses attention more? Maybe the concept of the music is more complete? Maybe the nuances give me more confidence that I truly know the music well? Whatever, it seems to work that way for me.

That's good! And also true for me. But I feel like...I can't really ever perform a Bach work or Mozart work because...I just have no conception of what's supposed to be going on. I think in order to actually "address the difficulties in the work", I would need to grow as a musician first, before attempting to perform it well.

And @Mark_C, when I was playing the piece (poorly in hindsight), that section I found to be alright because it didn't have the same lightness required for the other sections, and because the voicing was a balance between the left hand and the right pinky, which is one the easier voice-balancing configurations, IMO.