Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Fantasie in F minor, op. 49

When college websites ask for "a romantic work demonstrating significant technical accomplishment" for part of an audition, would the F minor fantasie work, or are they looking for more difficult pieces?

You could try it and find out. The worst they could do is reject you with a lot of laughing and pointing!

Just kidding! It should be fine.

You say it as if the fantasie is not a hard work. It should be fine.

The Fantaisie is plenty difficult -- certainly would qualify as a demonstration of technical accomplishment for a college audition. IMO, really a pretty good candidate in the wealth of possible choices -- like all late Chopin, it is musically very rich and complex in addition to being appropriately virtuosic.

Right on !!!!

And Joel - I didn't learn/perform the Fantaisie until grad school. If you can truly pull the piece off as a high school senior, I'm betting the folks you play for in the audition will be impressed.

God, absolutely! I practically avoid early Chopin these days. Nothing compares to his later stuff IMO.

I am in a Masters in Piano Performance learning this piece! It is plenty difficult! It is not all about flashy technique. This piece requires extremely sensitive playing and a deep understanding of its structure.

It's about as difficult a piece as there is.

When I first came to this site, I noticed that this piece was one of the least-discussed major pieces of Chopin. Since it's one of my long-time favorites, I started a thread on it, and was shocked to find that one of the main views expressed was that it was one of the less-difficult major Chopin pieces -- like, that it was a piece that intermediate players could try if they didn't feel up to the Ballades or Scherzi. I know that such things are subjective, but.....not always. With all due respect to the other side.....OK, with at least a tiny amount of respect ....that's total baloney. I can sort of understand the view, if what they're thinking of is (as is sometimes the case) "except for the hard parts."
Or if they're not talking about aiming for anything beyond a cautious and timid performance.

You don't have to worry that the people doing the selection at the college will have that view. They'll regard the piece as it really is.

I'll add my voice to the choir. The f minor fantasie is a major work, suitable for any audition or competition in the world.

+1

In the last Chopin Competition, the Polonaise-Fantasie Op.61 seemed to be regarded as the ultimate test of a pianist's musicianship in this composer. Personally, I think the accolade applies even more to the Fantasie.

Ever since i first listened to it, it is my favourite Chopin long work. And the one of which i find the smallest number of truly great performances.

Egorov's being my favourite.

IMO the fact that you think this work might not be difficult enough either means you already have a high professional level technique more typical of a top conservatory graduate or that you don't understand how difficult it is.

And, another point of interest, I had many people suggest that I use this piece for my DMA auditions this winter, and I am in fact using it for that.

This is exactly why I asked you fine people.

The Fantasie in F Minor Op. 49 is substantial enough for any audition.

Also your Chopin-with-sunglasses picture needs a caption that says "Deal With It."

You know... I actually took that part out, but I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't have.

.. and I find that "signature photograph" a very annoying distraction. It could at least be reduced considerably in size.

So mature!