Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner How do *you* cheat? (Chopin Etudes)

Actually he did! (I missed it too.)

Well of course they are, but in all my musical years -pre-univerity, university, post-university- (and I am admittedly younger than you are)- I have never, EVER heard any experienced musician who has not the highest regard for the Chopin etudes, and I talked to many in London. Most recently Randolph Hokanson, who is still going strong in Seattle at 97!

After a fabulous concert featuring the Mozart K310 (which he thinks the greatest), I asked him about the worth of the Chopin etudes (because I have been wrestling with the issue), he just smiled and nodded. My friend Rob was there too, and can back me up.

Arrogant of me, perhaps, impatience is not one of my better qualities, terribly un-Christian. But I look at what Chopin has accomplished, you might as well tell me that the 2nd act of 'Walkure' is not one of the tightest spans of time that Wagner ever conceived.

Surprised that I need to defend such incredible music.

I'm a brother-in-arms with you in addition to your namesake here. I never thought the pure musical worth of Chopin's etudes was more suspect than other pillars of the literature.

-J

In his verbal description he leaves it out but in his adjusted score he shows the octave being played with the LH. So who knows what he does. Most of the discussion assumed he played the octave with the LH and then the following C with the LH instead of the notated RH.

....and that's just what I had assumed too, and I thought all we were talking about was playing the first RH note with the LH. I guess it was easy to miss what he said in the latter part of the post -- anyway we did and it seems a lot of others did too.

I just sat down and cheated my way through it a few more times to see what I actually do.

I do play the 8ve at the beginning, but take the first RH note with the LH thumb. It's already there, after all.

But at that other cheat I notated, I actually leave out a note. I hope I don't lose my piano license!

Cool -- our misunderstanding was right.

(Pretty neat, eh? Our instincts told us what not to see.)

I think he did, but even so, I agree with Hakki and others that it needs to be an octave.

He did but he didn't mean it. Those of us who (mis)understood otherwise based on an overall impression were right.

(See his last post.)

I don't understand how it helps to take that "c" with the left thumb. It's not as though it's a difficult thing. If I'm going to actually "cheat", then make it a worthwhile thing that will actually help me.

There are certainly many other sets of etudes from various composers and we may (or may not) prefer these to Opp. 10 and 25, but anyone questioning the worth of these sets simply doesn't know what they are talking about. Period.

They're valuable exercises just as Czerny op.299 is, no one is questioning that.

Maybe it's time you open your eyes to the world outside your own that doesn't consider most of these programmable pieces. There are a lot of people who would refuse to go to a concert to listen to a big name artist play a bunch of Chopin etudes rather than something more interesting which they would otherwise like to go see. I might not know what I'm talking about, but I'd like to think that people who graduated from Julliard and Moscow Conservatory and such would know what they're talking about.

Just cause you may not pay to listen to them performed doesn't reduce their musical value. I, and many others, wouldn't pay to listen to somebody play the Tchaikovsky piano concerto or the Schumann, because they've lost their freshness to me. Their place in music remains unchanged though.

One of the best all-Chopin concerts I've attended in recent years was when Louis Lortie performed both sets of Etudes Op.10 & 25, plus the Trois nouvelles études which made up the novelty in his program.

It was not just his unflagging stamina, but his musicianship that kept everyone in the packed hall engrossed.

Personally, I prefer such a program to one made up of miscellaneous pieces like Waltzes, Scherzi, Ballades, Nocturnes, Mazurkas, Impromptus, Polonaises.....

Thanks for ignoring the point.

Nobody is questioning the worth of the etudes. Saying that one of the sonatas has more MUSICAL substance isn't questioning the worth of the etudes. At all. You are all misunderstanding this.

BTW: I never even thought about leaving out the middle notes in the LH chords of op 10/2. I tried that, and it's never sounded better! So far, the Chopin Police haven't busted down my door.

Back on topic, WHAT IS THIS?

I actually tried it the other day, but I thought it sounded off, unless by sounded better you mean that because it was easier to play. Still have mad respect for people like Trifonov who can play that etude at insane speeds (his op.25 no.6 makes me depressed every time too). I swear that guy has done gene therapy for his muscles to modify them or something, my thumb can't move as fast as his even if I'm not playing any other notes.