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The thirds in the scherzo are actually incredibly easy if you know the secret. Take the them with 14/23 instead of traditional thirds fingering.

Oh yeah I already know that . They're the easiest part in that section I think!

What "traditional thirds fingering?" How could you possibly think of taking them with anything but 14/23?

25/13

Hahaa, but overall the point still stands: the 4th ballade is dramatic and can afford some mistakes to get the overall musical effect correct. However, with the Scherzo, hitting right notes is part of the musical effect - crystal clarity and breathtaking lightness.

True. The ballade is a Pogorelich piece.

No. Nothing is a Pogorelich piece.

And ironically...I don't think he's recorded it! (or performed it).

I do like Bunin's rendition of the 4th Ballade. Zimmerman is good, but very clean... I forgot who else I liked, but I think that my own performance is a good reflection of what I like in the piece. It's ego, but if I didn't have anything to say then I wouldn't have learned it!

In your insignificant opinion.

That sounds like a great way of making the thirds unecessarily difficult AND destroying the effect to boot.

What do you think of Rubinstein, Richter, Ashkenazy, etc.? Personally, I think no rendition of this piece will ever satisfy me. No human being can fully understand it. It is not of this world.

In my insignificant opinion in your even more insignificant opinion.

It's a shame if you ask me.

What I particularly like about Bunin's is that when the piece picks up, he really picks it up. You know, when it starts to get a little cooky in the right hand - cross rhythms between hands too. Most people dilly-dally through that I feel. Bunin really brings intensity to it by upping the tempo and keeping it loud. And he only gets more and more intense throughout the coda. His interpretation I feel is closest to what the music calls for.

@Poly:

I didn't listen to the piece as extensively as I did to the Liszt sonata. However, I remember being a bit turned off by Richter, but I enjoyed Rubinstein. Ashkenazy, I haven't listened to his performance. I should start listening to him more! It's that I'm put off from his Scriabin sonata recordings - his tone is brutal in those. I admire his recording of Rachmaninoff's second symphony so I don't doubt his musical credentials.

I think Rubinstein's coda steps over the barrier of how many notes you can miss and still retain all the music. Other than that, he is one of the best. Zimmerman's coda is perfect note-wise, but it is too sterile and doesn't get enough passion and drive. In fact, the coda is the place where most renditions fail, technically or musically.

Perfectly said, Poly. It's hard to think something so divine came from a human. I know nobody agrees, but I think Chopin had the greatest musical mind out of them all. The quality of his output is so consistent it's astonishing - rivaling Bach and Mozart in my opinion. The only reason why Chopin wins is because I find his music to be the most moving. All of this being just my [insignificant] opinion.

If you want drive and pristine accuracy, watch Bunin's. If you haven't already, you might be in for a treat.

....and I wouldn't be the only one.

Your view is an extreme minority view. It might be close to a minority of 1.

And in fact, part of the quite great technical challenge is this thing you said, but for whatever reason you're not counting it a whole lot:


It does not cease to amaze me how a lot of people say that 'whatever' piece "isn't that hard" -- even though there are parts of it that give them a lot of trouble.

My 'favorite' example of that is Chopin's F minor Fantaisie.

He was up there, certainly - close behind Bach and Beethoven in my opinion, and this Ballade and his Opus 58 Sonata are some of the greatest works ever written, in any genre. However, I think a VERY few compositions do come closer to the divine, such as Beethoven's late string quartets or his last piano sonatas. Only a very few.

I think the point he's trying to bring across is that its musical difficulties (one might say impossibilities!) far surpass its technical ones, although I fail to see how anyone could consider even just the notes of the coda "not all that bad." Maybe Kuan is cheating on the inner voices, and in bars 223-226.

The A major prelude is the hardest piece ever written.