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Can you guys advise me on the relative difficulty of the Dumky piano trio? I'm considering to start practicing it and to play it with my friends but i'm not sure how demanding it is. i consider myself an average pianist, having played some beethoven/mozart sonatas, couple rachmaninoff preludes, most of schumann bunte blatter pieces, and some chopin and bach.

It's certainly not easy but it might be doable? and we might not play the whole thing but rather choose some movements to work on.


thanks.

The only way to find out is to try it out for yourself - just download from IMSLP and have a go. If unsuccessful, you haven't lost anything but have gained more experience.

That's what most pianists in this forum do (including myself, ever since I was a student in my teens) - if we fancy learning a piece, we get the score and we try it out for ourselves.

Start with the slow movement and go on from there.

While the rest of the advice is good, you should look at the sections that seem to be the most difficult, not the slowest. In this case, every movement (dumka) in the trio alternates a slow section and a fast section.

Nevertheless, why don't some people who've played it say something about how hard it is.....

Everybody knows that the only way really to know how it would be for them is to try it. But it's reasonable to look to others in the way this person is. So why not tell them?

Sometimes the post is such that it seems the person is clueless and probably way below the level of the piece and that the whole thing is stupid.
But this isn't like that.....

Also sometimes posts like this serve as an opportunity to just talk about the piece, which can be good too. I think that sometimes this is actually the main reason someone asks such a question, perhaps without quite realizing it. But anyway, I think asking about the difficulty can be reasonable -- more so about a piece like this that doesn't get discussed much here (I don't recall anything at all about it).


BTW, I haven't played or looked through the piece, but from my impression from others who've played it and talked about it, I would guess that it is 'pretty hard but not terribly,' maybe on the level of Schumann's chamber music.

OK.
Now how about from people who know more about it....

I dont know if there are many people here who actually played it. To play such a piece in a trio implies one already has some pretty good cello and violin players to partner with !

Yes, and yes -- IMO all the more reason for anyone with some direct knowledge to say something.

Of all the very major chamber works that include piano, I think this is among those that the fewest people have played.

It is one that I have heard in concert, played by the Suk Trio. Josef Suk was Dvorak's grandson.

The problem is always that different people have different scales of difficulty. In this case, it is complicated by the difficulties of ensemble. I do think it is in the middle range of difficulty for the pianist, but I am by no means an expert.

I have played it many times, a lot of fun, for the pianist that is: the strings have some really hard notes to play, as chamber-music-piano-part it is one of the easier pieces technically, easier than f.i. any Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Saint-Saëns, not to mention Tchaikovsky or Ravel, but one has to have some decent violin-/cello-partners...

I attended a performance of Dumky yesterday with Fei Fei on the piano (from the Cliburn Competition). You mention some pieces you can play, but have you played much chamber music? Based on what I saw and heard, I don’t think this is a chamber piece to start with. There are lots of fast passages, abrupt tempo changes, and tricky entrances. Unlike some classical chamber pieces, there is no slow movement. Some of the slower passages do not appear to be very difficult but they don’t last very long. It sounds like a very fun piece to play. As others have suggested, download the score and try it out. You would definitely need an accomplished cellist and violinist to pull this off.

What is relatively easy for one person who has played this Trio may not be easy for someone who has not played it and who has little experience with chamber music playing.

Looking at the score, although I have not played the work,I see that there are difficulties in the piano part which might lead to more frustration than satisfaction. As others have suggested, download the score and try it out. That's really the only way to decide if this is within your grasp or not.

Regards,

Threads like this serve for more than just helping the person who asked the question. They also give an opportunity for the piece to be discussed -- yes, including stuff about 'how hard' it is and what the difficulties are. I think taking it as only exactly what was asked, and especially if it leads to sloughing off the question with "the only way to know is to try it," is stifling for the questioner and in general for others who see it (especially newer members), and can deprive the site of a good opportunity.

The informative posts that have followed the initial set have been interesting and worthwhile. I imagine that they are in fact of interest and use for the member NightShade, and they enhance the site.

Mark, I think some of us have suggested that the OP try playing some of the piece is because we have no idea what their technical skills are. I don’t think the suggestion is intended to be dismissive of the OP. So far only one person has actually played the piece (dolce sfogato) but what is fairly easy for one person can be very difficult and challenging for another person. Maybe more people who have played Dumky will see the post and respond.

PianoGrl: I hope you didn't think I meant that posts like yours aren't that good!!

I meant the opposite.
Your post was everything good.
It was great.

Well, yes, we could go on to discuss stuff like: why is it known as "Dumky"? Why has it got so many movements? Why are the first three joined together with attacca subito? Etcetera. But somehow, I don't think the OP is asking that (and he'd probably go to wiki if he wants to know, in any case).

What he wants to know is whether he could play it.

Having sight-read through most of it, I still don't know why someone who can play Rach's Op.3/2 wouldn't just sight-read through some of it and try it for size (his size). After all, the score is free......

"Size" is important, because I physically can't play some of the passages which require 10ths (and you can't roll those), so I'd never learn this trio. Some parts are distinctly unpianistic - all those tremolos. But difficulty? Yes, more difficult than most Haydn trios, but easier than almost all Romantic-era trios - if you have big hands......

I just found out about this concert today and would have happily made the trip from Seattle to see it. I hope you enjoyed the performance!

I read through the Dumky Trio a long time ago with a violinist and cellist and while it was technically simpler than a lot of other big romantic trios I have played (Mendelssohn, Brahms, Tchaikovsky), I wouldn't consider it easy by any means. I would recommend starting with one of Beethoven's Op. 1 Trios and if that goes well, then try the Dumky Trio. A lot of folks recommend the Haydn Trios, but those tend to be super uneventful for the cellist (usually just a partial doubling of the LH piano part). Playing ensemble music is a lot more challenging than playing solo music in my opinion.

Thanks everyone for your feedback, I must say that I do feel that I have a better perspective on the piece know that I’ve seen some of the replies but I wanted to clarify on why I didn’t simply try it out at the piano instead of asking around here.

First of all, I could definitely do that, but the thing is that me and the string players I’m going to play with are yet to agree on a piece to play, and so currently we’re just throwing off suggestions at each other until we agree on something. Now I could print out the score if each suggestion and try it out myself but this will simply be too time consuming that I figured asking others who have played the piece might save time and effort.

Further, slowly sight reading a piece is not an absolute indicator if a piece is doable, some details might not be apparent in the first read through, tricky sections might be skipped over and most importantly, playing thing in tempo is different than playing them slow.


I hope this clarify things up.

I assume, maybe wrongly, that you did not play much or at all with your friends before. If you did then what I am suggesting does not apply. But if you havent, my sense is that you should start by playing together something really easy, just to see where you all are in level and how you come together. Playing in a trio is already difficult, so unless you have done that already a number of time with your friends, the first step would be to just calibrate each other and together as a group.

For example Beethoven Woo38 is really approachable. Otherwise I looked at the score (as you can do) and Bennevis is right, there are tenth right from the start; the piano part does not seem to be overly virtuosic but there are fast sections which are difficult as you have to keep track with your friends. My sense is that unless you already have a good experience in chamber music and have good experience with your friends that piece is complicated to start with.

You have a number of responses. How helpful do you feel they are? It has taken you over a week to get these responses, in which time you could have looked at the score, either printing it or getting it from a library. If that takes too much time, how are you ever going to find the time to learn to play it? How serious about this are you?

By the way, if the details are not immediately apparent, do you really think that you will get those details by asking a bunch of strangers on the internet?

BDB, they probably are very serious, and they probably honestly thought more people who have actually played the trio would comment and give insight, so yes, I’m sure they thought they’d get good details asking here.

Should I suggest also asking on the r/piano subreddit, or is posting about other message boards/online communities not allowed/encouraged? Oh well, too late, I think OP should also ask other online communities. I post on several classical piano online communities. It takes a village, right?

Also, off topic: OP, is your username by chance named after the ghost-type attack from the Pokémon games, or maybe the old classic NES game called Nightshade? Or from somewhere else altogether?

I’ve never studied and performed this piece, but I’m familiar and have read through the piano part for fun a few times. The LH has some A# to C# minor tenths, which can’t be rolled, but they are the narrowest tenths on a piano, which I can thankfully (barely) reach with some comfort. If looking at the score on IMSLP, see if the 16th note passages around rehearsal letters E and F are G are doable for you. I don’t remember them being super awkward, but it’s been a while. Same with rehearsal letter I. Maybe it’s okay to roll chords at letter K? Then there’s some triplet 16th note figures larger than an octave a page later, right hand first then left hand. The part between Q and R looks like the toughest passage in the piece so far… those double notes in the right hand particularly. Some fast, but quiet 16th note runs after letter S, and in general, this is a tricky movement virtuosically. The final movement has some fast parts, but nothing terribly hard.

I think the hardest part of this trio is none of the passagework… I don’t think there’s anything vastly harder than the Rachmaninoff preludes or Mozart and Beethoven sonatas you’ve played. I think it’s about making all the various movements/sections make sense, line up together, and be expressive.

This is all my opinion - like I said, I haven’t actually seriously practiced and studied/rehearsed/performed it. But I’m somewhat familiar. This made me listen and follow the score again for the first time in a long time, and I enjoyed it greatly!

Dvorak’s F minor trio is also great. I like it even more, personally.