Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Faced a tiger lately?

Here is the Andante con moto in E minor from
Beethoven’s 4th PC Opus 58 ... only two pages.

web page

web page

Can anybody make head or tail of the stramash?
Written for 2 pianos ... Page 2 is a Lulu.

This has to be one of the most complex of sight-reading juggernauts ... and yet the dialogue between piano and orchestra is as sublime as anything conceived ... well worth a visit.

Just a reminder not to be put off by the look of the notation ... let your ear carry the day.

I'm not bragging because sight reading is my weakest area, but those are two of the easiest Beethoven pages to sightread. Straight forward rhythm, octaves in unison, chromatic scales, fairly basic harmony, not a fast tempo, etc.

But can you play the two pages including the orchestral voice?

Yeah, I honestly can't see what's so difficult about these pages.

This doesn't seem bad, especially as it's marked Andante con moto. You'd definitely have the time to read the notes and find your place on the piano.

So far we haven't found anybody who can "ride the tiger" ... meaning that they can play the gem at the Andante con moto tempo ... including the subtle indication near the end of a slowing down from a pp group of 13/33nd notes to 12/16th notes to 8/8th notes.

Taking snapshops of passing tigers doesn't count.

This is not particularly difficult. Frankly, any accomplished accompanist routinely has to read more difficult works at sight. It's not at all fast, notwithstanding the "andante con moto" indication. It's a very slow 2/4. This is a musical masterpiece, but technically it just is not a "tiger."

It doesn't even take an accomplished pianist to sight read this.

Says you. Have you even read the other responses? I'm not that great a sightreader either, but this really isn't too difficult.

I really don't know what you're getting at with all this tiger-talk (though I suppose it's a cute simile to the stripe-like beams). Maybe you're thinking that the tempo is faster than today's norm. Even the faster tempi I've encountered in performances/recordings can still be subdivided into four comfortably flowing eighth-notes per measure.

btb, since I have joined this board you have posted four or five pieces which were each supposed to be difficult to read. What point are you trying to make? What is it that you are trying to solve, or draw attention to?

If btb doesn't mind me speaking for him, he maintains that the current system of notation is too cumbersome for piano, and does not facilitate ease of sight reading - a topic that's certainly worthy of discussion.

I think the example he's using here is not a good one. I - not a good sight reader - can accurately sight read the two pages - with expression, tempo changes, orchestra part, piano part, etc.

He should use the orchestra reductions of the outer movements of this piece as examples of awkwardly written music to sight read, IMHO.

btb me old chappie, I don't want to be drawn into another sightreading stoush with you but if this is so difficult for you, why don't you play it in your special notation you've devised, and leave the rest of us who have no problems with it in its present form to play it from the conventional notation??

Not trying to say we shouldn't discuss such issues, just that I might have to go and take my vitamins if this looks like turning into a mega-thread

Is it possible that the real problem lies in whether one reads this music like a digital list of notes, or pictorally as patterns? I can make it difficult to read by trying to do the former. Pictorally there are so many repeating patterns in rhythm and note direction, with left and right tending to mirror each other especially rhythmically that visually it is easy to read and anticipate.

This is definitely not difficult to read. I would say the biggest problem is keeping the dynamics at the right level so the dialogue between the piano and orchestra comes across like it should. The most beautiful section is piano solo part with the trills where the theme is played in the right hand. Just reading this, gives me goose bumps on my neck.

I too smell a long diatribe on "special" notation scheme coming long too.

John

If a diatribe is the impetus behind the original post, someone should just post links to past threads on this matter so that all of us could save much time and energy.

It is terribly clear, by saying that no one could possibly sightread the movement in question, that this thread exists only to make btb feel better about his own painfully poor sightreading. People, we should simply leave btb to his delusions. Such matters are not worth anyone's time.

Thanks for at least showing a face currawong,
I’ve done just what you suggest and thus the animus.

There are a lot of howdah snapshots on this tiger-hunt ... but nobody who can play the twin piano parts ... makes further intimate discussion on this pregnant intermission between the 1st and 3rd movements of the Beethoven 4th PC rather vacuous.

Encouraging to hear that John experienced goose-bumps ... even if, like you, he needs his medication for fear of a lengthy diatribe.

It is vacuous, but only because you're stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the possibility that these two pages are really very easy to sight-read. But you cannot do it, which makes you mad. But that's not our fault.

Sorry mrenaud, but the question is loaded.

I am in the fortunate position of being able to play the twin voices on the two pages at tempo...
but still have to work hard on the tricky 3 measures just before the trills ... the twin dialogue in both hands takes some holding down.

If the two pages are so easy to sight-read ... why can't you? It's all eyewash this chat of
being easy to sight-read ... when we all know there is a "preparation" time needed to reach the stage of being able to play off-the-cuff.

BTW Wish they could mail Swiss ice-creams ...
the one I tried at Lake Lucerne was tops ... but then it was mid-summer.

Since btb refuses to believe the assurances of Uncle Tom Cobbly and all that he has mistaken a tabby for a tiger, here is my own attempt to show that it miaows instead of roaring:

http://www.box.net/shared/d3hkitoo40

A purist might argue that it is not strictly sight-reading, since, of course, I have heard the work performed. But I had not seen the music before today, and this recording is of my first play through.

Obviously there are things that could be better (the omission of the F# at the very end is particularly glaring ), but then I do not claim to be anything more than a mere dilettante.

Best wishes,
Matthew

Well done Matthew ... wish I could afford a Fazioli ... or was that a computer programme?