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Explain?

I hold that belief and it is absolutely NOT ridiculous. The man lost it completely for quite some time and hasn't ever fully recovered. Knowing the trauma he went through with the death of his wife it is, however, understandable.

You really don't get it?

Depression is not insanity. Have you even heard the man speak recently? Go listen to some recent interviews. Nothing close to insane.

À propos, but IMO it lacks the panache of Damon's GIF.

Best. Emoticon. Ever.

Yes, he suffered severe depression, but he lost his mind for quite a while, Joel. His playing continues to speak volumes about his recovery and clearly, he is NOT the same musician he once was. I'm not going to argue about it so leave it alone.

Well, cause this thread has already deteriorated to this point and I guess my playing is on the same level as Bachmach for some people, I guess I'll just toss this here instead of making a new thread.

Third movement.

For everybody else, thank you for your kind comments, and suggestions as well! I'll continue practicing as usual...

Very good. But work on them trills.

Yeah, a few flubs everywhere else too, but the long lines are hard...and I'm sort of figuring out which trills I want to do 2-3 and 3-5.

Sure.
(i.e. examples of the tempo stuff)
It'll be part of this larger comment which I had said I'd be doing.

Kuan: As I said in the 1st post and again thereafter, I like a great deal of what you're doing. As per Poly's 1st post I don't really get why you'd want to post a recording at such a stage; you clearly hadn't really finished even what we might call the basic learning of the movement. But there it is, and we can already see that there's a lot of excellent stuff to work with here. But some simply isn't (sorry for the flat-outness; I'm actually putting it that way mainly for the those who got indigestion from what I've said before, maybe to desensitize them about it a little and help them realize that sometimes such flat-out statements are valid) ....some simply isn't. It's totally just the tempo stuff, and indeed I'll be very specific.

To put sort of a frame around the tempo stuff, and to make it clear right off the bat (or at least I think it ought to be) that there's some great inconsistency going on, which is a much bigger issue than how slow it might be: Your total timing for the movement is about 10 minutes, which is much longer than most people but forget that -- I'm hardly counting that. You begin the movement at a tempo of just about exactly 104 to the quarter note, which is close to how most people play it -- a little slower but close. If you maintained that tempo through the piece, the total timing would have been about 7:40, not 10 minutes. That's how much you slow down: enough to make it average out to a third longer. I don't mean that there can't be ebbs and flows of tempo, or that the 2nd theme (especially) can't be slower than the opening theme. And there are sonata movements where it's fine to have greatly differing tempos within the movement, and some that just about call for it. But I think we can safely say that this absolutely isn't a movement like that, and that it's not a movement where you can have some parts that are only about half as fast as the main theme. OK -- so much for math. I'll go through the piece, including a lot about good stuff, as well as some 'for the heck of it' stuff.

The opening is extremely strong, and with very nice changes of tone and color in the different phrases on the first page. You move toward the surprise B-flat harmony of m. 17 and set it up very beautifully and movingly -- great job! I think it could be even better if you played those converging 16th-note figures of mm. 14-16 quicker and with more space between them, i.e. the notes a bit quicker and the rests a bit longer, and I think this is where you start losing the feel of the tempo a little (it's subtle), but still the overall set-up is great.

Backing up to the opening: Here's something that's not really a criticism, because just about everybody does what you're doing .....so 'it's not you, it's me.' It's about those chords in the second half of m. 2 (and again in m. 4 and elsewhere). You play them staccato. So does just about everyone. And many editions show staccato.

I never felt those chords that way, and never played them like that. I interpreted the staccato markings as meaning 'very well articulated,' and that's all. I saw the motif as more of a 'pleading, tugging' thing than a pointedly screaming proclamation.

And guess what: The manuscripts might not have those staccato marks at all. When I recently got the Polish National edition of the sonatas, one of the first things I looked at was this. For what it's worth, what the edition shows on those chords is nothing. No staccatos. (Also no slurs or anything else.) The edition has a separate booklet with discussion of what the various manuscripts show, with emphasis on places where the thing that they decided to put in the edition might differ from what any manuscript shows. And there's no commentary at all on this. I take that to mean that none of the manuscripts have those staccatos which most printed editions have and which most people play, and which never fit with any way that I could bring myself to see the piece.

Probably nobody will ever complain if you keep playing those chords as you do, and maybe they would complain if you change to how I'm saying ....but it looks like the way almost everybody has been playing it, at least in recent decades, is based on an editorial decision that was wrongly taken to be an authentic marking. OK, enough of that, back to the regularly scheduled show.

The second page is lovely, and interesting. You do the parallel 4ths beautifully, and seemingly with no struggle, which is never to be taken for granted. (Those are hard! -- especially if we're talking about making music with them.) You do the counterpoint in the right hand extremely well, with no 'hiccups' due to the leaps, and the chromatic scales in the left hand are nicely clear, well-shaped, and nicely balanced to the right hand. Really an extraordinary job with this difficult page. You continue likewise in the rest of the material leading up to the 2nd theme, with a lot of 'soul' in these pages that can easily sound like just an exercise or a jumble of notes.

The lovely 2nd theme is absolutely lovely. This is truly excellent Chopin playing, beautiful playing of what some might say is the most beautiful melody ever written. (I do.)
However, I think you take the tempo down to where it starts not fitting with the whole piece, and feeling too discontinuous from the opening. It sounds to me as though you've switched to a different piece.

BTW, it's a beautiful little touch, the way you give such life to the little left hand motif at 3:00. Rarely done!!

However, right after that is where I think the tempo stuff moves from "Is that OK? maybe maybe it is...." to "No it's not." It's not just a matter of the pure speed itself but of the nature of the phrase, and with it seeming like the tempo isn't a musical choice but a sacrifice to the difficulty of the passage.

The passage at m. 66 is marked leggiero. We could debate what leggiero means, and we might have all kinds of different ideas about it, but the one thing it certainly doesn't mean is that you start dragging the tempo even more. The problem with it isn't that you're not slavishly following an indication; it's that the way you're playing it, especially with the dragging tempo, negates what the passage is. I'm trying to be careful about this next thing I'm going to say because I can already hear the accusations of arrogance etc. etc., but all I can say is that I can imagine that people who don't know the piece very well might find it fine what you're doing -- and it is beautiful if we just take it on its own terms -- but those who do know it very well might tend to be getting a message that you're just slowing down extra because it's kind of hard, and to become a little skeptical about your main motivations about the tempo in general. (I'll be interested to know whether others who do know the piece well have any similar feeling about this part.)

The beautiful closing part of the exposition, which you indeed play beautifully ....well however, it's marked "in tempo" and you're playing it about 25% slower than the opening.

The development section is very good, except.... you do pick up the tempo for it, but it's still considerably slower than the opening (I mean even the first part of the dev. section, before getting to the lyrical stuff). I think you'd have a hard time justifying that.

The passage from mm. 133-137 drags in a way that makes it sound (at least to me, and again I'd guess to most people who know the piece well) ....that makes it sound like you just haven't learned this part or that you just don't have a feel for what's going on there. I don't mean that it has to 'fly,' but it seems clearly to be a passage that calls for some drive and momentum. I wouldn't make such an issue of it, nor of any of the tempo stuff, and really would probably hardly think of it -- I'd write it all off to your just being at a mid-stage with the piece -- except that you make such a point of saying that the tempos reflect what you think you really want to do. I'm betting that to a large extent -- not totally but to a large extent -- they are technical concessions, and that as you get the piece more into you, you won't be wanting to be slowing down so much compared to the opening. (I think you'll probably play the opening a little bit faster too, which is pretty par-for-the-course with stuff like this.)

Then the recap -- again, what's beautiful is very beautiful. I don't want to lose it in the shuffle that you have a very nice feel for Chopin. BTW it sounds like you didn't really learn the last page yet, like you had gone through the rest of the piece and thought you knew the end well enough to give this a run through for the microphone.

I hope some of this may be helpful. Anyway, it's what I think.

And here is, exactly, the issue. You've clarified it very well. That is exactly why I think you are being too quick to bust Kuanpiano's chops about what he means by tempo. I forget who used the phrase in one of the e-citals, but the presentation was not fully worked up, and the performer said, "This is a statement of intentions."

I still feel like you are writing a citation for some kind of Chopin infraction, "impeding traffic," when Allan is still settling into the piece, including what may or may not turn into leggiero, at any speed. Uh, tempo, I mean. Hand me the Tums, please.

Hi Mark,

I should be heading off to bed but you wrote such a thoughtful post that I really had to reply to you. But first of all thank you - for listening to my recording, as well as taking the time to provide all of this detailed feedback.

If anybody's wondering why on earth I would post a recording of a work in progress...well it's because there are a lot of things that I can't hear in my playing. I haven't worked with a teacher for the past three years because of school, and as such I don't have a second set of "ears" to pick up on what I'm missing. If anybody's heard any of my other recordings they'll find that pacing, tempo, and hitting correct notes are things I struggle with most.

I'll give a big lump-sum here and say THANK YOU for some of your comments regarding details and phrasing (which is what I work so hard on). There are so many beautiful moments in this movement that I wanted to make present in my interpretation.

As for the eighth-note chords in the opening motif - that is something I'm still thinking about. The issue is that the articulation chosen here should be consistent with the articulation in the development when this material comes back. I'm hoping to do a non-pedalled tenuto, which would work if I was recording in a hall, not at home. This is something I need to work on.

RE the tempo in the second theme. I think that this is where taking the repeat is very helpful. Maintaining a free tempo is something I want to do in order to emphasize the improvisatory, and rhapsodic character of the movement. However, keeping the tempo more straight helps preserve the form better. The "plan" here is really to play the second theme more straight the first time through, then explore the nuances in the micro-phrases the second time around. But why I also slow down a lot is to let the phrases breathe - there are a lot of 2-bar fragments in this section can make it schizophrenic. I sort of tried to homogenize it by taking a relaxed tempo for everything.

The leggiero part I agree with you in some ways...but it is hard to reconcile with the preceding and following bars. The bar just before the leggiero is a breath from the preceding forte statement, so it's not quick. The bar straight after the leggiero I don't feel should be so leggiero, so what's left is that it doesn't make musical sense for me to speed up so much for 2 bars. The second time it comes back does, because then you have the culminating chromatic scales and the rit. segment later.

The closing of the 1st movement, I take a tempo to mean after the swelling to the section with the dominant 7th harmonies - it reverts back to the speed of the second theme. Here I just brought out the left hand more, because that's the rhythm which is developed in the following page. I speed up when the falling motif appears in the development because it doesn't really make sense to go quick before - I'm keeping the tempo of that rhythmic motif constant until the LH passage takes off.

Unfortunately I don't have a score with the bar numbers on hand, but I think I know where you are referring in measures 133-137...the triplet chords that take us back to the recap? Yep, those are too slow. I tried to prolong that stillness when the eighths emerge from the tail end of the development, and I didn't really bring out the character of the passage.

Some of this might not make any sense because I'm falling asleep right now, but again, I really appreciate your comments and all of your time and patience. Certainly there are parts that need to be reworked, but I still stick by the overall "character" which I've established for this movement. Hopefully I'll be able to pull it off.

All makes total sense!


And that's great. Just watch the tempos.

BTW, the "leggiero" part doesn't have to go faster; it just probably can't go slower, and it ought to have a 'whatever-leggiero-means-in-Italian' feel.




"light"

"Tempi" in Italian. Not to be confused with "Speedi."

Since no one has yet commented on the playing of the third movement I would like to say it sounds like it was very well done. The 2nd and final movements are the ones that are really going to take some work!

I also wish you the best in your upcoming performance.

*Cough* That is all. Kuan; I've not played this sonata so, perhaps, I don't know what I'm talking about. However, in the largo I appreciate the form you're trying to lend it but, um, yes, those trills could be neater...I mean, they don't have to be uniform; you could weight them from one side or the other...this holds true for all your phrasing too; it never gets out of hand....which, to me, says there's just a little more wiggle room to inject expressiveness, to squeeze out a few more danger notes... ...but like I say, I might not know what I'm talking about. Um....either way (or whichever, rather) it's far from bad (not the most adulating reference, I know ), it may even be good But it doesn't ensnare me as your first offering was wont to do.....but that may be more the movement's fault than yours, I couldn't say Sorry...
Xxx

Dude, go out with some friends and loosen up. You'll feel better, I swear.

Don't have time to go out with friends.

You don't have the time to be happy? But...then what's the point of living? Are your other enterprises of such import to society that you must sacrifice yourself before them? Um... If what you say is true as opposed to, say, "can't be arsed to go out with friends" then you need to reconsider your priorities. Even music does not come before love, or friendship, or happiness...I worry sometimes whether everyone here agrees...
Xxx