Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Time to Check IN - Chopin Nocturnes Recital Claim l(Octobe7, 2009

I will never really be ready but will have them recorded anyway...

If LA isn't going to do Op 32 No 2 anymore, I wouldn't mind doing it if that's not a problem.

Not a problem at all. Thank you for doing this.

I am trying to play a bit beyond my ability, but there will be a reasonable facsimile of 15/2 ready by the end of next month.

Ted

I'm still in, though struggling, on 48/2. It feels like what Peyton said, "I will never really be ready...."

Oh well, this morning my teacher thought better of my very rough draft recording than I did!

Elene

I hope so ...

I just got back from a vacation, so I can start practicing again today.

Same here.
I have to rework my fingers after 3 weeks stop but I'm confident to be ready for next month.

I had a stop in Paris for 2 days and walking near Musée Grevin I suddenly came across this writing... the best booster I could have ...

Nice! (That's at 27 Boulevard Poissonnière, if anyone is interested.)

Steven

I am hugely relieved to report that I have a finished recording of 48/2. I may try to file away a couple of rough edges in the recording process yet, but at least it's there.

I remember being blown away by finding myself unexpectedly standing at 27 Boulevard Poissoniere. Where Our Guy had to walk up five flights to get to his apartment.

Elene

Congratulations, Elene! Mine still has a long road to go before recording session, I am still confident it will arive on time though. I have both left and right hand twice the tempo and most of the piece both hands, still have to iron some rhythmic edges in few measures I can't play both hands right now.


M.

A request: please all send in your recordings by the end of Thursday 15th October at the latest, or I won't have time to put them up for 17th.

Reading that you'd already finished recording 48/2 lit a fire under me. I'd been waiting to "master" 48/1 before trying to make a recording sometime in the second week of October. Well, motivated by your example I sat at the piano today and recorded my current best attempt at the piece. As it turned out, it wasn't half bad (by my low standards!)...certainly nothing that would make me hang my head in shame. I'll keep trying to improve the piece but at least now I know I have a recording I could submit in a pinch!

I'm not quite ready to do even a test recording yet!

One thing I'm having a problem with is the tempo. Chopin marked Tempo I as dotted half = 42, and the middle section as dotted half = 52. This is really fast! I've listened to a couple of recordings (Ohlsson and Horowitz), and neither of them played it that fast. Horowitz plays Tempo I maybe about half of the marked tempo.

So I don't know whether I should try to play it at the marked tempos or not. Slower is easier, of course . . .

I am in the "test recording" stages....
Would love to get this done well ahead of the deadline.

You and me both.... and I just went and broke a string...

Peyton, eek, sorry to hear about that string!

Piano Again, it seems to me that you should play at a tempo that's right for you, as long as it is within reason (whatever that is). It may be that the marked tempo comes from an editor and not from Chopin, anyway. I've only read through 27/1 a few times and am not an authority on it, but it seems like it shouldn't be frantically fast.

I confess (you can all beat on me if you want) that at this point in my life, the only way I could record 48/2 decently well was to do it in sections and take a lot of time to concentrate on each one. If I can also make a reasonable recording of it all the way through by the deadline, I'll share it with you, but I'd like the one I edited together to be the official recording.

And I'm relieved to report that my very exacting teacher told me today that he was pleased with this recording. That means a lot to me. He also said that with the recording projects he's been involved with as an accompanist, they have typically done HUNDREDS of takes! Probably we're all doing no more than DOZENS! So that made me feel a bit better.

Elene

No....I will be in the hundreds by the time I'm through
Must have done at least 75 just last night alone, and still nothing to show for it!

I was scheduled for a tuning today, and my tech arrived here only to realize that he had left his toolkit in his workshop. Dang.

I wasn't really ready to record yet anyway (and I'm confident of a fresh tuning sometime between now and the deadline).

Steven

Elene, RE the tempo: I know, but I like to have an ideal in mind, and I'm not sure what that is for this piece. I believe the metronome markings are Chopin's.

I probably need to give it some more thought (and listen to some other recordings).

RE recordings: professional recordings are probably rarely done as if they were performances. A lot of tweaking and patching goes on. I think what we are trying to do here is record our best performance, not create a flawless recording.