Well............here it is. First time on in 39 years. Hope you enjoy it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi0SEXFMlM4

This is one of my favorite Mozart pieces. I really enjoyed your recording. I don't have any technical advice, since I'm a relatively new rebeginner.
I've played this through a few times, and hope to be able to do it justice one day. I think you have! Thanks.

Very nice performance, JT.

Here's some feedback that I hope you find useful for an otherwise super performance. Please watch the rests. There are a couple of places in the first part (not the triplet section, but later on) where you skipped over them, or perhaps played through them with the pedal. Count out loud if you have to.

Your Allegretto is a bit more like an Allegro, please slow that down a bit. This will also make your cadenza more dramatic and impressive, particularly with the contrast in speed.

Speaking of the cadenza at the end, take some time with it. I know it's marked Presto, but a little ritardando at the end, and perhaps a little ritenuto before the trill will add some more drama to the music. Think orchestrally here, and what a keyboard soloist would do with a great cadenza in a piano concerto. The goes with the other cadenza. Instead of being part of the music, they tend to become a jumble of notes. I know they're difficult to play, and getting the notes under the fingers is a big part of getting them correct, but this is only part of the equation. See if you can bring these up to the next step so that they are part of the music instead of an add-on.

On a more of a performance critique, I would suggest that you play more to the bottom of the keys to make the sound roudner and less surfacey. We tend to play for ourselves instead of for others even when we make recordings. I'm guilty of this myself, and my teacher is working with me on this. She told me that I've been playing too whimpy and need to play out. She said that I have a nice musical approach, but it would be difficult to hear from the back of the performnance hall.

Try for more dynamics and phrase-shaping. Mozart is a joyful composer even in his more serious pieces. This has a little bit of both the seriousness of his latter years as well as his more playful personality. Sculpt the phrases so that they sound joyful. This is hard to do, I know, with as few notes that Mozart writes.

Anyway excellent job. Keep up the good work!

John

Hey JT,

A very nice performance indeed! I'm used to playing it (as part of my guilty pleasures) in a much more romantic sense, with plenty of rubato (the intro, for example), etc, but this is highly personal, and under not circumstances a real suggestion.

I agree with John, that your dynamics need more shaping and maybe more focus and direction...

Keep it up, your playing is very nice.

Some great performances I'd recommend listening to...all very dramatic.

Gilels(very slow opening)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPDZq7Qkybs

Yudina
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULmji3DMukQ

Uchida
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1MJ6ntpqq0

Thanx John for you advice. All of it is helpful. I am still at that point of just hoping to get the right notes in the right places. I was intent not do a great deal of "dicing and splicing" with Audacity. In fact there is only one splice. My teacher is always after me to play to the depth of the keys. So that is a main goal. I find Mozart beautiful but quite a challenge. Esp with pedaling.....I was going to record something easier and in another style, but decided to to pursue this great work. Am now thinking of what to do next. My teacher wants me to put together a recital of pieces within my current capabilities, but I don't think that will happen. That's why I purchased the ZOOM H4. I have a good ear, but sometimes a lazy one. Again, thanx for the wonderful assessment. Jim

Jim,

Good luck with your H4. I have one myself and hardly use it because I can't see the little tiny screen with the messages on it. When I've gotten it to work though, it does a great job.

Mozart really is very difficult to play. Many people take his minimalist composing as something that's easy to play, and totally disregard any phrase shaping and tone color . The experts have said that the person playing Mozart is very exposed, and playing his music in public takes a lot of fortitude. I respect their word on this.

Many of the things that I said here are the same things my teacher has been working with me on. You'll find, hopefully as I have, Mozart's music will be very rewarding to play, and the things learned from this can be very easily applied to other works as well.

Keep up the great work.

John

Measures 1-10 should be played at 50% of your tempo. Ensure ensure the cresc peaks to an almost FF bar 5. The rit in bar 10 should be exaggerated through the entire bar. The bottom A should be "full" but MUCH softer. You are putting way too much emphasis on the left hand in the 1st 5 bars of the adagio. Play the rh "dolce". No accent on the lh "pedal" minims. These are harmonic suggestions. The forte octave resolution should not be played too loud as is it still in the context of the "dolce". You would be forgiven by employing a fractional rit. There is a one and a half beat REST. You then smudged the dotted quavor triplet rh part ["dolce"] and completely missed the lh slur. You did achieve some kind of rest, but it seemed short than 1.5 quavors. The following rh A is an accented slur. You were unconvincing. There was a disproportionate accent an no mezzo staccato G. Plus the dotted quavor/rest progression was sloppy. No rit for the arpeggio, just a tapering dim. The forte repeated E should be played with much more passion and purpose. If anything cresc here and only taper dim with the resolving cadence. Poco agitato is way too slow. Rh needs to be much more crisp, and I imply a light accelerando. Your left hand part drags, but you did phrase the rising thirds nicely [well done].

Tired...I shall continue this form criticism tomorrow. Please do not be put off by my prognosis by the way. Your performance is sensitive and musical. However I give you advice for transcendental [true concert] performance of this work

I don't see how can you write someting like this and not even include one IMO. You make endless statements as if they were givens by anyone who understands this piece. I've seen countless master classes by famous pianists and they virtually never make such opinionated/ black and white statements.

Just in regards to tempo mentioned in your first sentence, if you listen to the Yudina Youtube performace I posted, I don't think here tempo was much slower than the OP's.

Are you a professional pianist? I don't understand your motivation for writing such negative/detailed reviews for a non professional pianist. I think it comes across as trying to impress or ridicule others.

Why? The opening measures are marked Andante. If the OP played this section much slower, how would he distinguish its tempo from that of the Adagio which begins at measure 12?



While I don't have an Urtext of this piece, I disagree with this admonition. My edition has the cresc. beginning at measure 5; at measure 7, it's marked piu cresc. and the f is not indicated until measure 9, and then it's only f
. In my edition, there is no rit. in measure 10, although I think one would not be inappropriate. To say, however, that it needs to be exaggerated could well be an artistic choice, but to insist on it seems, itself, to be an exaggeration. Are we listening to the same version? The LH sustained half-notes come across as very subtle in the opening measures of the Adagio; any softer, and they would not sustain throughout the half-measure.
The repeated E's begin f followed by a cresc. which culminates with a sf two measures later. Again, in my edition there is no poco agitato indication. Is this a suggestion on your part, or do you have an edited edition that has this indication? In the RH, I would suggest that the OP revisit the score. This rising RH line is made up of two-note phrases, the second of which is marked staccato. Perhaps this is what PartyPianist meant when he said it should be more crisp.

Where the Adagiotheme begins again (measure 29), make sure that the descending eighth-notes (following the two 32-notes) are played staccato.
I think that the Presto cadenza comes off well, although I would not hold the pedaled arpeggio for as long as you do. The pause is indicated over the rest, not over the last note of the arpeggio.

At measures 35-37 your dynamics are the opposite of what is indicated in my copy of the score. I have measure 35 starting with f rising to sf on the first chord of measure 37, then diminishing to a p when the chord resolves.

The same observation I made earlier about the rising line in the right hand would apply again beginning at measure 38.

Just as a personal option, in the second Presto cadenza, I would prefer a slight rit - although it's not in the score, but this is a cadenza - on the last few notes leading to the low A. All of the descending part of this cadenza leads to that low A, and I think it comes across as a "goal arrived at" when the last few notes preceding it are slowed to "prepare" that final A.

Some performers slow the last few notes of the rising chromatic scale before returning to the Tempo I, but I would not say that this is obligatory. I do think, however, that you could be a little more convincing - more volume, more warmth to the tone - in the turn after the low A, otherwise you can't achieve the dim. that Mozart asks for in the rising chromatic scale.

Again, at Tempo I I think you need to be more careful in observing the staccato markings. Also, give the rests their full value; sometimes you are inclined to give them short shrift.

The initial tempo of the Allegretto seems a bit fast to my taste. Particularly in the second section with the Alberti bass sixteenth-notes in the left hand; things get a little rushed with a slight feeling of loss of complete control.

Overall, I enjoyed this performance. I think it could benefit from a little more attention to some of the details that I enumerated.

Regards,

I also do not have an urtext edition of this (I have the Dover publication edited by Nathan Broder), and my edition lacks some of the previously made comments. I would consult an urtext edition to see what is in there compared with these comments, and then decide musically what you wish to do.

That aside, I really enjoyed your performance! Just a few minor things that I'd like to suggest: m. 20 and/or m. 35 with those repeated notes, start them out a bit slower and gradually accelerando to your original Adagio in addition to the overall cresc./decresc. shaping of the phrase just so that they don't all sound the same; in m. 92-93, make this really more of a playful echo to m. 91-92; and a bit of a rit. at the chords in the end.

These are just things that I like to hear, but you of course, have to decide what suits your sensibilities.

Thank you Bruce and Morodiene for your thoughtful and important comments. The three of you (John) were very generous with your insights, one of the reasons I enjoy this forum so much. I esp. liked the manner in which you expressed your comments. As I said to John, I am only at the point of beginning to be a "little" comfortable with playing. The reason I pursued this project was to push myself further in developing my skills. Growth is the goal. Even though I probably will never actually perform in public, YouTube makes me put in that extra 15%. I came from a life of music where there was no Mozart or Schubert (except that awful flute and harp concerto of Mozart) and I revel at discovering some truly great music. And I am sorry PP that your critique made you so tired. Please rest up.

jtattoo :

I listened to this again, this time without stopping to write down details, but rather to get an overall impression of your performance.

There are nevertheless a couple of (tiny) details that I will mention, but they may be a matter of taste.
1) In the lead-up to the second cadenza, I think you hold the top F a trifle too long. The fermata is on the E; while a broadening of the tempo at the end of this phrase is certainly appropriate, the F is still an eighth-note.
2) In the final cadenza in the Allegretto section the trill on the E half-note - for my taste - continues on too long after the left hand chord is played. I think you can take full advantage of the fermata and play the trill for as (reasonably) long as you like, but I think that once the left had chord is sounded, your trill should end and you should continue with the remainder of the cadenza. Strictly speaking, the cadenza continues a sixteenth-note after the trill on the E ends.

My overall impression - and the reason for this post because I neglected it in my previous one - was to commend you on the accuracy of your playing and the musicality of your interpretation. I might suggest you try for a greater range of dynamics throughout. Overall, this comes across a bit on the Romantic side for my taste, but if you agree that carefully observing those two-note phrases I wrote of and the multitude of staccato marks throughout, I think it will have a more Mozartean feel.

That said, many find strong elements of Romanticism in Mozart's late works - the last three symphonies, the later piano concertos, Don Giovanni etc., so there's nothing amiss, I would think, to adding a Romantic feel to the performance of this piece. To me, however, the style of writing is more Classical; it's not yet looking towards the Romantic, coming, as it does, from early 1782 (Groves). That's just my call, however. Yours is still a very musical and a very satisfying performance which was a pleasure to listen to a second and a third time.

Regards,

I listen, I play....I review. Can I play the D minor Fantasy? Yes. Would people buy my performance on merit? Probably. I certainly offer an interpretation that will move an audience.

As with everyone else here, I offer opinions. Mr pianoloverus if I claimed I was a professional musician and my name was Siatoslav Richter would you read my opinions and be impressed? Are you that WEAK you cannot make discerned decision on your own? Read it, try it out. If you don't like it or it doesn't make sense, ignore it. Personally I find it very rude for someone to make comments the way you have after I have spend a very tired hour going to the trouble to give the performer constructive advice.

BruceD he performed the openning way too fast because in my opinion this is effectively a "tone poem" that manipulates tempi shifts, just as with the C minor fantasty. If it was written by Chopin, sure play it that fast, but Mozart doesn't write like that. Thankyou for the additional comments. I offer technical advice for the way I perform, i.e. I play 5 bars, review the performance, then replay the 5 bars to ensure I have missed nothing. Mine is not the "definitive" performance and it is good to see constructive criticism/advice of all types.

Yudina played the best, I believe. JTattoo played it a lot like Uchida, which I personally dislike. Gilels just plays it so slow it loses musicality. Yudina has more emotions and excitement. These are all my opinions.

Don't you think using the term "tone poem" is a bit anachronistic when we are speaking of Mozart?

A self review.


But you state your opinions as facts and in a hypercritical way. Your use of IMO in the next paragraph was the first time I think you've ever done so depsite writing often scathing reviews(this one being mild compaqred to some in the past). I asked if you were professional because based on your profile you aren't yet you write your reviews as if you had the authority of a Richter.

I wouldn't be any more impressed with you if you were a professional musician. A good teacher wouldn't go into such great detail on such a small number of measures with a student at the level of the OP.

Very nice performance. I believe that some of the above criticism is unwarrented, as much has to do with personal taste. Your performance is very similar to the way I play it, having used several different publications (including urtext) to arrive at my approach. But I won't post mine - several of the "critics" have made it clear that all I would hear is carping!

Just wish my fingers were nimble enough to handle the "cadenzas" as rapidly and crisply as you do.