Piano World Home Page Forums Fun Stuff! - Parties, Tours, Projects & More... Member Recordings Chopin Etude op 10 no 3

You're welcome!

You should pick it up! It's a fun second (or in my case first) instrument. I only play for myself and jam with friends every once in a while, but it's still rewarding. I have six guitars right now; four electrics and two classicals.

Nice playing!

My main comment would be that I think sometimes the balance between the RH melody and the RH inner voices could be better(the melody louder and/or inner voices softer).

I think listening to Youtbue recordings by great pianists can be trememdously helpful ...almost like taking a free lesson from them. If you can identify what you like about their playing then you can try to do that also.

Some of your rubato I liked and some was not convincing for me. For example, I like your slight pause on the first note but I thought there should be a gradual ritard at the end(as opposed to waiting before the last note but playing the three before that in time).

Thanks pianoloverus,

Yes, I'm still working on playing the melody voice louder than the inner right hand voices.

I like Valentina Lisitsa's interpretation. I thought that it's more 'compatible' to modern ears. I also listened to Kempf, Igoshina, Cortot and Horowitz. Each plays them differently.

I'll work on the gradual ritard at the end. That makes more sense than waiting for the last note.

As far as voice balancing goes, you should probably strive for quieter inner voices rather than a louder melody. If you aren't careful, you can get an ugly sound if you push the melody too far. I'd recommend splitting the difference and going both ways.

IMO sometimes the balance was OK, sometimes the melody needs to be louder, sometimes the inner voices have to be softer, and sometimes both.

I agree; it was an excellent performance as is. It doesn't need much at all to be an absolutely fantastic performance.

Bravo!

Sounds great! Very balanced and controlled performance. I like the rubato.

A surprising, quite interesting fact about this etude is that Chopin, in the autograph manuscript, originally indicated the tempo as "Vivace" and later added "ma non troppo". In addition, the passages from bar 46 have no "forte/fortissimo" or "doppio movimento" indications. Also, the poco piú animato (often marked at bar 21) is not given in the original manuscript.

Are all the later additions given by Chopin himself or did editors have a hand?

Great performance. Great presentation. Thanks for sharing.

(my first post!)

Very nice!

I started working on this piece pretty recently, since about the time this thread was last visited (over the holidays), as my main "getting back into piano" piece (I've played on and off over the years). It would be very, very tricky to learn it by ear, because of the multiple voices and figuring out exactly what notes to hold over, etc. It certainly wasn't obvious from the recordings I analyzed, anyway. So kudos to you for being able to do that!

That con bravura section is killer (my first reaction on reaching it in the sheet music: GROOOOAN... tooooo many acccidentalllls!!!!!) It was much easier for me to learn it by ear--what I did was recognize its basic "algorithmic pattern" (paired in leaps by tritones, generally chromatically descending, etc.). Despite knowing that intricately, I still play it with a lot of, as Damon would say, klunkers. It's improving, though, reasonably klunker-free at 3/4 speed, I think. It'll still be some time before I can share my results here

All the recordings I've analyzed have slight pauses in between each middle section theme, like, for example, right before the section with tritones. I naturally have long pauses there because I'm still simply just taking too long to figure out where to move my hands but I do feel that those short pauses make sense, despite the sheet music not indicating it.

But yes, thanks for sharing... it is good encouragement to stick with it, and inspires me to get it to performance quality!

Very nice, thank you for sharing!

This piece brings back a memory... The first time I played it in a performance was for a high school literary competition. I was such a bundle of nerves; I will never forget introducing the piece, sitting down at the piano, and then completely forgetting the piece! Totally gone. Good thing the timer didn't start until I started playing because it took me awhile to compose myself and get it together, but my nerves were shot and it was all I could do to play at all by that point.

So, for this one I can't say anything but job well done!