I think it's too late to change for this particular event, but in the future, we can do things differently if we like. This set of e-citals has already been going on for a few years and has its traditions established. I do think that after October, there are not going to be many intermediate pieces left for anyone new, if any, so at that point maybe everything should change. (What is set for October, anyway? I've been too utterly concentrated on March 1 to think about it.)

Piano World has lots of other e-citals at other times. One might also post a piece on YouTube, Box.net, or elsewhere to make it available to a wide audience. And Performance Today (on public radio) is asking for Chopin recordings. So no one is being shut out just because a certain piece is already taken in a particular e-cital. Al-mahed, maybe you can put something out someplace for us all to hear.

Chardonnay, I am very pleased that you did your recording! A great accomplishment no matter what!

Elene

Very well said, Elene. That was my thinking as well. The traditions are well-established within the confines of this particular series. However, there are many other opportunities to post a recording as part of an e-cital.

That said, I'd like to see a Chopin free-for-all event here at some point in the future.

Hi Elene, hi Gerg.

Gerg:

I agree with Elene, but I'd like to add that I don't think it is too late to change rules for this particular event. The issue of comparison between performers maybe make some people avoid to contribute, I agree. But we must keep in mind that the way it is now I think the number of people who could contribute to the recital - and don't do it because it is only one piece per person - is bigger than the number of people shy about their performances.

The fact there is only one person per piece do not prevent others from "judge" the performance. I can download the recording, liten to it, and compare with other professional or amateur recordings in another websites, like pianiosociety.com (a wonderful site full of amateur recordings of pieces from several composers, and if you take a look you'll see it is common to have lots of recordings of the same pieces).

All the fun is listen to amateur people playing the pieces we love to get new perspectives of playing, and try to do our best when recording the pieces.

Of course some will be more accurate or better than others, I know I don't play that good, and at least in my case I don't mind because this is fun for me, not a job that I depend on it, so I don't mind if my performance is not "professional", because probably will never be!

Please, feel free to disagree with me! All the best to you Gerg!

Elene:


I don't have a recording of the prelude 4, I was ready to work on a recording for this e-cital but now I'm playing other thing my teacher pointed to me

cheers

It's too late for this event simply because the work has to be done right now, or tomorrow, to get it online in less than 2 days. And I sure hope people have gotten their recordings in.

For those who haven't been around: we've had full programs with lots of participation in the past; last week's lack of submissions was unusual in our experience.

Elene

I have no objection to the duplication of pieces from earlier recitals in a later appropriate event. I'd envisioned this particular recital as a potpourri of pieces of varying levels of difficulty so as many as wanted to could participate. That would of necessity have meant allowing some of the preludes in, etc.

Elene, what you think about giving more time and allow people to post duplicated pieces from earlier recitals as Frycek said?

Lets say, 1 month for now?

I guess that would depend on what Greg can do as the webmaster, and is willing to do at that time. But in the past we haven't allowed pieces to be added later, I don't think. It sounds like what you are talking about would be a whole separate e-cital. Why don't we let this one get finished (Greg has more than enough to deal with) and then do other things later? Again, you can post pieces at other places on the Web any time you want.

I'm still struggling with my choreography, so I'm so glad I don't have to have that submitted to anyone by a certain time. I had really hoped to have it for March 1, but things are not looking so good!

Elene

al-mahed, you can always participate in the Schumann e-cital coming up this June. There are no restrictions on duplication so you can work on any Schumann piece you want. He wrote many that are very accessible to beginners and intermediates.

Frycek is one of the inner core group; if she is fine with this... I, too, agree.

al-mahed, I am not at all in disagreement with you and would very much like to see such a free-for-all event, esp. this year. Monday may be the composer's birthday, but 2010 as a whole is Chopin year.

E-cital.net was designed from the beginning to host many series of amateur recitals. Each series can have its own theme and its own tree of web pages - think a site within a site. No need for the Chopin motif throughout. It redirects to "chopinrecital.org" simply because that's what we paid for, but the site needn't be specific to Chopin. It is kind of like a whole website version of the "member recordings" on PW. Though we now have an embryonic message board, it is not intended to compete with PW, which would be a fool's errand. The focus with e-cital is on offering a tasteful showcase platform of for the amateur performer. There is love in these performances that most pros would be hard-pressed to match - the fruit of many hours of dedications and often frustration. They are humanized, and serve, I believe, to humanize the composers while honoring them.

The inspiration found its genesis in my childhood in the 1980s: no one except professionals would play Chopin for me because they felt it was "too hard", or they were embarrassed, or... I wanted to hear what was tough about his work, since anyone with formal training and able to devote their entire career to musical study would effectively hide it and make it all sound easy. Thus, all I ever heard were professional performances, which say little about a work's difficulty and even become, no matter how sublime the interpretation, rather vanilla like some mass-produced shrinkwrapped product - if that's all one ever hears! I wanted to offer a platform for amateur performers to showcase their work since - let's face it! - performance opportunities are rare. Most of all, I wanted people to believe in themselves and accomplish the impossible!

Sometimes we fail: I am not proud of my 25/6 from the Etudes, for example. It was a failure. But it stays there. I learned from it. If the Yankees beat the Mariners 5-4, I may not like it, but that game is forever recorded as a 5-4 Yankees victory. Sometimes we come through with flying colors, astounding even ourselves.

Honorable hat tip to Mr. Super-Hunky, as the online e-citals were his idea and are quite successful on ABF. I would like to participate in more of these, but my present station in life and commitment to the e-cial.net ecitals prevents it.

What we do not have, nor will any time soon, is an automatic submission mechanism. Reason is because I feel it important for each participant to feel that their particular submission gets individual human attention in its presentation, and is not simply fed into a computer vis-a-vis "take a number". This keeps the humans at the other end busier but is, in the long run, worth it.

Other works 1 March 2010
Allegro de Concert Op 46 – Sotto Voce
Ballade no 1in G minor Op 23 - Tucsonpianist
Ballade no 2 in F major Op 38 – Liszt Addict IN
Ballade no 3 in A flat major Op 47- eggsdeee
Ballade no 4 in F minor Op 52 - doowlehc IN
Barcarolle Op 60 – heidiv IN
Cantabile - anonman
Concerto Op 21, Larghetto - Chardonnay IN
Fantasie Impromptu Op 66 - jazzyprof OUT
Impromptu in A flat Op 29 – greywullf
Impromptu in G flat Op 51 – carey IN
Nocturne Op 9 No 2 - AnotherSchmoe IN
Nocturne Op 55 No 1 - Piano Again
Nocturne Op 15 No 1 - Horowitzian OUT
Polonaise in C sharp minor Op 26 No 1 - akonow
Polonaise in A Major Op 40 No 1 – ab-ster IN
Polonaise in C minor Op 40 No 2 - Schubertian IN
Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-flat Op 61 – davidyko
Prelude Op 28/13 plus Etudes 10/8 and 25/10 – Black36White52
Prelude Op 28/17 - pianahman OUT
Scherzo in B flat minor Op 31 - Chopin4life
Scherzo in C sharp minor, Op 39 – Kreisler
Sonata in B flat minor Op 35 first movement – whippen boy
Song: Nie ma czego trzeba - Elene IN
Variations brillantes Op. 12 - nlogn

Gerg/Greg: Just curious - the mazurkas I sent you (Late, I admit) - are they going up tomorrow along with the polonaise? I told my teacher to watch out for them - he visits this site

Is Gerg a typo? Your name is Greg?

Absolutely, Schubertian! They will be up with everything else, and announced accordingly.

oh thanks -
good luck getting that all together - I am certainly looking forward to it

Gerg is Greg spelled backwards. He did it on purpose.

To those of you who signed up but are not able to send anything and were gracious enough to let me know this in advance: thank you!

Allegro de Concert Op 46 – Sotto Voce OUT frown
Ballade no 1 in G minor Op 23 - Tucsonpianist
Ballade no 2 in F major Op 38 – Liszt Addict IN
[b]Ballade no 3 in A flat major Op 47- eggsdeee or gerg IN
Ballade no 4 in F minor Op 52 - doowlehc IN
[b]Barcarolle Op 60 – heidiv IN
Cantabile - anonman
[b]Concerto Op 21, Larghetto - Chardonnay IN
Fantasie Impromptu Op 66 - jazzyprof OUT
Impromptu in A flat Op 29 – greywullf
Impromptu in G flat Op 51 – carey IN
Nocturne Op 9 No 2 - AnotherSchmoe IN
Nocturne Op 55 No 1 - Piano Again IN
Nocturne Op 15 No 1 - Horowitzian OUT
Polonaise in C sharp minor Op 26 No 1 - akonow
Polonaise in E flat minor Op 26 No 2 - Maestro_007 IN
Polonaise in A Major Op 40 No 1 – ab-ster IN
Polonaise in C minor Op 40 No 2 - Schubertian IN
Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-flat Op 61 – davidyko
Prelude Op 28/13 plus Etudes 10/8 and 25/10 – Black36White52
Prelude Op 28/17 - pianahman OUT
Scherzo in B flat minor Op 31 - Chopin4life
Scherzo in C sharp minor, Op 39 – Kreisler
Sonata in B flat minor Op 35 first movement – whippen boy OUT
Song: Pierścień - Elene IN
Song: Nie ma czego trzeba - Elene IN
Song: Dumka - Elene IN
Song: Nie ma czego trzeba - Elene IN
Variations brillantes Op. 12 - nlogn

Mazurkas

24/1 - Maestro_007 IN
50/1 - Schubertian IN
56/1 - Schubertian IN
56/2 - Schubertian IN

Courtesy Maestro_007, we have another Mazurka and another Polonaise in the recital!

(Did I miss anyone?)

Despite attrition we've a fairly respectable turnout for tomorrow, I'm pleased to report, 19 pieces in all. I've classified all of the Mazurkas and Nocturnes received herein as part of this e-cital insofar as the latter are delineated by their dates.

There is STILL TIME - if anyone is actually reading these updates. I'll check tomorrow morning Pacific Standard Time for any johnnie-come-latelys in the inbox, normalize them, and put them up.

I'm glad you had such a respectable turnout! Again, I am really sad I couldn't make this one. I will take some time to listen to the others though!

A typo: on the recital page, it says the performer for 55/1 is Carey.

Big sigh of relief all around! Thanks, everybody. Enjoy the celebrations. Greg, I hope you got some sleep.

Elene

Will post the announcement shortly. Applying some last-minute changes.

Great job, everyone! I'm looking forward to hearing everything!

Nancy

Thanks Nancy! Hope to have you join us again. I'll never forget your 28/15, "Raindrop" two-and-half years ago.