Tell me what you guys think!

http://youtu.be/nL9mF1MBlX8

Cheers!

- Matthew

Overall has a nice heroic feel to it! You have good dynamics. Some smaller details do need a little more polish, and although an occasional missed note doesn't bother me, there may have been one or two too many for comfort. Continue with the slow practice and concentrate on the trouble spots and this will be a powerhouse of yours!

And then I realized it was live after hearing the clapping, so there was probably a bit of pressure on you. Bravo, and keep up the good work! And the composing, as I saw on your YouTube channel.

Nice performance but sound of the piano is really bad i think its fazioli the worst piano brand in the world.

Are you aware that at 0:30 you put in an extra beat? (i.e. an extra one of those "things")

Oh, c'mon! It's not that bad!

Matthew -

I would be interested to know what YOU think about the performance. Are you satisfied with it?

I'm sorry I realize this is the incorrect forum to post in, but I am rusty to these forums...


Overall I am satisfied with this performance, it's definitely a turning point for me to be able to perform a monumental piece like this and pull it off. There are wrongs notes, but that doesn't bother me. The extra beat and wrong notes can be cleaned up, but Rubinstein played tons of wrongs notes...but when he played them he felt them so much it didn't matter.

There were some inconsistencies that I found a little disturbing. Every time - I guess this makes this consistent! - you play the measure after the long rising scale passage (measure 31 is the first instance) you slow down the tempo, but for that measure only. If it's intentional and done for effect, it doesn't work for me.

Whenever you play the ascending scale passage first appearing at measure 30 it seems to me that you don't separate it from the chord which goes before it, although the score indicates a phrase break. When you play that scale passage at measure 78, there is a distinct sfz on the A and a slight hold on that note that begins the passage, but that's the only time you did that. Was that for a reason?

The resonance of the piano/venue made me think that at times, particularly in the last pages of the Polonaise you were playing some LH octaves an octave lower than written.

While I could not hope at present to play this as well as you, I do feel, along with OSK, that there were just too many missed or wrong notes for me to feel comfortable with this performance. Whether it was the pressure of the live performance or the fact that this was not yet as secure as it should be somewhat compromised a performance that seems to have considerable potential.

I would look forward to hearing a more polished version at some future date. Thank you for sharing.

Regards,

Of course.
BTW, you didn't tell us....was the extra beat a momentary glitch, or a misreading?

P.S. If it was a misreading -- meaning that you were always playing it that way -- and if you have a teacher, I would wonder why he/she didn't catch it and point it out.

But, I would add, things like that can happen even with terrific teachers. I don't particularly understand it but I know that it happens.

Matthew -

This Polonaise was my first "monumental" piece in college as well - so I can appreciate the satisfaction you feel in being able to perform it in front of an audience. Wrong notes and memory slips aside, you need to step back and clean a lot of things up. Overall your interpretation lacks clarity (particularly in the right hand) and control. Some of this could be the pressure of a live performance (I know this from personal experience)....but I wonder how the piece sounds when you are playing it on your own. For practice purposes I would encourage you to put the "Heroic" aspect of this on hold for awhile, slow things down, cut the dynamics in half, revisit the score, work section by section, and focus on playing the notes correctly. It will pay off in the long run.

Hey, I'm a begginner I was just checking this part of the forum out but I may as well give my opinion too,

I think it's amazing you can play it as well as you do, but one thing that bothered me was how past you played the part from 3:30 to 4:30...I don't know, maybe that's a difficult part to have control over because of all the stuff the left hand is doing.

Nu?

I feel like you are forcing your way into/through this piece.
As if you had to go to the bathroom and wanted to get it over with

I have no idea what it took for you to come to this progress/playing/performance
and I'm not here to criticize.
I feel there could be more sensitivity, involvement, depth in your interpretation.
Perhaps just slowing down inside.

Well, that said , feel free to make a comment on my playing.
Shall post something within this month...

This is the first recording I've heard of yours so I don't have anything to relate it too. Thanks for sharing this.

You can always PM a mod and ask them to move it to the Members Recordings area.

True - but I imagine the same folks would have listened and commented. At least Matthew knows to post there in the future.

OK, I give in. What's "nu" mean?

I'm not sure exactly what language it is -- maybe Yiddish? -- and it means, "Well????????"

Thanks.
But I did know what FTCL was...

Yiddish, yes. Also a common idiom in Israel, so it's a part of modern Hebrew.

-J

Thanks! But of course, you can't stop there.....you gotta give us the derivation/etymology!

I don't have much to tell you.

Some etymology for the Yiddish appears in this list of Yiddish words: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Yiddish_origin#List_of_words

That it's used in modern Hebrew I know because I lived in Israel for a year.

-J

Cool!!!

BTW it was used in my household too.

The playing is very sloppy. I think you also learned some of the chords wrong as they don't sound right each time the polonaise theme is played. Go back to the score, study it, and work it with a metronome. Good luck.