Hello, I've recently started learning Beethoven's Op 27 # 2 mvt 1 and can play it decently, but I have trouble making it sound good despite the piece being technically easy.
First off, the right hand almost exclusively plays quarter notes, but during the instances where an eigth note is thrown in I find it hard to make it stand out.[...]
No, the right hand is playing triplet eighth-notes, not quarter-notes. When the melody comes in, it begins with a dotted eighth-note plus a sixteenth-note. To bring out the melody notes, you must add extra weight to the fingers playing the melody, while keeping the underlying accompaniment soft, unobtrusive and without any notes "sticking out." Be careful that you don't unintentionally accent the thumb.
However, in the score I have (from the public domain), it's marked specifically pp as if to discourage playing it louder. Other instances don't always indicate pp, but the piece never gets louder than p.
The dynamic indication here is certainly not just for the top voice but for the entire section where the melody begins; it's all mean to be played
pp. That said, of course the melody notes must sing out above the accompaniment, so the accompaniment must be even softer than the melody. In other words don't think : melody = louder; think accompaniment figures = softer.
Be extremely careful that whenever the melody note and the accompaniment sound exactly an octave apart that you don't think of it as an octave, otherwise you will get a "bump" on that coincidence of notes. Keep your focus on the melody line (not on the doubling of that note an octave below) and keep the lower voice soft.
Also, throughout most of the piece, the right hand plays legato (though slurs aren't ever present) and in certain measures I find it really challenging to play legato when the right hand must jump several notes.
Does anyone have any recommendations to make it sound more legato? Should I use the pedal? Change the fingering to make it legatoable? I can't tell what the pros are doing to bypass this problem.
While there is some on-going controversy about the possible meanings of Beethoven's indication at the beginning of this movement, most interpret the directions : (
Si deve suonare tutto questa pezzo delicatissimemente e senza sordino) to mean - This whole piece must be played very delicately and with pedal." (from the Henle edition) - surely you read it; it appears that you may not have understood it otherwise you wouldn't be trying to play this without pedal. You must use the damper pedal, and sometimes half pedal, throughout this movement, but very carefully to give a continuous, gentle wash of sound that never blurs the melody nor blurs the harmonic changes. This is one of the big challenges of this piece along with properly voicing the melody above the accompaniment.
Regards,