Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Liszt Ballade 2 from scratch in 5 months - feasible?

I should put $10.00 in the post for all the kind words ... there’s always a stir when one of us yokels takes a swing at Liszt ... but it livens the party and sure gets the angry out with a fair share of guffaws.

As a follow up to my earlier post about taking on the other island-buggers ... the mighty rugby All Blacks took our Boks to the cleaners in yesterdays match at Soweto before a full-house crowd of 75,000 ... we got plastered 32-16 ... which arithmetically makes the islanders twice as good.

My apologies to the stiff-upper-lip chappies who presently go gaga over the Hungarian piano player.

I still like the wonder of Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata Opus 31, no. 2 ... but then I’m “prejudiced”.

PS A little bit of "remedy" news ... as an ancient fogey to have come down with arthritis in my left hand (which curtails any piano playing) ... by chance I ate some pineapple ... and discovered that the fruit
totally dissipates the inhibiting finger movement of arthritis.

What a pleasure to again play the Pathetique Sonata ...
not quite up to the standard of Ashkenazy (who’s kidding who?) ... but at least my dog (the musical sheep-dog) doesn’t howl, so I must be on the right tack.

Kind regards chaps.

After praising Newman's excellent book on Wagner in another thread, his book on Liszt -which I had a hard time slogging through- amounts to little more than a character assassination.

No worries. I also apologise for over-reacting and if I insulted you in any way. The Liszt situation is just one of some importance to me. I don't think you are guilty of anything I said on a consistent basis (I don't know you at all) but I don't take it back about Liszt (prove me wrong!). As for Beethoven, well he's probably my favourite composer and I didn't say anything about your loving of Beethoven and the Tempest.

As for the whole sporting thing, your words about cricket and rugby are completely lost on me as I don't follow either - only NBA and AFL football for me. Unfortunately what you said about us not being able to play cricket applies to basketball too.

I don't want to be disrespectful but these are rather amusing opinions. Pathetique? Grand? Obvious? Ahem. (most people don't think of it as a "big" work from a repertoire perspective)

Break ones fingers? Ballade 2 has to be one of the least technically challenging large scale Liszt works out there...the typical opinion I've heard is that it's a very mature piece and not showy. I wholeheartedly agree. The OP's level might not be up to par but this piece has got to be the worst example to use if you're going to attack Liszt, especially for being too technical.

7 October 2012

As discussed in earlier threads,
the issue of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata Opus 13
has vexed many a contrariwise view.

For my part, it was the moment when Beethoven pinned
his true colours to the mast and never looked back ...
up till then the dogmas and styles of mentors (Haydn and Mozart) had clouded his to be expansive batting style.

If trigalg693 can’t discern the “grand and obvious” qualities in the Beethoven Pathetique, there is much learning to be done.

Look at the Sonata Opus 2 series (dedicated to Haydn) to
realise how a scuttling mouse became an Opus 13 lion.

Honestly, if you think the Tempest is easy( as I did when I had started it), you're not ready for the Liszt Ballade. Work on the Tempest more instead of the ballade. The panel would appreciate a well played interpretation of the Tempest.

Ironic, perhaps, but probably true!

Although....if it is to be taken how you took it, then a person who said that about the Tempest probably wasn't ready for that either -- so there isn't necessarily any greater harm in trying the Liszt!

IMO the main thing that would negate what we're saying is if the person means "easy" in a quite different way than how we think of it -- and judging from how often we see people here saying things like that Chopin's 4th Ballade or whatever was "pretty easy," I think it's very possible that this is what's going on. But if they mean "easy" how we think of the word, I'm comfortable saying that most people who talk about a piece like the Tempest being "easy" either aren't really playing it very well or at best are just sort of playing the notes and that's it. For one thing right off the bat, I'd bet that they're blowing the rhythm of the last movement, and have no clue about it.

Your current repertoire list includes the Tempest, and you said you thought it was easy at first. Unless you've been working on it an extremely long time, any criticism of the OP for finding the Tempest "easy", would seem to apply equally to you in the not too distant past.

Where did Arpan say the Tempest was easy? (I don't know for sure that he/she didn't, but I don't recall anything like that, and it doesn't sound right.)

News to me that the 'Tempest' is easy.

Well indeed. I often heard it murdered during my student years, and basically the first eight measures establish what kind of performance we will be dealing with. Don't get those measures right, then forget it.

Subsequently how many student performances don't get Beethoven's carefully notated tremolos at measure 21? They are not the same as Liszt's tremolos in his transcription of Wagner's Liebestod.

Just read my post. The relevant quote is right there.

Sorry, my bad! Indeed (obviously!) I just didn't see that.
But, it's not the same as what we were talking about, which was saying or thinking something is "easy" after having learned it. I wouldn't have said anything like the comment that I made if it was about what someone thought when first working on the piece, although indeed I'd say that ideally someone should know better.

Of course I never said it was the same, there's no reason why it has to be the same, and my point still stands. Arpan was criticizing someone for something he recently he was "guilty" of.

I think the whole "if you think that piece is easy you're not playing it well, have very low standards, etc." especially when often repeated by the same poster is highly arrogant and insulting. Saying that "if you think that piece is easy, you must not be playing it well" is in effect saying that "I found it difficult and I play at least as well as you do, so that if you find it easy you must be playing it poorly, not understand it".

It doesn't allow for the possibility that someone who says a piece is easy really does play much better than the person who criticizes him for making that statement.

I was once taking an elevator with Jeffrey Swann who was laughingly talking about a pianist who said the Chopin Prelude in E flat posed no problems. But Swann didn't start saying the pianist making this statement must be playing this piece poorly. The pianist who made the statement was Maurizio Pollini.

Sure it allows for the possibility, because I only said that I would think it's true for MOST people saying such a thing -- and I hold to it.

And BTW the Pollini example that you went on to give doesn't address this, because what I was talking about (and perhaps Arpan too, but I don't know) was the use of the specific word "easy" for this kind of thing. And further, many would say that using Pollini as a counter-example only supports the point, because of the nature of the frequent criticism of him as a musician -- i.e. playing the notes very well but not showing any deep appreciation of the music. But forget that -- the main thing is that the Pollini story doesn't involve his saying "easy."

It's the word.

I did not intend on criticizing him at all. I meant on giving him some advice him because I went through the same thing. Learning the notes and playing it with the appropriate tempo is probably the easiest part of a Beethoven sonata. I was just suggesting to him that he should focus on the Beethoven sonata as he might not have been addressing the major musical difficulties that one would discover after having spent some time with such a piece. And by your ideology that you can't bring up a issue that you yourself had, don't we all tell others what mistakes we had made ourselves? That is what makes this forum so special, all of us have made a few mistake that we share. We collectively learn from the mistakes of others so that we can avoid making the same mistake. My mistake was for initially underestimating the Tempest. Again, I don't mean to criticize him, I just meant to tell him that he should perhaps spend a bit more time on his current repertoire. Beethoven would greatly help in the Liszt Ballade No.2, especially with respect to its structure. I meant to say that he might not have delved into this great work that much to say it is "quite easy". That's it. Also, I have never said "if you think that piece is easy you're not playing it well, have very low standards, etc." And again, this is just my opinion. I have much less experience in music than you do so I may be wrong as well.

Aussi, Mark, thanks for defending me. This medium can often cause misunderstanding. However, Pollini's Recording of the last three Schubert sonatas is some of the most sensitive playing I've ever heard, and the deep appreciation of those magnificent works definitely shows in his playing. And I'm pretty sure he doesn't call those "easy".

The MOST qualifier does allow for a slight possibility that your statement doesn't apply to the person it was addressed to, but you clearly think it did or there would be no good reason to say it. If I responded to your statement by saying "Most people who say something like that are idiots", I'd assume you would rightly be offended.

Now you're playing games with words to an extent it's hard to imagine. You're worrying about the distinction between saying something "poses no problems" and saying "it's easy" when it's beyond obvious that the gist of the statements are the same. Your comment about Pollini's playing is also wrong. While some find his playing cold, many consider him to be one of the most important pianists alive. He regularly sells out he biggest venues, plays with the world' greatest orchestras, and gets high praise for his recordings. You may not agree with his interpretation as I sometime do, but I doubt you would say he just learned the notes and needs to work more on the non technical aspects of the piece. He is generally considered the greatest Italian pianist since Michelangeli.

I'm glad to see you did not mean to criticize the OP. I think the way you expressed things in this post is different from your first post.

Hi, Piquelol-

I started learning the Ballade in late April/ early May. I performed it in a studio class about a month ago. The performance was at a level I was happy with- for a first performance after about 5 months. Not at a level I would hope to be playing at for an audition. Luckily, I still have about 4-5 months to now polish and bring it up to hopefully an acceptable audition level. I would think that 5 months could have the Ballade learned, but not at a high performance level.

I have played many of the pieces you listed in your repertoire, so I am guessing I am at least on the same level as you. (I realize this is a huge assumption since we are just naming pieces and not listening to how they are played). Anyways, to sum this up- from a pianist who is probably close to your level- don't do it. Spend the time reworking old stuff and if your bored learn a new, much shorter piece.

Ignoring your rather amusing style of writing, perhaps you should not take my words out of context. You specifically were talking about building a "grand repertoire", among other (imo) even more questionable things. That is different from a musically "grand" piece. As far as I know, Pathetique is only borderline acceptable repertoire for serious competitions and such. Stylistically it is "grand", but when one speaks of a "grand repertoire" I don't think it is a very fitting piece.

If it's for an audition, then I wouldn't try it. I would, however, begin learning it as a "stretch" piece. DISCLAIMER: I have not yet seriously studied this piece yet, though I have studied the score many times. Technically, it's not too hard with respect to Liszt. Don't get me wrong, it's a challenging piece, but it's not as flamboyant as some of Liszts show pieces, and like many of his mature works, its technical difficulties are replaced with interpretive difficulties. 2 months, or maybe 1 would be sufficient enough to get all of the notes and rhythms perfected and memorized, but making the piece communicate could take much, MUCH longer. For example, I learned (note-wise) Beethoven's op. 81a (Les Adieux) in 1 month, but I've just recently become comfortable enough to perform it (4.5 months later). Judging by your repertoire list (or should I say liszt? =) ), I would say it may take you over 5 months to learn, but it's a great piece, and upon completing it you would have learned so much about taste, rubato, voicing, and the balance of virtuosity of musicality.

Best of Luck!!
Donald Lee