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But IMO it does! -- and that's a big part of the difficulty.
I say it does have it, because if you don't play it with that lightness:

-- the accompanying 8th notes will garble up the melodies and the counterpoint; and

-- the dynamic won't leave room for shaping the two melodies.

Finding nuance is pretty related to developing an interpretive approach to a piece, because you're finding details that you want to play a certain way, rather than being terrified by the piece as a whole. So it makes perfect sense that when you've thought through all the details, a piece is easier in a sense. But then you have more details that you have to get right, and more ways to fail to achieve your conception of the piece.

Mm, all true, but I find that section is pretty straightforward , because the speed helps create the lightness, the pedal and the bass octave make the articulation of the inner voice less important (it's not so transparent), and aside from how awkward the fingering gets, once the appropriate balance is achieved, it's alright. I have a live recording, but it's not great (in terms of performance), but also because I made some note mistakes at that very section...

I'll try it again when I take another look at this piece (maybe sometime soon?), and I'll share my thoughts then.

Back to the Ballades, they're all hard to conceptualize and keep coherent, because the form is IMO, not all that tight. It's important to make the codas seem like the inevitable product of the tension underlying the rest of the pieces, which is difficult because Chopin introduces new material in all of them.

Mark, about that note: I hear it. He 'sharpens' one of the melodic notes in that phrase at 9:02. I've never heard it like that before. Though, Rubinstein is known for playing different versions of things.

Do you realize how ironic that is, after you said that you didn't see what's so hard about it?

We make 'note mistakes' there not because the notes per se would be hard, but because of everything else about the passage (as per the things we said) that makes the passage complex. If we don't appreciate those things and don't care about them, then I suppose it wouldn't be hard -- but we wouldn't be doing what's there. And once we're conscious of what's there and we want to do it, the notes become hard too.

Joel: See my edit. It seems that what he's doing is just a certain kind of interpretation of the notation.

Yep, pretty ironic in hindsight actually!

I actually found a second recording I made...slower than the live performance by a minute, and again - in hindsight - I wasn't ready for the piece, nor did I appreciate its difficulties at the time.

Here's a link with that disclaimer in mind...
https://www.box.com/s/aqad5t4kcgl560jlj1c4

Thanks Mark for the Rubinstein playing of the Scherzo 4 (which is no joke!) ... staggering performance ... Chopin needed 20 pages (according to my edition)
to write down this racy work ... after attempting the first page of S4 (going at 20 mph) I’m off to the quack to mend my fingers ... but I do like Rubinstein’s masterly use of rubato ... somehow slows the mighty express down around the curves.

PS To keep on subject ...
I have only played through the first Chopin Ballade ...
which is a piece of cake ... except for the tricky fast bits.

26 in the Joseffy.

Yes, I counted, and cursed.

How many other people do that -- i.e. see how many pages the score is when they start working on a piece, and keep on checking as you go along to see what fraction of the way you are? And, sort of curse when you see how far there still is to go?

(And being relieved when you see how much is sort of repetition....)

Anyway I'm always glad they didn't make there be fewer pages by making the print smaller....

I do that constantly.

And I do that as a composer as well (*ashamed emoticon here*)... This is why I went back working on miniatures... To avoid checking the "200 bars and counting" thing...

I do most of the time...

Actually, all of the Scherzos ARE jokes. Literally.

Well, if one is counting - and why would one? - it's 23 pages in the well-printed Henle. It would make more sense (if one is counting - and why would one?) to count the number of measures, wouldn't it?

Regards,

Don't think I don't do that too.

Or the number of notes.

I'm in way over my head learning the 4th ballade, i'm on page 11 (of 18 Joseffy). I may be on 25% of the notes.

So far nothing I won't be able to play in about 5 years, but its the coda i'm worried about if i will ever be able to do it.

No problem -- just throw your hands up in the air after those fortissimo chords, people will applaud....Stand up and take your bows, and you don't need no coda.

That's actually plan B. I do it with the Barcarolle too. I think I will ultimately be able to manage that coda, but until i do I stop just after the fermata with as big a bang as possible.

Cool! Now maybe you can come up with a way not to play "that measure" in the Db major Nocturne....

hahaha!

I was just thinking about that! I mean, i love Chopin, but I hate it when he does that. With "that", i mean writing a beautiful, perfectly playable nocturne, and then putting in a measure like that.

Actually I put a lot of work in that measure, and i think i can play it now at about 3/4 speed, which is good enough, i mean, it is still fast and sparkling.

Also i wonder, selling sheet music was a big source of income for him right? So wouldn't it have been in his interest to write easier music, or provide alternatives? Or were the amateur pianists of his time so much better than now? Or did they buy his works even if they couldn't play it?

The simplest answer is that people like Chopin weren't heavily motivated in their composing by money. And in Chopin's case, I think he had pretty much all the money he wanted from giving piano lessons to countesses.

Also maybe he figured people would buy the sheet music before turning to that page.