It doesn't matter which fingers you trill with, as long as you exit the trill with 4 (or 5) on the last d# and 3 on the last c#, so that you take c-natural with 2 and b with 1. Some here have suggested taking c with 1 and crossing over to 2 on b, which is nuts. There is no reason to use the left hand, and I've never seen anyone do it.

Slightly OT: nearly everyone (including me, sometimes) seems to want to play these opening trills as rapdily and brilliantly as possible, within a soft dynamic. I'm not sure that's necessary. For the trills that end the piece, it is, but maybe not for those at the beginning.

I don't agree.

In general what you said is true. But it isn't always. I hold to it being pretty close to absolutely true that "3-5" is very far from your best fingering for the trill, and that 2-4 would be better. However well you could do it with 3-5, you could do it better with 2-4. (Repeated for emphasis.)

I would also offer that the only reason any editor would have thought of showing "3-5" is a reluctance to "slide" a subsequent finger from one note to the next -- which is (if someone is a reasonably advanced pianist) a completely needless reluctance.

I don't think anyone has specified that. It's certainly not how I see it.

One poster already said they liked 35 the best. Have you taught this piece at least 20 times so you can judge what's best or are you assuming that what's best for you is best for others? There have been a huge number of different suggested fingering for this passage.

But Kuanpiano, who we know is a terrific pianist based on his recordings, likes that one the best.

However, see this later post.
Also, from the prior posts it was clear that part of his reasoning was that he apparently never considered or tried using the same finger on two consecutive notes, and therefore apparently had never tried the alternate fingering. Would you disagree that in such a situation, it is far from indicating that 3-5 is better for him than 2-4?

Since you seem to think you need to speak for him, I'll point out that he did not say that. He merely said that he found it very comfortable. If he's using a 2-3 trill, maybe he'd get better results exiting the trill with 4 and 3, as I've suggested, rather than crossing over the thumb. I'm not implying anything about his abilities; I've never heard him play.


I guess I also need to add that even if I describe a fingering as crazy, I'm not so narrow-minded as to think that 100% of the pianists on Earth should agree.

You called the fingering he liked "nuts". Whether it was his absolute favorite seems irrelevant, but it apparently was the one he chose to use. He is an excellent pianist, probably better than 98% or more of the PW members. If a articular fingering works for a very good pianist I think it is probably not in the "nuts' category.

Of course the relative value of various fingerings is "relevant." I can play this passage just fine with Kuanpiano's fingering, the one I described as nuts, but I can play it better with mine. If it makes you happy, I'll retract "nuts" and replace it with "inferior" or "sub-optimal", with (again) the shouldn't-be-necessary qualification that I don't expect all pianists (excellent or not) to agree.

My contribution to this thread was intended as practical advice, based on experience, for anyone struggling to get what they want out of this passage. That's all.

24242424 \ 24242424 \ 24321352 \ 13521235

@Plover - thanks again for your kind words! I do try my best..haha

@Lemon - I tried out your fingering and it worked equally well for me for the turn, but I struggled switching fingers out of the trill. I guess it's a matter of personal fingering preference, I prefer playing the C with the thumb to kind of "turn" out of the trill (both musically, and literally, since you need to turn your wrist to put the 2nd finger on the B), and follow through with the rest of the gesture.

Generally fingering is indicative of pianistic technique, and my suggestion wasn't an exception - I generally use my thumb as often as possible for tonal purposes, and also turning of the hands when playing figures like this passage. Also, my trills aren't exactly the best..haha.