Anyone have any tips for the ornaments in measure 23 and later on in the piece???
I'm trying to come up with a way to play it with less hyper-extention...

I think you need to recount the measures. There aren't any ornaments in m. 23.

I could guess which ones you mean, but I'm not sure I'd be right, and better if we don't have to guess.

I'm going to hazard a guess that it's the octaves with the trills. To which the answer is, don't stretch. Play the lower note then hop to a position where the trill is comfortable. It's so much easier than trying to hurry and killing your hands.

That's what I thought too, but I'd rather he let us know for sure, since there are other ornaments around there that have issues too.

If in fact you do mean the octaves with the trills at the top, there is a really neat trick that Stanisalv Bunin does. Instead of playing the octave after each trill with the right hand only (which is where the difficulty comes from), ADD the bottom half of the octave to the left hand's chords. That way you free the right up while the left hand feels virtually the same.

Take a look.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUCFQlXeTuc#t=0m48s

Cheater, cheater!!




(.......he says, as he runs to try it.....)

Yeah... I guess i counted too fast! It's the octave trills! Thanks for the replies so far!

Been trying to figure this out for the last 170 years, and you just solved it for me. But please don't tell anybody I'm doing it. Keep it real hush-hush.

and the verdict is.......

It's probably the best cheat I've ever encountered. I wonder who taught Stan that trick. (maybe he figured it out on his own...)

Probably Chopin himself!

(Y'know, 'channeling' and stuff....)

Yes, I had found that "trick" a long time ago too. (I mean as done by Bunin, not my idea).

Two active threads now on "cheating" in the op 53. Must be the hardest piece ever...

-J

Except the other cheat made it harder!

....and when we get done with these 'cheats,' maybe we can talk about what we think of "helping out" with the right hand on those 'solo' LH octaves in the middle part....

...so obvious, why didn't I think of it before??
Methinks I'm going to cheat from now on and spare myself tenosynovitis playing that dratted piece the way it is written

Doesn't everybody use two hands when the RH is free?
Don't tell me that's cheating......

Maybe we need a thread entitled Best Professional Cheats with embedded YouTube videos...

Hey, but it's "written" for just the L.H.!


(Good rule of thumb [as well as all the other fingers]: What is "written" isn't necessarily what's written.
And of course vice versa!)

Well - I just tried it - and yes, it is easier - and the trill is cleaner - although burying the lower octave note in the LH chord doesn't quite sound the same as when it's played by the RH thumb. But I don't know whether after playing the doggone piece for over 40 years now that I can make the change.

Part of the challenge of doing such a "swindle" (Seymour Bernstein's word, a bit preferable to "cheat") ....is to make it sound the same!
You can do it.


I don't know either.
(I said you can do it, I didn't say I could.)

I just worked on it for a few minutes, which was long enough to see that this is a much better way for me to play it than any of the ways I had tried over the years -- and also long enough to see that it would take a lot of work (and a fair amount of passed time) to "make the change."

For some reason I did not much trouble, but I use 1-4-5-4 then 1-3-5-3.

You must have fits with the first page.

And you must have fits trying to quote a post!


But seriously folks.... do you mean you re-divide some stuff on there?
I might learn something else!
(Although, I suspect I wouldn't want to do it there. I like keeping those voices straight.)

edit: I think I only just got this.
(see later post)

I've always had fits with the first page. What a pain!

Yes.
It's one of those pieces, like Beethoven Op. 2 #3, where you can tell in the first 3 seconds if someone is up to the piece.

And BTW of course for you in the Beethoven, the answer came up roses.

I don't think the opening of the Chopin is any harder, even though the 'stuff' goes on longer.

I don't think the Beethoven is hard at all. Play on your nails and it takes away 99% of the difficulty. The opening of the Chopin is much harder for me.

If you've ever played La Campanella, you would have this alternate fingering: 1343. There is an entire passage of this exact trill marked 1343 in Liszt's etude.

If you're going to split the hands (meaning the LH will pick up the tab on the bottom notes of the octaves after the trill), you can jump 1232 12.


I typically play 1454, but sometimes I play a combination. When I play the combination, this is what I do: for the first, I play 1343. I pick up the F in the LH (thumb), but play the G octave with the RH. This sets up the Ab better than picking up the G in the LH (IMO).

Hope it helps.

Damon: I think maybe you were doing a joke that nobody got yet, including me.

Did you mean about it "looking" like all the notes should be played by the LH?

(That would be a pretty good trick!)

Hmmm - now that's something I haven't tried yet.....

Of course, finding a fingering that works (using both hands) on the first page is a challenge. I keep changing mine from time to time with mixed results.