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I am going into a reputable music school for piano performance for my freshman year. I'm only eighteen, but I think my piano playing is pretty advanced considering I took Appassionata to my auditions and was offered great scholarships. So... considering this background... Do you guys think I can learn La Campanella? It's my absolute favorite piece (or at least one of my absolute favorites) and I would love to learn it!
If you think I could do it, do you think some of you might give me some tips/pointers?

Slow practice.

Ask your instructor. That is the point of an education. Someone who can work with you on it should be able to assess how close you are and how best to get to where you want to go. A piece that excites you can be a great way to make progress, and a good instructor should take advantage of that.

Keep in mind that it may take longer than you expect, and that there may be side journeys that you need to make. After all, you should not center your entire life with the piano on one 5 minute piece!

True... I am just hoping to play it masterfully in say... 4 years? For my graduation. I will definitely not be totally focused on this. I will try to learn half a page everyday if I do decide to pursue this and then just practice it after I've practiced all my more... realistic repertoire - I guess?

It'll take four years to learn half a page every day?

NO!!!!! I will learn the whole thing in a few months, but I will incorporate musicality and speed slowly... taking my time. Then I will perform it for my graduation.
Sorry about that misunderstanding... :S

Sure. You'll probably be required to learn a handful of Romantic concert etudes, just pick that as the first one you start. It's easier than the Appassionata, much briefer, and far less emotionally complex.

I'm interested to hear a clip of you playing.

I will definitely try to post a vid or recording of Appassionata soon. I will definitely want your advice since I've noticed how mercilessly honest you are.

Are you being sarcastic? It's hard to distinguish on this forum. :S I always thought Appassionata was much simpler than La Campanella.
What is your opinion, Polyphonist?

The Appassionata is more complex.

I hope your being honest with me... :S
If that is the case, I will set to learning La Campanella straight away. Any advice on learning it?

La Campanella certainly SOUNDS less complex as a completed work, but there appear to be some specific acrobatics required of La Campanella that certainly make it extremely difficult to play cleanly.

I would venture to guess, though, that once one that finite set of technical hurdles are surmounted, a really great La Campanella is probably a whole lot more straightforward to pull off than a really great Appassionata.

I may be wrong, but the sense I get from those performers who keep La Campanella in their stable of current work, is that it's not so much a weighty piece of profound art, but more of a party trick to be pulled out to dazzle at encores. Granted, it's enormously entertaining and if I had the chops, I'd love to learn how to do it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is nearly as complex as other major works in the classical repertoire.

If you think you could tackle the set of technical hurdles required of you, you'd probably get this thing learned a lot more quickly than you think you will. It doesn't strike me as something that takes years to polish to perfection so much as it simply takes a pianist whose technical skills have been trained up to a very high level properly. Something there's no real point in working on prior to, and then after that threshold is passed, it probably succumbs to some hard work and a bit of patience and then there it is.

I could be wrong, of course. But that's the sense I get. As a listener, it doesn't seem to hold a candle to Appassionata in terms of depth and complexity.

Good luck!

I would love to hear your Appassionata, if you have it recorded! Welcome!

+1

While it's impossible ever to know for sure about things like this, I think most people who can capably play the Appassionata would be able to play La Campanella.

Or maybe it's more correct to put it in terms of negation of the negative....

I think it would absolutely wrong to tell anyone who can play the Appassionata that they shouldn't feel free to try La Campanella. And this doesn't mean I'm saying that La Campanella is no harder -- I'm not sure which piece is harder, you could argue it either way.

The Appassionata has more difficult specific acrobatics. I find. But it's also longer so there is more of everything. And you're talking about Campanella here, not Feux-follets.

P.S. I was not being sarcastic

Beat me to it...

I don't think I've ever seen you be sarcastic...

Fiona, I would imagine that, since you've tackled Appasionata, you would be able to tell by yourself what is needed to play "anything" from there on, especially if we're talking about some "normal" music (not a totally weird contemporary word, which might need some explaining)...

Sure, go for it. Learn the notes and see what happens. Nothing you learn at this point is going to be the end all version of you playing it. You may learn it, then put it down and pick it up again in a few years, maybe for a recital in school, maybe 10 years down the road.

Learn as many pieces as you can, especially between now and when you start school. Etudes, Bach P&Fs, Beethoven etc. The more stuff you can get in your hands the better.

Good luck in school!

Really? O_O Like which part? The rapid two-octave jumps in La Campanella are beastly

I once thought this. It's actually not difficult at all; what makes this even more unnerving: I'm not even kidding.

I gave it a shot one day out of boredom, and played with it for some days thereafter in short bursts of similar boredom. Soon enough, the motion sets in and you can recite those leaps pretty easily.