Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Baroque Recital - how are you going with your preparation?

I'm playing the minuet from Bach's French Suite BWV 814, and from my notes I see that I've started, stopped and resumed this piece 4 times now! I seem unable to commit to it, possibly because it's in a minor key and it's quite obsessive. (I just found out that it was the soundtrack for the game Tetris!)

Anyway, the first half is almost done at the not-very-fast tempo I chose (100 bpm), while the second half still needs some work. I hope to record it by the end of January.

Needless to say any teacher who uses the word "horrific" to their student should re-think their career.

The closest thing like that my teacher ever "said" is to simply nod her head in response to my observation "that really sucked, didn't it?

I have baroque pieces assigned and been working on it for a few days. However I'm still on the fence committing to enter the recital. I'm not sure if I can record the toccata in time for the recital. It will all depends on business travel schedule. I will sign up after I was able to record. At least for now I'm enjoying the first two movements of the toccata in my sig.

Did she actually say this - or just imply it?
If she said it I would say your teacher is unnecessarily harsh and unprofessional.

1: it is her job to explain WHY it is unmusical and how to fix it
2: watching youtube is not going to help if you don't know what it is you doing 'wrong'
3: useful advice
4: not helpful - she needs to tell you exactly what is wrong

The worse my teacher ever gave me was " ... (long pause) ... the Opus 111 is SO HARD ..."

Call me thin-skinned, but I prefer my criticism to be a little more constructive. The worst thing my teacher has said is something like: "That's good, but let's take a look at the left hand...". The most complimentary thing he has said is: "That's good. Ok, what's next?"

I've changed pieces - my plan now is to do a Busoni transcription of Wachet Auf.

So if anyone else wants to try the slow movement of the Concerto after Marcello by Bach, go for it.

Sam

I have not quite learned my piece yet. The right hand is fully memorized and the left is past half-way. It is a virtuoso-level piece requiring some amazing finger stretches.

In fact there are so many many fingering issues with my piece (J.S. Bach - Prelude in B minor BWV 855a - Siloti transcription) that I'm still not quite out of the woods yet because I am finding some necessary changes once I put my hands together.

The piece is tough, but rewarding. One person described it as an wonderful exercise in voicing. The historical background on the piece is also quite interesting and I'll share that if/when I'm able to put together a recording.

I hope to have mine ready by mid-March but it likely won't be as polished as I would like.

I'm forgetting my piece. I got a pass from my teacher several weeks ago, before signing up fot the recital, but I never recorded it; then I dropped it and now I'm not able to play it decently.
I hope to be able to resume it on time; in the meantime I started a Scarlatti sonata, but it won't be ready for the recital!

Thanks Brian, Schubertian, and ajames. Yes, she actually said those things, which I agree wasn't a very teacherly approach. That's not to say her assessment wasn't accurate, though.

On a happier note - I'm starting with a new teacher this week. Hopefully we'll be a good fit and then I'll have someone to help me with my Baroque piece.

Wow, I'd be bummed too. Horrific?? I would never use such language with a student. Hopefully they actually gave you ideas on how to accomplish these things other than listening to what other pianists have done.

Hah, didn't see this before I posted. Good!

I'm working on the Bach Italian Concerto. Kind of on pause over Christmas, so I need to start getting back into it. I was doing a lot of detail work. When I first learned the 1st movement, I had a lot of bad habits in with it that are now obvious coming back to it. The 3rd movement also has some, but less, so I'm focusing my attention on 1. But I'll have to get myself on a schedule to work on all 3 in order to make this in time.

Well, I am just beginning the Sinfonia (11) now. I went through it with my teacher before the Christmas break, and she tried to talk me out of it. That is not a particularly good sign. So, I have been methodically working through hands separately. She asked me to memorise it HS, which I am finding difficult to do, since the voices move from one hand to the other. So, I fill in the gaps with the other hand. I think I will make it there with it by March, but I have a contingency piece (Prelude in E Minor) that I can submit if the Sinfonia doesn't make it.

Yay! I'm so glad, hope your new teacher is nicer than your old one!

I would get a new teacher if mine called my playing horrific!

Should have read further before posting! Good luck with your new teacher - they can't be worse than the old one

Yes I had two pieces ready at the time and I could submit only one for the ABF recital (I think it was recital 39 so two recitals back). So I subscribed the other one for the baroque recital.

I'm really looking forward to it--I was trawling YouTube looking for something Baroque I could love and I fell in love instantly with it.

Also, I'm relieved I was a couple days late to sign up for it. The prelude I picked has been more than enough of a challenge and I think the long form of the concerto would have been too much.

Thanks Morodiene, cathryn999, Sarahlm. I appreciate the support.

My first lesson went really well. She had some nice, encouraging things to say about my playing, and she's already started helping with improving/correcting my technique. Right now I'm undecided at what point I'll bring up my baroque piece. I'm thinking maybe I should wait until I've had a couple more lessons first.


This week I received my order of Succeeding with the Master books, one of which covers the Baroque era. So I'm only now finding out about the common practice of improvising with ornaments. This will be interesting since I've never done ornaments before. Hopefully I'll be able to add in at least the most basic (easy) one somewhere in both the part A and part B repeats to add variety. It'll be written into my sheet music though. The thought of improvising is still too scary for me.

I'd love to know how you all go about choosing which ornaments to play and whether or not you add them in via improvisation.

Just started on my piece last night. Hopefully it will be in recordable shape by the end of this month.

I learned my piece (Bach Invention No 1) last year and was very close to submitting into the last ABF recital. However I kept making errors during the recording and lost patience. I then decided to sign up for this recital and to begin by forgetting the piece and restart closer to the time. The forgetting part was easy now I have to try to re-motivate myself into relearning an old piece.