Hi, you are a very polished pianist. Congratulations on your performance. This etude is at first tough to get steady and even, and a rhythmically vibrant performance requires total involvement. It’s one of the few compositions that Chopin ever gave the designation of ‘presto’ (last movement of Sonata #2 also comes to mind and the four Scherzi) and only one of two etudes designated as such, the other being pus 25.2 in f minor. So 10.4 can pretty much go as fast as you want (if in control of course).
The ‘con fuoco’ (fiery), especially at the end, is a good clue to Chopin’s concept – remember, he was a teenager when he wrote this.
I’d like to share an anecdote I came across while researching my own book, and I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere else.
Authoress George Eliot once heard Chopin perform an etude which she described as ‘hair-raising’. She further reports that Chopin said the etude was inspired by the railroad. Although not identified specifically I believe it must have been Opus 10.4. Chopin had a talent for mimicry and this etude really does resemble the railroad – which in the late 1820’s would have been a novel sensation. A similar anecdote – Liszt was once asked by an Italian audience to improvise on the ‘railroad’. If this is the case, Chopin’s “railroad’ predates Alkan’s by a decade.
I agree with the comments about accents. They are clearly marked in most editions (I haven’t seen any of the manuscripts of this etude). They add much flavor to the piece. Here are a couple of authoritative quotes on the topic in general.
"Music is full of nuances and accents of greater or less intensity, critical for rhythmic expression - to which pupils hardly ever give any attention. They correspond to vocal accents in reading aloud, or in declamation. … Liszt was very fond of strong accents in order to mark off periods and phrases, and he talked so much about strong accentuation that one might have supposed that he would abuse it, but he never did. When he wrote to me later about my own piano method, he expressed the strongest approval of the exercises on accentuation."
WILLIAM MASON
"The dead letter of the music cannot convey the vivacity with which the gypsy virtuoso executes it, or the incessant mobility of its rhythms, the fiery eloquence of its phrases, the expressive accent of its declamation."
LISZT
see old footage of S. Richter playing this étude (it has over 700k views which is quite a number)for marked accentuation. The dynamics greatly add to the drama of the piece
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ-NAgDpRVsNot saying to play like him - you must be yourself.
"It was a serious moment for me when Beethoven appeared. Was I to try to follow in the footsteps of such a genius? For a while I did not know what I stood on, but finally I realized that it was best to remain true to myself and my own nature."
J. N. HUMMEL
All the best.
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