I am currently working on Chopin etude Op.10 No.2. I especially have trouble with the right hand chord parts. Does anybody have any suggestions for this piece?

Don't hold the chords longer than the indicated note value. You'll have a better time navigating the other fingers quickly if you release those chords quickly too.

In the right hand's chromatic scales, you will often have a choice of using 3-4 or 4-5 on the black key-white key sequences.

Sometimes 3-4 seems easier, but there's a trade-off: it might mean a more awkward stretch to play the lower notes of the chords on the primary beats.

Take it slow and steady, and practice using a variety of rhythmic patterns. Choose your fingerings carefully from the start, and be prepared to modify them as needed once you start to increase the tempo. (In many spots, I compared the fingerings given by several different editors before deciding what worked for me; then I had to decide again when the first choice no longer worked at a faster speed.)

Steven

actually i feel the right hand fingerings (on the edition) fit the hand well most of times, except perhaps only 1 or 2 place, and therefore stick to the fingerings unless you have no choice. as to the chord at the beginning of each group, it has to be pressed and released quickly. at slow speed, nothing matters, but when you start to play it faster, quick releasing each chord on RH becomes necessary, or you cannot play fast at all. i never finished it, so my experience of it is limited.

On which edition? Fit whose hand?

With all due respect, that suggestion makes no sense at all even as a general rule of thumb—and least of all for this particular piece. It might be a better idea to find an edition with no fingerings at all and figure it all out yourself.

If one were to uniformly "stick to the fingerings" of the specific edition one happens to be using, the experience of attempting learning this etude would be vastly different (and possibly impossible!) depending on if one uses Friedheim, Paderewski, Mikuli, Klindworth, Cortot, etc.

Good editors offer good fingerings, but one size never fits all. If one's fingering choices for this etude aren't meticulous and personalized, it will never get off the ground.

Steven

I would try a number of fingerings. I don't have the Cortot edition of Op. 10 handy, but he tends to list out a number of fingering combinations in his etudes. I'm just looking at the Op. 25 edition, and he does this with the two other similar etudes (25/6, and 25/8).
The fingerings you choose ultimately will be a compromise between what is most comfortable, what keeps fatigue at bay, and the sound you want.

I would also look at the exercised Cortot provides in that edition.

i'm talking about RH, and my edition is Dover which has Chopin's fingerings. imo and from what i read (not from you though), Chopin's fingerings have exact the exercise's purpose in mind which should be followed strictly most of time. the fingerings do fit fine for most people (unless you tell me there's a lot people dismiss entirely Chopin's fingerings). what's the purpose of this study, and why Chopin offers such fingerings to it? if one knows the answer to the questions, then one knows what to do to play it.

btw, i'm not talking anything general as i was answering the poster's specific question. sorry that i didn't make things more clear.

Well, there's no way not to have Chopin's purpose in mind unless you omit the chords entirely and just play it as a chromatic scale; no editor's fingerings serious depart from Chopin's intent because it wouldn't be possible to do so.

But there are some significant differences nevertheless. I made plain in my first post that there are numerous instances where a black key and white key in succession can be taken with either 3-4 or 4-5, and that there are attendant consequences to that choice.

In your original post when you said "stick to the fingerings," you didn't make plain that you were referring specifically to Chopin's. Even the Paderewski edition offers Chopin's fingerings and Paderewski's, too.

I'm surprised you would say "if one knows the answer to the questions [concerning the purpose of the study and Chopin's fingerings], then one knows what to do to play it" when, by your own account, "i never finished it, so my experience of it is limited." Why do you suppose that there are any differences in fingerings in a dozen editions from a dozen different editors—all of them pianists and musicologists? I think they know Chopin's purpose and, as Phlebas said, "what is most comfortable, what keeps fatigue at bay, and the sound you want."

Steven

I've only heard 3 or 4 recordings of this that seem technically perfect (Zayas, Perahia, maybe Orozco, and Rudenko [and one of the other forum members tells me he drops a note or two from the accompanying chords]). I hope it goes well for you. Good luck.

didn't i say in my 1st post about a couple of places the fingerings might be different? you are sort of arguing with me on words? true, i didn't finish learning 10.2, but still i knew what i was talking about. limited experience or not, it's still an experience and it took me several months. if you're already an expert on this etude, then you should careless about what i said. just let everyone have his/her says and some experience to share, whether it's inline with your ideas or not.

I didn't wish to seem argumentative. But if you know what you're talking about (as you claim), you seem to have problems articulating it.

In your first post you stated, "actually i feel the right hand fingerings (on the edition) fit the hand well most of times, except perhaps only 1 or 2 place, and therefore stick to the fingerings unless you have no choice." That struck me as a half-baked assertion. But when I asked you "On which edition? Fit whose hand?" your response was "i'm talking about RH, and my edition is Dover which has Chopin's fingerings." I don't believe you grasped my question at all (i.e., of course we're talking about RH; Dover is a publisher, not an editor).

If you offer statements that are bizarre, incoherent and vague—and admittedly ignorant to the extent you acknowledge "i never finished it, so my experience of it is limited"—I don't think it's unreasonable to expect your words to be challenged. I'm sorry if you find that offensive, but I believe careless misinformation should be addressed and corrected. If you post in a public forum and claim that you know what you're talking about, it goes with the territory.

Of course everyone has a right to their opinion, but it's probably worth sharing only if it's an informed one. If it's not—and you don't wish to be confronted—then you might consider exercising greater circumspection before posting.

Steven

The best advice I've ever gotten on this piece:

If you can stretch a 10th, you can get a lot of the the right-hand chord notes with the left hand, which makes the right hand part easier.

For example, the very first chord, play the A in the bass with your left pinky, and the middle C in that chord with your left thumb. The right hand can then play the E with the thumb and the A with the 2nd finger. You can do that on most of the chords in this piece.

What's the point of making an etude like this one easier, when the entire reason for the existence of the piece is the challenge of playing it as written?

I couldn't agree more.

Another "idea" that makes me recoil is redistribution of fingers for those certain notoriously arpeggios in 10/1 to something other than 1245 or 1235, but this is far more misguided—a huge amount of misspent time and effort IMHO.

Steven

Does anyone by chance know who plays this etude the fastest? I think possibly Gould.

I don't know about fastest, but it's also very much about the precision, lightness, delicacy, and well separating the 16ths from each other (no blur of the sound) - and all this with a sound mostly in the piano range. The notes should sound precise and separated like each one is a little stick with a needle. For example, I like this performance a lot in terms of all these components. Of course, there are so many other good performances around. An example of a performance that does not look so effortless and also sounds a tiny bit clumsy to me (on a very high level) is this . Also the left hand is much too loud in this case for my taste.

virus,

Do you think your description is perhaps contradicted by the indication sempre legato? "Separated" means detached, after all, and that would be staccato!

I believe I know what you mean, though, as my own interpretation of a desirable, non-blurry articulation would be each note distinct.

I thought Kempf's was the more "musical" of the two vids you shared; I preferred his gentler speed, too, despite the occasional errors and heavy left hand. One thing I didn't enjoy about either one was the rallentando at the close rather than a simple diminuendo.

Steven

p.s. Yipes, did anybody else immediately think of this indelible image when they saw Kempf's parlor?

Steven, yes it may sound a bit paradoxical because of Chopin's legato description. But I still feel a preference for a sound which (I think) comes from a fast enough release of each key. Still legato, but not so much, if you know what I mean.

Interesting to hear that you thought the Freddy Kempf performance was more musical. It reminds me again how much is just a matter of taste.

To reveal my ignorance, I can't recall where this image comes from? But it definitely reminds of the Kempf setting.

Steven, if you want to have the last word, you have it, and i won't comment on anything you say anymore, pointless basically. you could call me ignorant if you like, and i could call you self-righteous in return. it's the public forum, nobody argues about that, and therefore i'm not afraid of whatever you say, but now it just becomes silly to say anything about it any further.

my teacher mentioned Backhaus's one as the fastest.

Most people are here to exchange ideas and share knowledge about a subject we presumably love—i.e., to communicate, teach and learn. But you can't teach what you don't know, and you can't learn what you mistakenly think you already know.

The greatest ignorance must be the desire to remain that way and the reflexive dismissal of anyone with greater knowledge as "self-righteous." I find self-righteousness in your own steadfast unwillingness to re-examine your own statements and posturing as a victim because they were questioned.

Steven

The image comes from near the close of Stanley Kubrick's amazing film : "2001 : A Space Odyssey," arguably one of the ten greatest films ever made.

Regards,

Thank you for posting these two videos. Of the two, I much prefer Osaki's; it has an effortless grace, elegance and balance, all of which seem to be lacking - for me - in Kempf's more pedestrian performance.

Regards,

One of the reasons I found Kempf's the more appealing is that emulating it is a far more reasonable goal for me!

Bruce, wouldn't it be funny if a pianist's "pedestrian performance" meant it sounded like he was playing with his feet?

Or ... was that what you meant?

Steven

Duh, I absolutely knew it was from some movie. Thanks, BruceD, for reminding me of 2001 (to be very honest, I always found this cult movie a bit boring...). But at least I'm glad somebody else found a rather strong contrast in the two videos I posted.

Steven :

Since I couldn't hope to emulate either performance, I chose the high road!

Cheers!

I agree. But, just because it is interesting that it exists, I thought I'd mention that Chopin also made a version (not published in his lifetime) in which almost all of the chords are held for the whole beat, i.e., they are quarter notes. It's even more difficult, of course, and I'd bet it would likely to cause injury unless one were exceedingly careful. The Badura-Skoda edition includes it.

Playing the chords as quarter notes (and the 16ths staccato at the same time) is also one of the exercises that Cortot suggests. It is a useful exercise to maximize the independent action of the fingers. But I agree with you: one should not practice in this way for too long (stop at the first sign of fatigue), in order to avoid injury. Another useful exercise is to play each chord twice -- on the beat, and a 32th before the beat. This helps to practice the fast release of the chords.