What do you guys think of this recording?

http://Chopin.chopinforum.com/virtuoso_735/Liebestraume3.mp3

I like it. Is it your recording?

Pretty mechanical recording. What are your thoughts on the performance? Is it "musical" enough for your tastes, whatever musical means to you.

Some suggestions from me (in chronological order)...

From the beginning, bring out the melody more by softening up on the non-melody notes in the right hand arpeggios. This applies to the piu animato con passione section too.

Avoid overdoing the left-hand-then-right-hand-half-a-beat-later effect. Possibly it's subconscious. If the music says play left and right hand together, do it.

Measures 6 and 12, try using sustaining pedal here as it's marked.

Be careful with the pedalling entering the large block chord section.

Watch the left hand in the large block chord section. Missed notes, wrong notes, etc...

Metronome the large block chord section, the tempo is jumpy. The right hand misplayed at least one chord, I assume you already know that.

Try the trickling thirds section w/o pedal, accelerando as you come down.

Use your ears on the last two lines. The melody just seemed to disappear and get muddled ...

Virtuoso:

I don't like to pile on the criticism because every performance attempt deserves to be recognized, but I do have some critical observations to make.

This piece still does need work, however; you probably know that.

I agree with all that Mykinator said. I won't comment on the missed notes/wrong notes; I'll give you my opinions on interpretation.

I found that in (roughly) bars 15 through 20, the right hand accompaniment started to become uneven. This section is marked poco cresc ed agitato and I don't hear agitato as I believe I should.

Similarly, in the B major section after the first cadenza, passione called for in the score is much better here. Most importantly when that B major section modulates to C major - starting at the double bar line, your interpretation loses its impetus, the playing becomes static. There is no drive, the phrases have no direction. Each phrase must help this section move constantly and inexorably towards the dominant chord immediately preceeding the second cadenza. At this point, (again just after the double-bar line) the melody is written in half notes tied to an eighth note followed by an eighth-note chord. I am not hearing those eighth note chords as eighth notes, but rather as quarter notes. Any examiner would really "shoot you down" for that! Go back and practice this section very slowly, making sure that those melody chords I'm talking about coincide exatly with the LH on beats 3-1/2 and 6-1/2, and not on beats 3 and 6. This section needs to be much more rhapsodic.

The melody in the final section needs to "sing" more, just as it needs to in your opening measures. The LH cross-over chords should be just a faint echo of the melody; you are making them sound as if they are part of the melody.

I am always tempted to remind players of this piece that it is a piano transcription of one of Liszt own (vocal) songs; listening to and being familiar with the original can certainly be a help in playing this well.

In short, once you've cleaned up the technical glitches, you need to work on having more direction to your playing; you have to decide where each phrase leads to and make sure your interpretation lets your listeners know that. This, in turn, will help give a better sense of the architecture of the piece.

Regards,