Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner My recording of Pathetique Sonata (video)

Hey guys, I finally bought a camcorder and recorded myself playing the 1st movement of the pathetique sonata. i had to compress the video of course so its not exquisite quality, but still good.

Anyway, tell me what you think, i had some small flubs due to recording jitters..lol. I fixed the video and put it up on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JUsXYlK2t4

If anyone is having trouble plying the video, let me know.

I tried to watch the video and it would not load

QuickTime 7.1.3 under Windows XP gets an error and stops playing the movie.

MPlayer plays it, but it stutters and has beeps and clicks.

Are you on a Mac?

I have Windows XP, but am unable to play the video. Nothing comes up by a message that it cannot be downloaded. Gaby Tu

ok i'll re-encode the video to avi

Alright i put it up as a WMV everyone should be able to play it now. just click on the same link.

anyone??

I haven't had a chance to download it ....I'm over in Germany. You might want to post it on YouTube so that it streams easily. Follow their directions for compressing for best quality.

CL81 :

The results are commendable, but I was distracted by a couple of things that may need attention :

When you play left hand tremolos with 1/5, your index and third fingers are positively pointing upwards as if you are directing the next starship to Polaris! Can you not relax your hand into a more natural position? This happened a couple of times in the right hand, too, but to a slightly lesser degree. I would think that this causes unneeded tension in the hand when the hand really needs to be relaxed. Has your teacher never commented on this?

I notice also in the opening bars where the melody is on top of the chords and, later, where the right hand has the melody line in octaves, that you do not use finger legato. There's a lot of "space" between notes that you hold with the pedal and which should be held with the fingers. I think this is a very bad habit to get into, partciularly in slow passages where there should be no excuse for not using finger legato. The pedal should enhance the sound but not be a substitute for true legato playing. I'm not sure how your 'legato technique' would sound on an acoustic piano.

You seem to be up to the technical demands of the piece. If I can get back to the recording, I'll try to see if I can find something constructive to say about the interpretation; it seems OK on a first hearing, but, as I said, I was somewhat distracted by what I was seeing.

Regards,

lol haha, that was really, and actually yes my teacher has commented alot on that, but i'm originally self taught , and self taught the the level of this and other pieces so i've developed a few bad habits which i'm trying to work out. technique is one of them. Funny thing is that my left hand is actually quite relaxed even in that awkward position. I only started with a teacher a few months ago for the first time in my life. I had already learned the first few pages on my own and then decided to learn the rest with proper instruction.

Also about the finger legato, I tried it just now like you recomended and i have no problem making the adjustment, thanks.

The video is out of sync for me. Makes it hard to watch. Also, why did you tune to 427?
Why do you let your lh thumb rest on the keyslip? (noticed in the intro at later at 3:28)
Well played otherwise.
at 2:39 you are missing a note, instead of playing all four sixteenth notes, it sounds like three 8th note triplets. and the same thing at 2:49, although it is a little better there.

ok here's a better quality video on youtube...its also in sync so it should be better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JUsXYlK2t4

and yes I did turn the tuning down to 427, it kinda gives it a more "classical" sound....but it may not sound as good due to the video and sound compression.

And the resting my thumb things is just something i do when i'm not warmed up to control my releases better.

Ok first the good,
well played over all, you hit a majority of notes.

the bad, its sounded rather mechanical. But that could be because your playing on a digital piano.

Thank you, and yes I agree about the mechanical sound..but i can draw out more feeling from an acoustic piano. Unfortunately i don't have one where i can record myself.

Hi. I thought that was good. I just started this sonata. How long have you been playing the piano?

Mike

thank you Mike.I've been playing for about 8 years now...i worked on this sonata for about 3 months....right now i'm just trying to practice it more and clean it up a bit.