Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner If you can play all chopin etudes you can play anything...

If you tried to play Balakirev pieces the same way as Chopin, it would sound terrible, and it certainly wouldn't be anything close to what Balakirev intended, as he did not use the pedal very often. Many of Balakirev's odd and often tricky octave techniques and left hand usage is completely different than anything you would find in Chopin.

Mainly, even if you learn the technique required to play those etudes, you will be prepared for neither interpreting nor handling the endurance required for Balakirev's pieces.

Confess to being a bit mystified and confused by this. You seem to be making a claim that the musicianship and facility required for the Chopin Etudes are somehow insufficient for Balakirev.

I've heard a number of pianists play Balakirev (both live and on CD) and I wonder what they would make of that.

Yes, that is my claim. You certainly don't have to agree with it, but to me it seems that clearly Russian music, especially Balakirev's, requires a different form of musicianship. If you have looked at some Balakirev pieces, you surely have noticed the different, though not necessarily more difficult, ways Balakirev displays his melodies, and the different pedal and left hand usage required.

It would be the same problem if someone first built up the endurance to play Islamey, Reminiscences on Glinka's Life for the Tsar, and maybe Balakirev's final sonata, and then believed that they could play Chopin. The problem would be the difference in musicality.

I understand and agree with your point. Certainly within Russian music, i.e. Prokofiev, Rachmaninov and Medtner, there are different requirements.

But any pianist with the maturity to make music out of the Chopin Etudes is going to instinctively recognise Balakirev's different sound world and act accordingly. Success will depend on the individual pianist.

Pianists I've heard play Islamey and the Reminiscences, have all given us beautiful Chopin. Conversely, pianists who have recorded the Etudes -Pollini, Browning, Ashkenazy for example- would most certainly give us masterful Balakirev.

Certainly it's fantastic if you master all Chopin etudes, but people who have gone through this also have mastered a lot of other repertoire along the way. I think it's impossible to separate the benefit gained from working on the Chopin etudes from the benefit gained from the other repertoire.
I think it would not be good only to focus on the etudes without other pieces along. My teacher once said to me, 'Playing only Chopin etudes is like eating the same stuff every day: it's not healthy and you miss all the other good food that exists.'
I think the (musical) difficulties posed by many other composer's pieces are very different: you cannot voice Schubert like Chopin, how does your polyphonic playing develop from at best op.10/6 only, etc.?
Finally, regarding the frequent mentionings of Alkan in this thread: I would say that the technical difficulties posed by Alkan's etudes are actually very, very similar to those given by Chopin (of course there's still the sheer length of op. 39...). So as a master of Chopin's etudes you are more likely to become a master of Alkan than to become a master of Schubert or Bach. Since I feel I will never really master anything, I should add, 'I guess'

true! my teacher plays them all, but he also said that he played a lot of Bach pieces to begin with, and didn't touch Chopin seriously after 9 or 10 year study.

This is an interesting discussion concerning the musicianship each composer brings and requires from his pieces. Going back to the original question, it is best answered empirically...

Is there anyone here in the forum who can play all opus 10 and 25 proficiently have encountered another piece/composer that they found beyond their ability to play?

I would guess the answer is no.

The title should be changed to *If you can play all godowskys 51 etudes you can play anything* Then there would be no point for discussion. Cause would all agree

I would say no. There are pieces out there that blow the Chopin Etudes, Rach 3, Islamey and other well known technical monsters out of the water in terms of difficulty.

Ligeti Etudes, Alkan Concerto for Solo Piano, Busoni Piano Concerto (both difficulty and sheer stamina required), Messiaen Vingt Regards, Turangalila Symphony as well as others make the Chopin Etudes look like a walk in the park.

EDIT: Oh damn, its a resurrected thread. Sorry for replying to it.

I would say no too.

rather baroque and classical music is the foundation

I would amend this theory to:

If you can play the Chopin Etudes at indicated tempi in every key ,

and you can play the Godowski-Chopin Etudes at indicated tempi as written

chances are that less than 1% of the most technically demanding piano literature will pose a technical challenge.

I think the sheer breadth of technical and interpretive challenges in the genre of classical music pretty much mean guarantee that command of one composer's etudes will probably only prepare you to to 'handle' (whatever that means) THEIR compositions or maybe, at a stretch, those of similar composers. I think ,for example, that someone schooled exclusively in the Chopin Etudes would probably still find alot of Bach Fugues (and even the WTC for that matter) quite challenging - and vice versa.

When I first went into university for my non music
related degree, the very first question I was
asked by one of the prof was "What do you expect
to learn" for being an undergrad in the uni ?
Without second thought I responded with the
standard answer any others would have. The prof
shakes his head and smile and said he would hear
from me again at the end of my freshman year and
perhaps into 2nd and 3rd year.

The next time he sat down and had similar question
with me was about close to 2 years later. My
answer was that not only did I learn the core
disciplines that I was supposed to, but more
importantly, I learn "how to learn" other stuff
effectively and well. That's the main message
the prof wanted me to learn and take with me
after graduating.

I see this challenge of learning all Chopin etudes
to be no difference, ie it equipes one with the
right armours to attack other works. The main
thing is to learn how to apply what have been
learned from them to other pieces. Not just the
technical aspects, but the approach of how one
quickly and effectively approach other new works.

For that matter, the same goes to other etudes
in my opinion although I am not qualified to
really demonstrate or prove it. However, I do
strongly believe in the concept of learn to learn.

Even though this is a resurrected thread...

I'm going to have to disagree. From what I understand, this thread is from a purely technical perspective. In general, the more virtuosic piano music of the Romantic era onward is more technically demanding than Baroque keyboard music.

Oddly enough, the difficulties in Alkan oftentimes seem somehow more like those in Brahms than those in Chopin to me. Maybe it's because there's a feeling of a certain sort of mind-over-matter logic to it that Chopin never gives me.

ok, technically, yes, chopin etudes tend to be more challenging.
if you look at it that way, let's say that if you master all of chopin's and liszt etudes then maybe it's true

Please raise your hand if you can handle any piece.

Every time I see the title of this thread, I think to myself, I wonder how many people think they can DEVELOP their technique by tackling the Chopin etudes. I am convinced that these etudes are NOT the place to DEVELOP technique, but rather to DISPLAY technique to a great extent already achieved. It seems clear to me that Chopin's technique must have already been tremendously advanced for him to be able to conceive of these studies. The lesson for me is that one needs to develop one's technique elsewhere before aproaching these studies. Here is an interesting quote regarding this by his pupil, Mikuli:

"He gave as studies a selection from Cramer's Etudes, Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum, the Finishing Studies in Style by Moscheles, which were very congenial to him, Bach's English and French Suites, and some Preludes and Fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier. Field's and his own Nocturnes also figured to a certain extent as studies, for through them - partly by learning from his explanations, partly from hearing and imitating them as played by Chopin himself - the pupil was taught to recognize, love and produce the legato and beautiful connected singing tone. Only far-advanced pupils were given his Etudes Op. 10 and Op. 25."

If read so far the question whether one can play anything if one can play
All Chopin etudes?
All 48 from WTC?

One could elongate this list:
All Beethoven Sonatas?
All Ravel Suites?
All Rachmaninoff concerti?
All Liszt etudes?
All Rachmaninoff etudes?
All Alkan etudes?

If you can play all the Chopin etudes at their proper tempo, with complete relaxation, and with convincing musicality, then you are on your way to mastering any other difficult piano music.