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There are still a few small things I need to improve on, but tough comments are welcome.
http://www.box.net/shared/bkzk91zxzx

LisztAddict, that is sure a long and involved piece to be able to record so accurately! What an accomplishment! Some of it is a little bumpy, but I'm sure it will continue to smooth out. Your interpretation seems spot-on; you seem to understand the piece perfectly. I'm not all that crazy about this scherzo, but you've made me like it better.

Elene

LisztAddict, wonderful job on that Scherzo! It was even better than your playing of it at the competition (which I thought was great, but you were highly critical of yourself). I'm afraid I'm not one to give "tough comments", though, as I don't listen to the Scherzos an awful lot, and needless to say have never tried to play one. So I'm not the best critic.
I was slow to appreciate the Scherzos for awhile, but Angela Lear's renditions and now yours of this particular one have made me like them more. Somehow I can imagine all the fun that Chopin must have had, composing and playing these.

I HOPE Chopin at least sometimes had fun composing, but I wonder if he did? It seems like it was often an ordeal for him. I bet playing was mostly fun, though.

Elene

It seems that getting it all down on paper in some kind of permanent form was the arduous part for him. Now if he only could have had a computer and that notation software.....

My impression is that the worst part for him was trying to decide on just one way to play something so that it could be written down.

Elene

Imagine all the erasers he went through??

No erasers just a lot of ink. According to George Sand he broke a lot of pens. He was also very very good at obliterating what he wanted to strike out, heavy ink, a lot of crosshatches. Very thorough. It's sometimes impossible to make out what he'd originally written.

Was Chopin born in a small village Zelazowa Wola? about 50-60 km west from Warsaw?

Yes, and Zelazowa Wola means "Iron Will," which I think suits. I didn't realize it was that far from Warsaw.

It's a humongous tourist attraction. Are you going, LA?

(Oh, and besides notation software, Chopin also needed a MIDI keyboard, so that he could just freely improvise and have the computer write it all down. But can those programs handle 5 against 4, 29 against 6, etc. etc., all his kind of wild rhythmic constructions?)

Elene

Yes, I am thinking of going there. But I need to figure out when and how.

elene and cscl: I've followed your posts of Chopin's Waltz in A Minor (cscl: I was sooo impressed by your playing) and was very much enlightened about the triplet and quintuplet in measure 21. I talked with my teacher (who trained in Taiwan with the symphony) and she agreed with the accelerating quintuplet as a path to get to the target of the high B.

I also was very interested in elene's advice to think of the two chords a seperate from the first bass note and am now practicing that way at two different volumes. My question for anybody: I am having a great deal of difficulty hitting the chord softly especially in the beginning measures when everything is supposed to be soft. If I hit it too softly, I end up with one note not coming through or coming through a hair late. Should I keep my left had rigid? Or is there a set of practices that I can do? No matter what I try those chords just seem to boom out, especially on my teacher's grand piano. Any hints/advice/practice/techniques would be gratefully received.

Thanks for the comments Susan K.

I can also report that I played this op. posth. Waltz in a minor at a recent competition, one that pits contestants from children to adults against people their own age with similar time in lessons. I played decently (better than I did last year in the same competition and with fewer nerves), but still with more than a few flaws, but I got second place (out of 3 adults! Better than last year when I got second place out of two adults! ).

I still play the piece to keep working on it nearly daily.

Susan K., if it so happens that you consider the left hand in my recording to be somewhat soft, then I can tell you what I do (but I still think I'm working on a softer left hand). I think the softness can only come when you are comfortable with the jumps, both in terms of covering the distance and in terms of getting your fingers on the right notes when you land. It's also my understanding that you might want to be a bit louder on that first note. In a waltz, you definitely don't want to lose that first note. I don't keep my hand rigid though. Now, that I'm comfortable with the hand positions and the jumps, I think of landing softly on the keys to keep the chords softer. Maybe I should do a new recording and see how it compares.

You could also try different pedaling. I was originally working on changing the pedal at the beginning of each measure and again on beat 3. To simplify things and to make sure I was ready for recital and competition, my teacher encouraged me to go with the simpler pedaling, but I do think a 3rd beat pump on the pedal would take down some of the left hand loudness.

That's what I've got to offer! Hope it helps.

After the op. posth. Waltz in a minor, I'm now on to my second Chopin piece, the A major prelude (Op. 28, No. 7)!

Susan K - playing soft and fast is very difficult. So first, you strike just one chord. Try again and see how soft you can play that chord without losing sound of any note. When you can't play any softer, you know that's the softest you can play. Now try to play the chord repetitively but a bit faster and still play just as soft. Then add more notes around that as you progress.

Here is another piece I have on the program. Please feel free to criticize.

http://www.box.net/shared/v58lisdb69

cscl and LisztAddict! Thanks so much. I will practice following both of your advice. I knew that I wasn't getting anywhere with how I was practicing. So I will just focus on trying to make a single chord as soft as I can. Then, I will practice the jumps. (I try to keep my eyes closed to train on the jumps, so I can get a distance feel for them without having to always look.)

Hi all - I've been lurking in the shadows here for weeks, so I hope you don't mind if I join the party. I've been a huge Chopin fan my entire life and have played many of the smaller works. Of all the composers, I find I feel most connected to his music. I think he transformed the way the world viewed keyboard music. He was a visionary and a master. But all of you already know that, of course!

I have been very impressed by your collective knowledge while reading this thread. I've learned so much about his life and music, and I've enjoyed your beautiful recordings. What a talented bunch!

You have inspired me to learn some additional pieces. I've also decided to host a 200th birthday party at my house with a little recital and a group of fellow players. So thank you for your inspiration. I look forward to joining the discussions.

Susan K.,

The Taubman way of thinking about a waltz bass is that bass-chord-chord goes down-up-up. That is, your arm and hand move downward on the bass note, then upward on the chords, which helps you to get the balance of volume that you want. Of course, you are always making a downward motion in order to play a note at all, but think of your hand going up and sort of pulling the sound out of the keys. (It would be easier to show you than to describe this....)

At the same time, you need to have all the fingers that are involved with playing the chords in touch with the tops of the keys when you begin to play, and all equally in touch if you want all the notes to sound equally. (If you want to bring certain notes of the chords out, then the feel will be a little different.) Start by feeling the shape of the chord under your fingers, as a shape rather than as individual notes. Allow the weight of your arm to fall into the keys and notice what it's like to have all the keys going down equally.

Whatever you do, don't make your left hand or any other part of you rigid! Firm is good in the hand, rigid isn't. There needs to be elasticity through the whole mechanism (supple "down to your toes," as Chopin put it).

There is SO much more to be said about this, and trying to talk about it in print is very challenging!

Elene

Thanks LA!

ah, yes! ...the 48.1 and 27.2 Nocturnes; probably the two Chopin compositions I love most of all, and the two I would most dearly love to play. Along with Kathleen and others I did wade into the 48.1 a year or so ago but, regrettably, never progressed beyond the Lento. Those monster chords in the Poco Piu Lento brought me to a grinding halt! However, when I've finished with my current challenge (Schubert Impromptu Op 90 No 3) I plan to revisit either the 48.1 or the sublime 27.2

... fancy another challenge, Katheen? How about the 27.2 this time?

Thanks again LA for your wonderful, inspirational playing.