Week 1: Status check! (also pick your piece!)
Hello and welcome to the WEEK ONE Main Thread for this challenge!
Alright everyone - this is the thread where we'll all be posting our daily updates.
Make sure you've read the rules before replying (<- click)
Twice a week between January 23 - 30 I hope to be reading your daily updates in this very thread right here!
Here is this week's assignment!
1. Pick your piece!
2. If a new piece, post your sight-reading of it (never hurts to practice this valuable skill!) If it is an old piece, let's try and dust it off, and play through what we can, to evaluate its current condition. Let us know what your "piece status" is!
3. Optional: Tell us WHY you picked this piece that you love so much!
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1. I pick Schumann's Einsame Blumen from Waldszenen (Op. 86 No. 3).
2. I will post a video of it soon, since I don't have access to a piano tonight (9 pm, Denmark).3. I think that Schumann's life is interesting, and SAD! It shows us, that all people, even those with mental illness, can be of great value.
I also like Schumann's ability to make the bassline have an interesting voice of it's own in many of his piano pieces.
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I'd like to pick Beethoven's Sonata in E major, Op 14, no. 1. I'm learning it at the moment and hope to get it to a presentable level before the end of the challenge. I still need to work on it a fair bit.
What I love about this piece? It feels like Beethoven has gone sentimental with this sonata, and takes us on such a wonderful journey through amazing chord progressions and beautiful melodies. It is a joy to learn and practise! -
1. Rachmaninoff Opus 16 No 5.
2. I started learning this last year, but just the rudimentary notes. This is an opportunity to explore different colours and textures in my playing at a little more advanced level than I am used to. There are also some challenges for my small hands! Will upload in a day or two.
3. I love the whole of Opus 16 (which apparently Rachmaninoff dashed off fairly quickly when he was short of money). Number 5 is a lovely, lilting barcarolle. In an interview in 1941, Rachmaninoff said, "What I try to do, when writing down my music, is to make it say simply and directly that which is in my heart when I am composing." And in this piece I can really hear that.