WEEK 1: Discovering Schubert Month
Dear Pianists,
Welcome welcome! It's always a highlight for me to hear your playing and get to celebrate in your achievements with you. This is the thread where we'll all be posting our biweekly updates.
Make sure you've read the rules before replying!
Twice a week between February 1st and February 22nd, I hope to be reading your daily updates in this very thread right here!
Please use the following format when commenting (feel free to copy & paste!):
- Piece you are working on:
- One passage you are satisfied with:
- One passage you are not yet satisfied with:
- (Optional): a video of you performing any or all of the piece you've been practicing!
Feel free to make these updates as short or long as you wish!
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Hi, I'm Charlie, and I also chose to work on Op. 90, No. 3, a piece I've been studying off and on for about three years. This week I am focusing on the first two pages which I read through here:
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Roy James-Pike go for it... if I can't kill it, then no one can, lol...
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Charlie Gesualdo sounds great! I like your tempo very much. That piece is one of those that is more difficult to play than it sounds, in my opinion.
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Susan Rogers thanks… it gets a lot choppier in the development, lol… I don’t know if I will ever be able to play it through without stumbling (without it sounding robotic), but I certainly enjoy the journey.
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Susan Rogers oh, and yes, I agree, it only gets more and more difficult as I work on it.
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Charlie Gesualdo I really, really liked your interpretation of this lovely piece.
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Charlie Gesualdo Very beautiful playing, Charlie!
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Charlie Gesualdo It sounds great, Charlie, with beautiful voicing of the melody.
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Charlie Gesualdo I am glad you chose to play and share it for the Schubert Tonebase challenge! I have found the challenges push me to work harder than I normally would to finish things, since I normally have no deadlines and I tend to drift. The process of making a video is also quite sobering for me - nowhere to run or hide!
I hope you will achieve your goals with this piece. I think your voicing, dynamics and phrasing are really fabulous already! -
Susan Rogers Juan Carlos Olite Monika Tusnady Sindre Skarelven Thanks for your encouragement... Susan, yes, the recording throws things into a whole different perspective. I've always disliked recording and now I know why. I just tried recording the development and I am brought back down to earth with a resounding thud. I'm just now realizing now just how badly I learned this piece. Back to slow practice... If I can't fix things by the end of this symposium I'll just share where I'm at, warts and all.
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And, rather than write a long post, here I discuss the first 24 measures, specifically focusing on finger substitutions on measures 13-14 and 22-23, which I ignored at first, but now I am trying to learn:
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Charlie Gesualdo You can work a lifetime on this piece and still it is not ready. It sounds beautiful and it will be a joy to hear more. Thank you so much for sharing your playing and your thoughts, Charlie!
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Brother Will Green Thanks... and I thank you for your contribution as well. It seems a bit difficult to hear. I will try to do a better job recording next time.
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Charlie Gesualdo Sounds great. This is my favorite Schubert impromptu. I agree with Brother Will Green that you can work a lifetime on this piece. I haven’t been able to stop working on it after more than 3 years of playing it. My favorite interpretation by Vladimir Horowitz (https://youtu.be/FxhbAGwEYGQ) and great master class by Andras Schiff (https://youtu.be/IzTdpTHIgkc).
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Vidhya Bashyam Thanks for sharing those links. I've seen the Horowitz and I remember the intense concentration on his face as he played it (and how he held his hand remarkably flat!). I haven't watched Andras Schiff's class yet and I certainly will. Have fun with the Sentimental Waltzes. I learned a few of them when I was first struggling to learn to read music, and they were so pretty that they kept me going.
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Vidhya Bashyam I observe his right hand, his fingers almost flat, not to say flat... he does not bend his fingers. What a magnificent interpretation, I can't help but have tears in my eyes as I listen to this great master of the piano. I am speechless... what a beautiful Legato.
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I’d like to contribute Liszt’s transcription of Schubert’s lieder Gretchen am Spinnrade. I’ve been working on it on and off for the last 2 years and seemed unable to surmount technical challenges. However it has been my obsession over the last month, and at last feel I’m coming to grips with it. I was attracted to it as a companion piece to my Schumann- Liszt Widmung, and although technically more demanding than Widmung I couldn’t resist the beautiful melody, the tragic love story, and the hypnotic motif of the spinning wheel.
The piece appears to be in ABACAD form and builds to a climax alternating between Gretchen’s spinning monotony and her swooning longings for Faust.
The easiest part for me : The A sections generally under control, paying attention to voicing the melody, and I have just reworked fingerings for smoother passage (entailing compromises on holding the full value of melody note with my right pinkie)
The difficult parts - C which requires finger redistribution/rolls to achieve a smooth blended dreamlike quality - Not sure whether I could still do better; D which requires both hands on a more complex spinning motif while navigating chord jumps…
I have recorded a practice which I reattach from my practice diary. I think I have moved on a little but from this video, and hope to share another video at a later stage.
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Ching Lee Goh Difficult piece, but it's coming along very nicely... stay obsessed! I like watching your hands and I see some things I can learn from.
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Ching Lee Goh I understand your obsession with this incredible piece, a wonderful music! Very good job, you will get it! Thank you for sharing!
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Ching Lee Goh What a difficult piece - and you're doing so great! The voicing is also probably my primary concern in the A section: when you play, I can hear the melody clearly.
The leaping chords are always quite difficult. I notice that some times you stop your motion during a large leap. Especially when you have to cross hands. Might I suggest a practice tip - leaping to touch the chords before actually playing the note? I think it may help improve your aim!
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Hilda Thank you Hilda! That hands crossing section is indeed difficult. I think I’ve fixed the problem of LH going up, but the problem now is the LH coming down to strike the third before the broken octave and leaping up again… I keep missing the set of thirds :( Would appreciate your looking at my subsequent video posted in Wk 1 of Schubert challenge, and see whether that section sounds better now.
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Hello everyone!
I have wanted to participate in these community events in the past but have been very self conscious about my playing. I played as a child and then took 22 years off :) I started again during the pandemic when I moved and inherited a very old piano from the previous owners of the home I moved to. I got addicted and bought a new piano a few months ago (the pedal breaking on the other piano was the last straw).
Schubert has always been my favorite composer and with this challenge I feel ready to share. I decided to learn Schubert's "Little" A Major Sonata D664. I am uploading a video of the practice session I took this morning when I tried playing the first movement. My partner didn't realize I was recording and decided to "sign" along. It made me laugh and given that Schubert was famous for his lieder I decided to just use this one and not record another. Hopefully you will appreciate it.
The piece is probably a bit of a reach for me at the moment (especially the 3rd movement). But I am trying to do it the best I can.
Not sure right now what I am most happy with. I feel like I have a lot to improve. What I hear (comparing to recordings) is how detached all my notes feel. I cannot seem right now to get the legato in this piece and I am using way to much pedal. Also a few things seem awry with the polyrhytems. I think it seems fine when the triplets are in one hand , but I seem to be doing some weird accenting when the triplets are in the RH.
This piece is just so pretty so I really hope I can clean it up in 3 weeks
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Michael I also learned piano as a child, and just relearned piano during the pandemic. I also had an old piano, and bought a yamaha grand last year. for this challenge we chose the same piece. Thanks to this community we find people in such similar situation!
I enjoyed your play and your partner's participation in this practicing video! Thank you for uploading it
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Michael , sounds great! Also love your new piano. I've considered up-grading, but my piano has sentimental value being the piano I grew up playing. And like you and Qingzhi, I returned to the piano with the pandemic. Playing video games got old. Playing the piano does not.
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Michael I love your natural homey approach to recording! I can learn from that. Have fun with D664, and enjoy your new Yamaha, it sounds lovely.
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Anthony Miyake Playing piano sometimes feels like playing video games to me, but it is much healthier game mentally and physically, lol.
I kept my old piano for sentimental reasons even though the 2 piano is taking lots of room. I haven't touched the old one much since I got my new one, which I almost feel unfaithful
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