Week 1: Pick your piece!

Let this be a mini Rach festival, because I'm going with a piano transcription of an excerpt of the Adagio from his Symphony no.2.

A Romantic Music Challenge is THE perfect challenge for me.  Firstly, it is what I plan to do essentially for the rest of my life.  Secondly, I welcome something that will try to narrow my focus and has a time limit on it.

On this second point, nice try Tonebase.  Let's just say I've spent all year already wrestling with this challenge to just pick one piece.  Romantic music consumes me and the sky is the limit for choice.  And while I was contending with what to do, sure enough, many choices I could have picked were chosen by others already.  I can't wait to hear everyone else!

The compromise I have settled on then is that I will work mainly on three pieces for the next month (and likely much longer); a shorter one, a slightly longer one and then a much longer one and we'll see how it goes.  These pieces are:

1) Faschingsschwank aus Wien: Fantasiebilder Op. 26, No. 2 - Romanze, in g minor by Robert Schumann

2) Bunte Blätter Op. 99, No. 10 - Präludium in b-flat minor by Robert Schumann

3) Wandererfantasie Op. 15 - Adagio in c-sharp minor by Franz Schubert

Why?  Nothing describes me personally as to who I am, my ideals, what I think and believe than the music represented here.  Of course, I could change the selections 1000 times over and for each variation, I would probably say the same thing.  After having to defer my dream of learning to play the piano proficiently for most of my life, time is of the essence now.  I am now going to learn the pieces that were tucked away in my repressed memories over a lifetime.  The sad thing is that I will only ever be able to touch a very tiny portion of it.

I want to briefly define what Romantic Music means to me.  Most commonly, I sense that most non-musician people will connect the terms Romantic Music with the music of love / Valentines day etc.  In fact, they probably go even further and would connect it to some cheesey, syrupy music from some movie based on a love story.  Others with some music training background may think of Romantic Music that describes a period in time that describes unserious music (as opposed to the intellectually superior Baroque or Classical periods that came before it or the vapid atonal nonsense that followed the Romantic period) or alternatively, they may enjoy Romantic Music for all the bonbons that existed that were the Top 40 heard in most parlor rooms of the 1850's.

I beg to differ on this all.  For me, yes, there is a distinctive Romantic Period that applied generally not only to music, art and literature etc. but I very much disagree with the stereotypes I presented just above that many people today still believe.  When I play this music it is as if I am peering into the diary of these composers.  On a human level, I have never met any of these famous composers but somehow I feel I know them better than any living person I may encounter today because words have limitations.  Music conveys secrets unspoken, even over time.

In my opinion, Romantic Music generally starts with Beethoven and ends with Rachmaninoff (and of course I would pluck out and discard any of the atonal experiments that began in the early 20th century) but this is still too vague.  Romantic Period music aimed higher than entertainment for the pleasure of the king.  I feel that at its best it spoke for the human condition, for realism, for idealism, for heroism, for aspiration, for unrequited love (and yes, romantic love), for joy, for pleasure, for heartache, for tragedy and so on.

It could be argued that the thread that ties Beethoven to Rachmaninoff and everything in between is this idea of Der Wanderer.  Yes, they all remained rather healthy because they apparently all liked hiking ;-).  No, I think Schubert latched on to this concept that we are all rather alone in this large and sometimes hostile world.  Music allows us to express our journey - the good and the bad - as we try to make sense of everything.

I doubt I could convey enough meaning in my words trying to describe these ideals.  The greatest musical examples of this may be to turn to the Liszt's transcriptions of Schubert's Schwanengesang or Winterreise (or any Schubert-Liszt transcriptions),  Liszt's Album d'un voyageur or subsequent Années de pèlerinage, Schumann's Fantasie, Chopin's 2nd or 3rd Sonates or Ballades etc. etc.   It is impossible to mention everything.  

Now it is time to get to work and discover what the concept of Der Wanderer means for myself.  First off, I'm going to try and find a big bust of Beethoven so I can be inspired like Liszt is, as shown in the Josef Danhauser painting used at the top of this challenge.  But where am I going to find a real Marie d'Agoult (who is on the floor to Liszt's right side after fainting from his rhapsodic playing)?? 

Hi, I'm a little late to this but I will do my best. I'm "cheating" a little on this challenge since I'm gonna be playing pieces I have already studied. Last month I had my final piano university exam which marked the end of my studies. Now, I'm at fault here but I stopped playing this pieces out of burnout (and the holidays) but I need to play them again around march (the date is not set yet), and I'm gonna use this challenge as motivation to pick them up again.
Sorry for so much context, now, my pieces are:

-Beethoven op.109 sonata in E mayor

-Ginastera's piano sonata No.1

-Bach/Busoni Chaconne.

I also know this challenge is meant to be about one piece, not three and definitely not a 45 min recital, but I'm looking forward to reconnecting with this pieces.

Any ideas on how to keep my motivation is very well received. Thank you!

I've chosen a Mendelssohn prelude and fugue from opus 35 - no. 5 in in F minor. It doesn't seem too difficult in terms of the the notes, but there are some real voicing challenges in the prelude, as well as plenty of polyphonic interest in the fugue. 

I want to make a start with Brahms Händel Variations. They are new to me, so I’m hoping to break the eyes and playing the first ones (maybe 1 - 6) during this challenge.  Looking forward to learning together. 

Well, can't say I'm struggling to learn my piece, but certainly struggling to enjoy the process of memorizing it. It's just 4 pages and not so many notes, so I nearly memorized it all, but the process is drudgery to me. I just don't like the idea of going through trial and error (the latter being when I fail to remember a passage and have to look at the score again). Makes me sick each time I fail. Thankfully the memorization is almost done, and to me that's when the fun begins!

For this challenge, I’m practicing the Chaminade’s Serenade Op. 29, which I’ve been working on it since November. My focus will be memorization and playing it as dolcissimo as I can. Also for this challenge, I’m starting a new piece, Beethoven’s Sonata in E minor Op. 90. I’ve been playing another Romantic piece in E minor, Grieg’s lyric piece “Homesickness.” I’m intrigued by the emotional contrast in both of these pieces starting in E minor, then transitioning into E major.

I'll focus on 2 pieces for this challenge — Chopin's Barcarolle and the Rachmaninoff PC2 first movement. I'm midway through the Barcarolle  now so this is a good kick to get it more baked. If I have time, I'll try to learn the Rach PC2 third movement's super famous theme but I suspect I will need to focus rather than try and to take too much and bomb at everything! 

Gonna try for Liszt's Liebestraum 3, first challenge and I'm not normally a fast learner but I'm gonna see how far I can get, started fresh today, I think the hotspots are gonna be the double 3rds in the first cadenza as that is a first for me and the quick octave jumps later in the piece

I too have chosen a piece I am already working on. It’s To A water Lily from Woodland Scenes by Edward McDowell. It’s a frightening looking score, with three staves and 6#s, but it’s beautiful. I want to be able to get more flexibility into it, like the water lily wafting in the breeze, and to be more secure with the notes, which I’m finding difficult to remember well enough, especially on the 3 stave section. 

I have chosen Prelude in E Minor opus 28 no 4 by Chopin. I think it will be a challenge for me to even get close in 4 weeks, now 3 but I plan to get help from Seymour Bernstein’s tutorial plus my excellent teacher Claire who is also doing the challenge. My aim is not to complete the piece but to get started on the texture and tonality and emotion of the piece. 

Hi! Late to posting. Planning to also post the next week. I'll be working on Schumann's Von fremden ländern und menschen.