Week 3: Keep the Momentum

Week three update and goals: I'm feeling fairly confident with the first half (mm 1-22). I'm still finding mm 23-32 to be a challenge, but 33-end is coming along nicely. I'm playing around with dynamics and articulation a bit, and look forward to being able to put it all together next week. 

Scriabin op.9-2: My main problem is too much hesitation between phrase transitions. Sometimes it can be sold as rubato, but not in this amount. I’m working with my metronome and hope it will just steady the pulse. 

Re:  Schumann Fantasie Op. 17, 1st movement:

Keeping the Momentum ?  I'm not sure?  Yes, I've made serious progress and gains for sure but all the hot spot problem areas seem to be getting more challenging despite knowing them more and working hard on them.  I'm willing to work tirelessly on this and apply extreme long-suffering (this isn't possible in three weeks) because I know this journey and others like it are worth it.  So I'm eating my crust first and not avoiding or deferring the pain (entirely) early on to give myself false hope or seeing my position with rose coloured glasses.  

I correctly assessed the most problematic areas in the first week.  More broadly, it's the left hand, stupid!  For the left hand only, I am spending 90% of my practice time on 33% of the piece.  Sure, I just made up this fact because it just happens to be true ;-) 

In addition , I also have established in my mind the final tempo I want.  Working on the piece for several weeks now has informed this decision.  And as said so astutely above by Astrida, I'm not selling (or buying) rubato here.  Sure, I don't want to play like a robot and I do play with the time a little.  When it comes to music though say earlier than 1850 or so I don't buy the style of playing where you can change the tempo bar by bar.  And I'm not being factitious here either.  Or in other words, play as fast as possible all the time until you can't.  Then slow down and sell it as artistic interpretation or rubato etc.  I think later music this is pretty much in the DNA of the music already so whatever.  I doubt the pre-1850 or 1860 composers would have even considered this kind of drunken wildness.  (my opinion only, of course)

The problem I am trying to balance out (specifically for the left hand) is coming to a nice balance of clarity with a touch of pedal.  This is a Fantasie and not Bach after-all but too much pedal is cheating ones ear and mind of so much great detail here.  Everything though I speak of here is my aspiration or desire but having the technique and skill to produce my vision of this is still miles off if not down right impossible at this point.

I'd like to illustrate the goals and some of the problems next.

As a reminder, at the beginning of this Fantasie Schumann included a short poem by Friedrich Schlegel.  Everyday I practice or think about this work I remind myself of it and try to apply it to my thinking as I get deeper into the piece.  I'm sure there is a good reason for it to be there and so I will continue trying to understand its true meaning.  As a reminder, here it is again with a rough translation.

Durch alle Töne tönet / Im bunten Erdentraum / Ein leiser Ton gezogen / Für den der heimlich lauschet 

Resounding through all the notes / In the colorful earthly dream / There sounds a faint long-drawn note / For the one who listens in secret.

Another reminder (for me) when playing Schumann is to understand his imaginary world.  Everything will always lead or be connected to Clara and then Florestan & Eusebius (in other words, Schumann himself - his alter egos).  Either in the form of a direct (but hidden) message to Clara or him pretending to navigate situations of what he feels or wants to act like. 

One of the obvious highlights of this movement is presented in bars 41 through 48.  It is repeated only once again at bars 233 through 240 in a different key and a tone lower.  The first difficulty is the huge left hand leaps in bar 41, 43, 45, 46, & 47.  Somewhere in the Forum last week I think I read someone else talking about 'playing blindly or blindfolded' sometimes.  Well, this is definitely a spot where your faith will save you.  There is no time or possibility to really look or see - just do.  (unless of course you believe in "rubato" cough cough).  

So this section being the highlight and height of emotion, I believe Schumann would have had to connect this to the main impetus of the piece.  Maybe some of these secret notes and messages to Clara?

You have to understand that for years and decades my only conception of this passage was the obvious, that being, the top RH quarter notes mainly from bars 41 to 47.  My only challenge was to play this piano and keep the left hand pianissimo (or less).  The epiphany in the last weeks allowed me to suddenly see the top note played by the thumb in the LH one-sixteenth of a beat after the main RH note as a song of two (Robert & Clara).  This softer, undertone echo, to me, represents the union or connection of what he and Clara have - their intimate connection.

So either I'm the world's slowest learner or I'm completely bonkers to come to this conclusion but it works for me and my fantasie world.  The staccato on the lower LH note has always been there (and yet I was blind and didn't REALLY see it) and to me is further proof of placing importance on the next note that follows.  

Now saying all this is one thing.  Articulating this (mainly left hand work) is my greatest challenge these days.  I have a long way for my technique to catch up to my heart.

 Next example, is bars 119 to 122.  One of my favourite parts.  It is the opening theme at double speed but the cool part is the left hand accents added.  Again, lots of leaps and very satisfying to land them.

Lastly, the dreaded trill.  Again, th RH trill (1st and 2nd fingers) going on combined with the typical left hand in addition to playing other notes with the 5th and 4th fingers of the RH.  It's not terribly complicated on its face but for me it is difficult to independently voice the 3 main lines of action.  In my mind, the trill is to be barely heard, then the RH top notes should be clear but not the main focus followed by the LH which I think is the main point of interest.  Hands separately is mostly there but hands together is tougher to accomplish. 

Thank you for coming along for the ride, if you made it this far, and allowing me to indulge myself in this Fantasie.  I'm super happy to be doing so but my other Fantasy (Schubert) isn't quite agreeing about this.

In the middle of my struggle with the Brahms transcription for the left hand of Bach's Chaconne, I've been reading a few articles here and there in search of some kind of inspiration (I have a very complicated challenge ahead of me...). I found a very interesting letter from Brahms to Clara Schumann in which he speaks about his total admiration for this piece and, among other things, wrote: "If I were to imagine that I were capable of writing the piece, I know for sure that the overwhelming excitement and trembling would drive me crazy".

But the problem was how he could enjoy the piece, since his friend Joseph Joachim was not always available to play it for him, and merely looking at the score and hearing the music in his mind was not enough.  Well, a delighted Brahms told Clara Schumann that he had finally found the solution: "I find only one way to create for myself a very small, yet approximate and completely pure enjoyment of the work: if I play it with my left hand alone! It makes me think of the story of Columbus and the egg!".

I love this final reference to the famous anecdote. After returning from the Americas, Christopher Columbus was having lunch in Sevilla with several aristocrats, who believed that his adventure had not been as difficult as many people thought and that anyone could have done it. Columbus then proposed a challenge: to make an egg stand upright on its tip. They tried repeatedly, but failed again and again. Columbus then lightly tapped the egg on the table, flattening one end so that it stood upright. What he wanted to show them was obvious: once someone knows the answer to a puzzle, or once a journey has been completed successfully, everything seems easy afterward. But, of course, only a brilliant and courageous mind can find the solution in the first place. So, Brahms seems to have thought that his transcription of the Chaconne for the left hand was the best possible solution for a pianist to enjoy the piece in the most authentic and pure way: "The similar level of difficulty, the kinds of techniques, the arpeggiations, everything comes together to make me feel like a violinist!".

Surely Brahms had mulled over the problem deeply. In any case, there are still many difficulties to overcome in this third week of the challenge, but at least I've found in this letter an absolutely invaluable piece of advice from Brahms that I'm trying to put into practice. He wrote to Clara Schumann:

                   "Try it out. I wrote it out only for you. But do not overwork your hand! It requires so much sound and strength. Play 'mezza voce' for a while, and make the chords easy and comfortable. If it does not overtax you, although I think it probably will, you should nevertheless have fun with it".

I'm going to imagine, not without deep emotion, that Brahms is speaking directly to me. And my answer is: I'll follow your instructions to the letter, master!! 😊

Hi all

Further progress week 3

this is a tricky section of this Handel fugue, top of 3rd page as marked 

I use the same process as in the last post , hands separately and together (memorised)

interestingly , hands together is actually more secure , and played at a higher tempo , I think this is because having practiced hands together mostly , there is more muscle memory there .

Handel fugue practice 

https://youtu.be/H-DVKcy_Fp0?si=hofVsX5RbKKAUIOU

Time sure goes real fast suddenly, doesn't it?

Here is my practice video for this week. During practice I'm mostly trying to disengage my training wheels, which means my muscle memory. I don't believe muscle memory ever needs to be deliberately practiced, as it comes with the repetitions anyway. In fact, I find it better to forcefully try to disengage it during practice, in order to reinforce the other memory modalities., hence all the pauses. Most of the time I fail, but when I succeed, it reveals weak spots that would  otherwise only be revealed in performance (when it matters). I call it unmasking the devil! Remember, the devil's ultimate treachery is convincing the world the devil does not exist. So when I can unmask it during practice, it is a major victory, albeit uncomfortable, as you can see and hear in the video. (Warning: there will be screams and grunts, but the cursing has been removed.) And oh yea, there is also a head transplant. The reason for this is that I tried to replicate Dustin Anderson 's top down camera view, only to be horrified to see that my giant head was obstructing the view of the keyboard! I couldn't decapitate it, but I did plaster a picture of a random guy's head on mine, because I don't like my gray hair. The vanity! The plus side is that it makes the video more interesting, not to mention extremely funny: