Week 4 – Play Through & Share

Peter Golemme Sounds great! So complex but carefully balanced so we can hear the interesting melody too. Your recording (video and audio) is so professional as always.

Peter Golemme Such intensity right out of the gate, and I got a bit of goose-bum towards the end. I generally find Schumann difficult to play and interpret but this piece feels very emotionally direct to the heart - and your playing here really delivers it ❤️ 

Peter Golemme Wonderful! 😇

Peter Golemme Really impressive: powerful expressivity and great beauty. Bravo, Peter!!

Peter Golemme OMG! Awesome (video transitions too!)

Vidhya Bashyam Thank you Vidhya. Yes Schumann's strategic use of dissonances really create an aura of complexity around what might otherwise be conventional arpeggiated chords. The balancing is an ongoing challenge, as you don't have a lot of time to linger on any of the melody notes due to having to pop right back onto the arpeggios.  Especially with the leaps. which add a high-wire-act level of tension that may enhance the emotional content of the music.  I'm really enjoying learning this piece.  Glad you like the production.  I obsess over the details of audio and video almost as much as I do the music!

Priya Viseskul  Thank you so much Priya, yes this piece is very direct and concentrated.  If it's giving you goosebumps then I'm encouraged that I'm succeeding in delivering what I'm hearing in the piece . 

To me the place where that effect is most prominent is the beginning of the B section (e.g. mm. 9-10), where he follows a half-diminished chord with an expecially dissonant  chord that I'm calling a diminished 13th.  for example in the first B section m. 10 it's a straight F chord, root position plus octave, played on top of a Gb octave in the Bass.  then he does the same thing in the next B section (mm24-25), transposed up a 4th -- a Bb Chord on top of a B naturalBass.

I call that first chord an A dimished 13th, and same with the second one -- I call it a D diminished 13th, i.e. specifically a D dim rather than some version of a B diminished or F diminished or Ab diminished. in each case because its characteristic sound seems to derive from the clash of the sixth degree of the scale (e.g. a Bb of the D dim scale), played aginst the 7th degree (e.g. the Cbb of the D dim scale).  I'm not sure that's correct textbook harmony nomenclature, but it helps me make sense of that combination of notes!

Juan Carlos Olite thanks Juan Carlos, that's high praise coming from you after that masterful Rachmaninoff display!

Kerstin thank you Kerstin, I feel the same about your performance of that very intricate excerpt from Chopin's Op. 61!

David H. A. Fitch Hey David, so glad you like it   and thanks for the comment on the video transitions too (I'm like the baseball pitcher who wants to hear feedback on his hitting!) --I'm new to all the video technology and still astonished at what you can do with these incredibly inexpensive programs!.  

Peter Golemme wow!, certainly tempestuous! That energy is captivating, right to the end.

Dustin Anderson truly lovely sound, and I like how free your movements are - you made the octave passage seems so easy.

Priya Viseskul Thanks Priya! 

Dustin Anderson Hi Dustin, it's been very instructive to observe how carefully you have worked out these sections to the point where they now sound very spontaneous and free.  I'd love to hear the whole Nocturne when you've got it ready.

Astrida Astrida, bravo!  Wonderful!  Very impressive.  I enjoyed this very much.

Now just between me and you, what's the secret?  How do you play the f to c in the LH with 5-4 fingering?  And you do it looking very relaxed as if it's nothing?  This is a bit of a struggle for me.  I can comfortably do an f to b in the LH with 5-4 fingering but f to c is so tough.  And then to do it for nearly four pages.

Doug Weiss Thank you Doug! 
I think I rotate the LH, but there is some stretch that needs getting used to as well.

Astrida I totally agree with Doug here on your 4-5 LH ... it looks so relaxed and fluid, and I'm mesmerised by both your movement and the sound of the music!

Astrida Well done Astrida. Great sighing figure in the LH thumb and clean trill figures and octaves. Has a driving, agitated tempo. Great to listen to! Thanks for sharing =)

Priya Viseskul Thank you Priya! My teacher said he has never seen anyone play this with 5-4 in LH, but I somehow like the feeling of freedom and agility this fingering offers.

Dustin Anderson Thank you Dustin!