Week 3: Discovering Schubert Month
Dear Pianists,
As we're coming up to the last week of Discovering Schubert Month, I'm keen to hear of your insights and takeaways from your month's work.
Here's the Week 3 thread, where you may post your text and video updates! I've only got one question for you this week:
What does it take to build Schubert into your life?
I've previously asked you about the piece you are working on, a passage you are satisfied with, and one you're less satisfied with. I've also learned a lot about your musical imagination and pianism by asking you how you might describe the character of your piece, the pianistic tools you use to convey the aforementioned character, and particular elements of the piece you notice by playing it. I'm always so moved by the process of learning a piece of music, playing it, performing it, and continuing to live with it. Playing piano has always been a bastion in my life and I hope that through your regular ritual and practice it can be a source of comfort and empowerment for you too.
I hope you'll consider proposing your Schubert piece for Piano Community's upcoming Community Concert, and to share your work with other supportive members of our community! I really believe I am awarded deep insights when I take the time to deeply consider the elements of my colleagues' successes.
If you're new to the Schubert gathering this week, welcome-it's never too late to join! You may find the guidelines for participation in the Rules and FAQ thread.
See you below, 
Hilda
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Hello, dear Piano Friends,
I love hearing everyone’s lovely Schubert. What a fabulous composer to pick for the month of February.
I’m afraid I started a bit late on learning my Schubert, so I’m just attaching a practice video for the first 5 minutes of the Impromptu Op. 142 #3. I was originally going to learn one of the Op. 90’s, but once I noticed how popular they were, I pivoted and tried this one because I now LOVE variations (after participating in some of the monthly challenges that showed me how much fun variations can be). I’ll definitely keep learning this well into next month.
Hilda - If I can finish it time, I’d love to record it for the Watch Party!
Domenic - Thanks to your excellent fingering suggestions for my Dvorak, I found a way to use that technique HERE, too!
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Vidhya Bashyam I was super fortunate to be in Vienna on the ONLY day each year they offer their used recital hall instrument for sale. First come, first served! (Actually, it was my sister who noticed it because she used to live next door to the Bosendorfer store...and she saw the "for sale" sign as she was walking to work!). I happened to be there for work meetings anyway, and put down a deposit at lunchtime. A tiny fraction of the price of a new one.
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Gail Starr It sounds beautiful, Gail! I love this impromptu and I have never started to learn it! I wish you finish it in time to listen to it completely.
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Gail Starr , great job! I've been reading through this impromptu as I'm thinking of adding it to my repertoire. Loved how you handled the LH in the 2nd half of variation #2.
And reading through it, I think variation 4 would be particularly difficult (for me at least) as LH and RH switch roles. It's tougher than I thought to play an alberti-bass line with the RH (for me at least).
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Gail Starr I love so much your approach to this, thank you for picking it up so quickly and fabulously! I have only ever heard or remembered the first theme, now I just have to add this to my to-do list.
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Gail Starr BEAUTIFUL!!! You have such a great command of your intentions and of dynamics!
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Anthony Miyake Thanks, Anthony! I just started variation 3 last night, so we'll see if I can learn #4 this evening. I'm really loving this Impromptu, and, luckily, that used score that I bought (thanks to EBay!) has some handy fingerings from someone's teacher a long time ago.
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Gail Starr One of my favorite impromptus on one of my FAVORITE pianos!! I'm working on my jealousy... but I must say I'm jealous!!! Hahah. Beautiful, Gail!! Thank you so much. xx
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Brother Will Green I was VERY lucky to serendipitously purchase this piano on a special deal that my sister discovered. She lived next door to the Bosendorfer showroom in Vienna, and they sold the old piano they used to use in their recital hall. I happened to be in town that day 25 years ago, and I snagged it (sacrificing my retirement savings in the process).
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Gail Starr Wonderful playing, Gail! What a great challenge, and a great piece! Like you, I also have got a love for variations, because of previous challenges. Looking forward to hear you play the whole thing!
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Gail Starr You're so musical, such a good reader, and I love watching your hands... I will come back to this. Nice piano too!
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Gail Starr Bravo Gail! Très très beau!
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Aline Valade Merci bien, Aline! Est-ce que vous avez choisi un morceau de Bach pour ce mois?
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Charlie Gesualdo Thank you so much! I'm going to record the rest this weekend. It took me MUCH longer to learn it than I originally thought...those LH jumps simply have to be memorized otherwise I land on dissonant notes (like playing a G on the bottom of a chord in Bflat major. Yucky!)
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Gail Starr Bonsoir Gail, non je n'ai pas encore choisis! Et vous avez-vous choisis ?
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I decided this week that I would upload the two Schubert waltzes that I chose to do, although it should be said that this community challenge has inspired me to return to many other pieces that I learned many years ago. This is the second spate of recording and there are still hiatuses when I search for the keys, which could pass for rubato... This course has required much more IT literacy that I have creatively. Recording and uploading this has been a learning experience!
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Roy James-Pike I just received a message saying that the file is too large so it didn't upload the fist of two recordings. It was only a shor waltz lasting less than a minute so it begs the question how people are uploading much longer videos?
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Roy James-Pike I just put it on YouTube and copy and paste the link. That way the viewer is actually watching it ON YouTube, not on Tonebase. DM me if you need pointers on how to do this!
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Roy set up a private unlisted YouTube account, then upload it and share the link.
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Gail Starr Thank you Gail. I shall explore this later but I think I shall try to record each waltz in two halves without a repeat and see if that reduces the size sufficiently to upload it. I have noticed now that a lot of people are recording via Youtube, presumably for the same reason.
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Ching Lee Goh Thank you for the advice. I shall do that very soon.
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I tried this - it is the 4th sonates middle movement. Struggled a loy to learn yhe notes and the harmonies kept tripping me up. I love it - it is the same theme as the 4th movement of the D959 sonate - I really like to see how he explored the same themes repetitvely in his music
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Johnathan North3 What a great observation, that the two movements' themes are so similar. Do you think the accompaniments of the themes are similar or different? Do they bring out different flavors in the theme?
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I very much enjoyed this Schubert challenge and hearing everyone’s wonderful selections! So much glorious music and beautiful playing! I plan to continue the op 90., no. 1 that I was working on and will post updates in my practice diary. The challenge really pushed me forward in learning it.
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I didnt check all the uploads yet, perhaps there are others who learned this piece, but I did see lots of people learning the op.90 impromptus. Not sure if I saw anyone taking nr 2 - in case there aren’t any uploads and if we want to do a. full set collaboratively, I uploaded nr 2 - which I knew from before (but otherwise we can discard). For my previous post - not sure if I should apologise more for the wrong notes or the bad spelling…
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Johnathan North3 Very good playing, Jonathan! It sounds great, thank you for sharing it!
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