Week 1: Beethoven Birthday Challenge – Choose Your Piece! 
Welcome to the first week of our Beethoven Birthday Challenge! In celebration of Beethoven’s genius, we invite you to select a piece from his repertoire to explore and perform this week. Whether you’re drawn to his sonatas, variations, or shorter works, the choice is yours! Let’s dive into his music and share our progress throughout the week.
Happy practicing, and may the spirit of Beethoven inspire you!
Challenge:
- Pick your Piece!
- Share your first video with us - it could be sight reading, playing, or talking about why you love the music!
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I have been learning Op. 31 No. 2, the "Tempest" sonata. Here is a video of the third movement. Not quite mastered for performance yet -- in particular, I (crudely) edited out a few brief memory glitches (there are still some wrong notes :).
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Jeff what a masterpiece! Like the others I am also very impressed with your memorization skills! Amazing! Great work!
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Ursina Boehm thank you, very kind!
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Thank you Julia !
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Jeff Powerful and full of expressiveness, great playing Jeff!
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Thank you Juan !
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Thanks Judy! Much appreciated.
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Hi, I'm currently working on op 111. I'll try to share my progress on the first movement! Happy practicing to everyone!
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Javier here it is!
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Javier Impressive work on this masterpiece!!
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Javier Javier I sense Beethoven spirit! Waiting for the next recording!:)
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Julia thank you so much!
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Javier nice work Javier
enjoyed listening to this !
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Javier Excellent work of a very difficult piece, Bravo Javier!
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I shouldn’t, but I cannot resist! I will rework the Pathétique and see how far I get. Played the first movement at a small recital in June and never wanted to see it again, but I learnt so much from the Fast Track program and feel it deserves better treatment.
So here we go again :)
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Nadja join me, as I've chosen the 3rd movement:)
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Julia Hope to meet you there :)
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Nadja Good luck. The Pathetique is my sentimental favorite of his sonatas (because it was my mom’s signature piece … as a result I played it “too early” and its
one I will come back to.
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I'm super impressed that so many have chosen the Sonatas! Looking forward to listening to all your progress and the final submissions in this challenge :)
Not sure if I will fully join this challenge, though it may be a good opportunity for me to brush up 2-3 pieces from the Bagatelles.
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I will do op33 no 1, and possibly no 2 if I can fix my double thirds in the Trio passage by then
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I’ve been working on Beethoven’s bagatelle in b minor, op 126 no 4 for a week or two…here I am trying to play as much as I can without the score. I like getting to the point where it’s memorized because then it’s easier to use little moments during the day to practice the tricky bits.
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Marc M Great start! I am trying the memorize as you go approach too as well this time. Haven’t heard these before so looking forward to hearing more!
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Marc M I need to try to do this more! Memory is my biggest worry.
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Marc M Great approach! It's amazing how much progress you can make with just a few minutes at a time of targeted practice on those tricky bits.
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Marc M Nice start! I do the same - memorize as quickly as I can so that I can pop in and play during any brief moments I might have throughout the day.
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Hi. My first attempt of recording the 3rd mov of Pathetique Sonata. I took some time to memorize it, because for me it's important, and of course I've lost some details and notes.
For the next week I want to check with metronome my tempo, make it cleaner and color differently the A part so it won't be repetitive
