-
I have been able first to deal with the first 8 bars, then go on to the next 4. Also in some of the less demanding chorale like passages around the 12 minute mark, so majestic, so heartbreakingly beautiful I cry every time I listen. I can't imagine playing it without a tear there.
Frighteningly difficult? Yes! Envy Grimaud? Hell, I'm in love with her! She is only 40 and has this piece mastered for the last 20! Fortunately, I have a powerhouse like her in my life.
Notice all the crossed hands, by bar 2 already! Much of the work is written bass clef for both hands, and when the notes climb way above the staff, I cannot read them any more. Also true for the closing page of the piece; those low notes are way below the staff. The score I have is from the library and some one wrote in C, Bb, A under the notes. In fact it uses the very bottom notes of the keyboard to great effect, in the style of the organ. Yet is completely pianistic.
My life, at certain points, can be marked as before x and after, maybe 1/2 dozen times overall. (Annunciation comes to mind.) This is one of them. Music, my camera work and my playing will never be the same. I don't even need to listen with my ears. (I do anyway!
)The Chaconne has no resolution. No triumphant ending. Notice she (and others as well) do not let the last notes die to nothingness, She pedals it: "Fini". Abandons it, if you will.
There are a number of the violin versions on Youtube. I think Milstein is there, Hillary Hahn, Perlman, even Joshua Bell in th subway! (Ugh!) Do listen.
I have to sit down with the entire Partita, for sure. That's only on the violin, as it should.
Having the score, trying out places, deciphering the crossed hands, tracing the themes through the musical lines, even noting the inspired single notes that appear regularly, only adds to the sense of brilliance, of mastery.
| -
-
-
-
I have been able first to deal with the first 8 bars, then go on to the next 4. Also in some of the less demanding chorale like passages around the 12 minute mark, so majestic, so heartbreakingly beautiful I cry every time I listen. I can't imagine playing it without a tear there.
I thought that was one of the sections of the piece which would be more within the average mortal's range.
I must confess I sometimes envy people like yourself who are able to describe their feelings about pieces of music so eloquently; I usually find myself tongue tied when it comes to writing descriptions for my videos on YouTube & end up with things like "The famous waltz by Chopin" or something similarly non-descript. After reading your thoughts on the piece I decided that since I didn't have the sheet music already (I have lots of Bach's music, just not this), that I would see if it was on-line & I just downloaded & printed the score from the 'Petrucci Music Library' online (if you haven't heard of it, check it out.....it has much, much, much music.....). I'll be giving at least those first few pages a go sometime this weekend.
| -
I confess to difficulty reading either both staves treble clef, or both bass. And when crossed hands are called for....
In fact, to do that opening statement within my usual grasp, I refingered it so that I didn't need crossed hands.
At bar nine and beyond, where the second theme is introduced, i found it important to simply follow the theme without the chords, as the theme weaves in and out the chords attached to them. Again fingering is the key. When you include the chords, magic happens!
The way Busoni composed this, the sign changes are as much about what hand to use on what stave as the actual signature. You will see she follows faithfully.
You are more skillful than I technically, so you most likely will not be as impaired as I.
Thanks for the tip about the source of scores. (And for the lurkers: No, we aren't talking about scoring in meatmarkets!
)Oh, and be sure your piano is tuned! Mine needs it!
| -
-
-
-
I confess to difficulty reading either both staves treble clef, or both bass. And when crossed hands are called for....
In fact, to do that opening statement within my usual grasp, I refingered it so that I didn't need crossed hands.
At bar nine and beyond, where the second theme is introduced, i found it important to simply follow the theme without the chords, as the theme weaves in and out the chords attached to them. Again fingering is the key. When you include the chords, magic happens!
The way Busoni composed this, the sign changes are as much about what hand to use on what stave as the actual signature. You will see she follows faithfully.
You are more skillful than I technically, so you most likely will not be as impaired as I.
Thanks for the tip about the source of scores. (And for the lurkers: No, we aren't talking about scoring in meatmarkets!
)Oh, and be sure your piano is tuned! Mine needs it!
I gave the first two pages a go through a few times over the weekend; I find that I generally enjoy music more playing it than listening to it (which is a little embarassing to admit), & I quite enjoyed the strong dissonances and the drama. I had to stop at the beginning of the octaves in the LH section, as my tendons have been achy these last few weeks. (I play Chopin's 'heroic' Polonaise, so the octaves don't scare me, but I know they would take their toll!) I think I am perhaps better off approaching Bach via transcription, as I find it easier to 'get into' keyboard works that were actually written for the piano. I find Bach's music challenging, as there are so many parameters to keep track of (melodic lines, themes, counter themes, inversions, and so on and on) in order for the music to sound as it should; I am much more at home in the Romantic period, where often the effects are 'broader' and a misplaced note or bad articulation won't fatally impair the overall impression.
| -
P 15 Breitkopf ed, numbering from the top of that page, bar 11 to 22, the most glorious moment in the entire score, and rather romantic imo.
Better, just start on P 14 and finish to the end on p16.
Romanticism is concerned with matters of the heart, passion and such. No more expressive outpourings of this sort come to mind until the Op109 and 110 of Beethoven. Both Bach and Beethoven have structure, passion and abandonment to the music. (I am referring to piano solo in particular).
BTW, to the rest, this is a favorite quote, so the speak, I'ts a 15 minute quote, and instead of typwriter keys, it's piano keys!
| -
-
dave milbut wrote:
speaking of achy, are you trying the b6? it literally worked miricles for me and my bass.
Yes, I have been taking the B6 faithfully for the last several weeks, along with nuking myself with vitamin C & a few other things. I'd say it seems to have helped with the aching joints; 'fraid it hasn't quite done away with all the aches, but every little helps.
(Sadly, getting myself to eat more bags of leaves salads is still an uphill battle. I ignore the bag of leaves salad most every night and it's evolving....
)| -
Hudechrome wrote:
P 15 Breitkopf ed, numbering from the top of that page, bar 11 to 22, the most glorious moment in the entire score, and rather romantic imo.
Better, just start on P 14 and finish to the end on p16.
Romanticism is concerned with matters of the heart, passion and such. No more expressive outpourings of this sort come to mind until the Op109 and 110 of Beethoven. Both Bach and Beethoven have structure, passion and abandonment to the music. (I am referring to piano solo in particular).
BTW, to the rest, this is a favorite quote, so the speak, I'ts a 15 minute quote, and instead of typwriter keys, it's piano keys!
Thanks for telling me where the good bits are; I'll
try your suggestion about going from page 14 to 16. (So much music..... so little time.... and sometimes frail body parts!
)I know that both Bach and Beethoven are very passionate composers, in addition to being very structured. Sadly, at this point in my life anyway, I seem to find the technical 'finickiness' more of a challenge than I do in composers such as Chopin & Brahms.
| -
-
-
Hudechrome wrote:
A word about aching body parts. Find a good naturopath and have them put you on an anti inflammation diet. I did at the time I thought: "Forget piano. My fingers (especially the 5th) ache too much when reaching".
My primary physician checked me out and suggested that no, not arthritis, but maybe inflammation.
The outcome is that now I can play again.
What they will do is have you eliminate all inflammation sources in your foods, then put them back one at a time until you notice an adverse response. Avoid or minimize those and your on your way.
My doctor said the same thing about the arthritis, as it's mostly just my hands & not my other joints. I'll look into what foods might be in an anti-inflammatory diet, as I generally prefer to solve health problems myself when possible by changes in diet and/or the way I do things. I think my problems are mostly a matter of wear and tear: I work as a desktop publisher (heavy on the hands); holding the panpipes requires a firm grip (hands again); I garden (weeding also can be tough on the hands), and then there's that matter of the piano and doing things like practicing Chopin's 10th etude (in sixths) twelve times in a row.
Or more. 
So..... I've been taking things easier & singing more, & there's improvement.| -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}BTW, to the rest, this is a favorite quote, so to speak, I'ts a 15 minute quote, and instead of typwriter keys, it's piano keys!
Chopin's 17th prelude is one of mine; it seems to me to express sadness, perhaps Chopin's sadness that he would be leaving life early (I don't know when he wrote the piece, but I am sure the shadow of death must have lain upon him for many years), but in the gentlest, most beautiful way. Someone made a comparison with the mood of autumn, where winter is drawing near, but there was still splendour upon the earth.
Here's a link to a performance of the piece by some obscure musician; the sound quality isn't the greatest & there are some mistakes, but I hope you might like it. The last minute and a half or so of the piece (from the 2:30 mark or so on) touch me more deeply than most anything else I play on the piano.
| -
function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}Hudechrome wrote:
Nor can you win, despite the odds.
I always "forget" to play. Dang it all!
I generally don't play, but I made an exception once for a record-jackpot of the 'Super 7' lottery (some 50 million or so dollars) & bought 1.0 tickets. I thought to myself what a great news item it would make - man who never plays the lottery buys 1 ticket & wins lottery! But alas, my life is not a movie and the karma fairies weren't on duty that day!
| -
Not obscure to us, Kami!
It has a melancholy quality, especially as you play it, but I notice that others, like Arrau use more rubato (and retards) which has the effect of driving it forward. The sadness is replaced by alternating between expectations.
Margaret Argerich has a version...it sucks! way too fast!
The date on yours is 2008, so I assume this was before your spurge into the grand. Nonetheless, it has a nice sound in this recording.
| -
Hudechrome wrote:
Not obscure to us, Kami!
It has a melancholy quality, especially as you play it, but I notice that others, like Arrau use more rubato (and retards) which has the effect of driving it forward. The sadness is replaced by alternating between expectations.
Margaret Argerich has a version...it sucks! way too fast!
The date on yours is 2008, so I assume this was before your spurge into the grand. Nonetheless, it has a nice sound in this recording.
Yes, I do find it a melancholy piece & quite often the last page makes me cry (which makes playing a little more difficult
). I kind of binged on rubato earlier in my musical life, and I think (and hope!) I am more discreet about it these days. I'll have to check out the Arrau version, just out of curiousity. I got the concert grand in late 2007 I think (not so much a splurge as one of those things I was very sure I wanted to do this lifetime, so to speak), but didn't have semi-decent recording equipment until Apr. 2008 when a friend lent me an H4 Zoom recorder which I've been using since & the sound is surprisingly good; YouTube's conversion process usually degrades it somewhat, but usually not too badly (with some exceptions).| -
Ah! So it is the grand. I hear why you got it, and wondered, if that recording wasn't on your grand, why you traded it.
I don't know about how an emotion which drives one to tears in music is conquered if you are playing a work which has that effect. In the Bach/Busoni, the 2 pages,14 and 15, generate tears for me, especially the last half of page 15,the chorale, where Bach is reaching , grasping for what? Transcendence? with the octaves in the bass (of course, Busoni's contribution, the violin has the same progressions but it lacks the thunder) together summoning both the deepest and highest human and spiritual values.
For myself, the notion of crying, as a young person, was so uncomfortable, I would suppress it, until I read a story about Richard Rodgers regularly crying in the concert hall. Well, he gave me permission to be me at those times,. I do minimize the sobbing part, however!
Technically, I also admire greatly the way this piece remains totally pianistic, yet so obviously draws from the organ, the bass progressions. particularly in that chorale. I have to credit Grimaud for negotiating that aspect in her playing of it. She repeats it in the last page of the Chaconne, where the piano is weakest, hitting all the bass notes down to the lowest A. No other performance on Youtube has it that grand. I wonder how long she had to search for the right piano for that performance.
If you seach Youtube, ther is a Chopin piece from that performance as well, but I didn't bookmark it. In the Chopin, that loooong wait to start playing the Bach is gone; she immediately attcks the Chopin.
| -
I don't know about how an emotion which drives one to tears in music is conquered if you are playing a work which has that effect.
For myself, the notion of crying, as a young person, was so uncomfortable, I would suppress it, until I read a story about Richard Rodgers regularly crying in the concert hall. Well, he gave me permission to be me at those times,. I do minimize the sobbing part, however!
Fortunately I don't get weepy very often when playing the piano (voice is another matter! and there of course getting weepy is totally fatal), but..... I'm focused.(I cry fairly easily; the other night I watched a video of "Creep" by Radiohead & it just set me bawling! Mind you that I do restrain myself in public, as it's generally unpleasant for people to see stranger's crying. And it's not a performance art!
)| -
"Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."
- J.R.R. Tolkien
Now that's scary!
(One of my favourite quotes from 'Lord of the Rings', it's the Lord of the Nazgul speaking to lady Eowyn; sadly this speech was not in the movie. One of my current musical undertakings is to increase the volume of my 'basso profundo' vocal range (I can get notes all the way at the bottom of the piano, but I need volume!), and I've been using this & some other dramatic speeches as practice. I am looking forward to Halloween as I am planning to leave creepy greetings on my answering machine.
)| -
-
-
