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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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