what do you think it is? i've just started learning this piece (only upto the first keychange) after my teacher 1) made me give up the C minor Polonaise Op.40 No.2 and 2) she is keen for another student of hers to do this polonaise again

same question/theory applies to Debussy's Pour Le Piano (Prelude and Tocatta only)

p.s. this is the teachers choice, not mine

oh, forgot to add...anyone know who publishes Pour Le Piano?

the op.44 polonaise is pretty much a diploma or beyond level piece. It is way beyond the C minor op.40 standard!!!

Hard.

Op. 40 No. 2 is on the ATCL syllabus; this seems a mite harder. It's not on any L syllabuses I can find, and my judgement is that it lies in between. I've never seen the sheet music, but it sounds difficult - not 100% effortless - when Askenazy plays it so it's probably taxing to mere mortals.

Good luck .

i have the sheet music GCBS....well its 19pages long - in three movements - the third is effectively a solid repeat of the first. It seems mighty difficult to play well...with all the chords and such.....probably too advanced for a lot of people!

What do you exactly mean with this question. I think there are more than one publishers of pour le piano. I have a copy published by "broekmans en van poppel" but I know there is also a version by Henle and I guess there will be even more.

publishers like Dover etc

sl - i know its hard... and i know its harder than the Op.40 No.2...im not stupid especially since Chopin is my speciality

YAP - so a high DipABRSM piece?

also...whats the standard of the Prelude/Tocatta of the Pour Le Piano Suite by Debussy?

Well, DipABRSM = 1st year performance module, LRSM = 3rd year performance module; I'd say it's 2nd year performance module. Or thereabouts.

It could probably go on either syllabus, how well it's expected to be played.

GCBS, its certainly a very hard piece.....remember.....somewhere between dip and lrsm is a professional level.....so dont really go too mad about playing this piece...stick to something on 6 or 7!

alright thank you, what about Pour Le Piano?

The F# minor is ten times harder that the C minor.

If you cannot play the C minor, then you have no chance at all with the other one.

Steve

i know...this is whats so bizarre, i can get through the first 2 pages of the F# minor polonaise 10 times better than the C minor! :S somethings not right...

would this be the case of the Sarabande compared to the Prelude/Tocatta of Pour Le Piano?

the 2nd page of the c minor needs a lot of technical work...............the f minor first chord sequence is very hard as well though.........personally i dont think you should be playing any piece that level just yet.....especially with the "i can get through" attitude

dont talk to me like im an idiot...i know how demanding Chopin is. And, also, i've spent a total of 1 hour on the F# minor so i dont know how to play it WELL just yet...

Can we just stop here before it gets nasty (see I'm trying to be nice)

GCBS - you are trying to play/learning a lot of pieces as far as I can gather from other threads. Some pieces like the one in this topic are obviously hard. You complain about A-level work, when maybe if you spent less time learning all these pieces and just focused on a few then your piano playing would improve, and you might find you have more time for school work.

i spend little time on piano would you believe. and, at the moment, im learning

Chopin Polonaise No.5
Sinding Rustle of Spring
Debussy Pour Le Piano

hardly a lot is it.

What about all those accompaniment things you are doing.

See I try to be polite and you are just sarcastic back.

I give up

wasnt intended as sarcasm.

as for accompanying, that i'm postponing for after my January modules, maybe earlier. Im putting in extra hours into my schoolwork after getting U's in Biology and Chemistry tests.

p.s. im only doing 2 or 3 pieces, not 29832983

Not seen the music for this, heard the piece once whilst not particularly concentrating so I stress this is a wild stab in the dark, but could it be that the 'hard' bit of the F#minor piece is not in the first two pages? A bit like playing the Grave section of the opening of the Pathetique and declaring the piece to be easy . Or maybe the difficulties in the f# minor piece are ones that you've come across before; whereas you've not come across the difficulties presented in the F# minor piece before.

I used to find, when I first started playing piano and used to play pieces that were too difficult for me, that an 'easy version' of a piece was no easier for me to learn than the original version, all I was doing was finger programming, to a certain extent the patterns didn't matter too much meaning the original was just as easy (well really that the easy version was just as hard).

you've lost me

It's not a piece I'm familiar with, sorry. Having a quick look, the Toccata is on the LTCL syllabus.

danke schoen

You mean you're dropping the ones you put on the website? But I thought they weren't finished yet?

Chopin scares me I can play one waltz, slowly

Chopin scares me too; I ordered the Etudes for my birthday and they arrived today.

Needing a work-out for my left hand, Op. 10 No. 12 looked like a good start. Oh my....

hah, and thats one of the easier of the etudes good luck!!! the Tristesse (Op.10 No.3) and Ocean Waves (Op.25 No.12) scare me the most!

I didn't know they all have names! Is it in your edition? The only name I think I know is the 'Winter Wind' (op 25 no 11) - oh and 'The Revolution' (op 10 no 12). I think op25 no12 probably has to be my favourite - yummy chord progressions!!

It doesn't look like there are any names in my edition (Wiener Urtext).


I'm taking quite a 'technical exercise' view of the études: in my opinion, as tunes in their own right they're nice - Chopin did have a certain lyrical gift, but knowing myself, I'd struggle to find motivation to learn a piece which is difficult for the sake of being difficult just because it sounds nice if I didn't need to reinforce a certain aspect of my technique. And, at the same time, I wouldn't learn one to which my technique was suited as I have plenty of other repertoire to work on and enjoy diversity.

To start with, I'm doing Op. 10 No. 12 as it has an involved, relentless, left hand, and another piece I'm working on (Mendelssohn's Prelude and Fugue, Op. 35 No. 1) would benefit from a certain amount of increased flexibility in left-hand arpegiated sections.

As for it being easy - the tempo marking is 160 to the crotchet. At that speed, I'm sure there's plenty to find difficult. I can just about manage half that speed on the first page or so now.

It's a nice piece to practice though - the notes and fingering are nicely arranged in patterns, so it's easy to read, and I can slog out repetitive practice on a passage-by-passage basis in rhythms, in pairs, repeating subsections, played backwards, ... . Quite refreshing not to have to think how to practice - it's just obvious given the phrasing, fingering, and patterns used .

There was a 19th century pianist who could play this study with the left hand figuration played in octaves, at the indicated tempo.

Kalkbrenner, I think it was.

The sheer length of the piece compounds the difficulty - it weighs in at more than twice as long in playing time as the C minor. The relentless virtuosity tires both muscles and mind.

The form is A, B, C, A. The B section is horrible to learn and even more horrible to play.

All that is before you try to make sense of the musical side of things. This piece becomes a meaningless hack in no time at all.

All good reasons why the AB are happy to set the C minor for grade 8 but would never contemplate the F# minor - examiner protection

Steve

Performance ethics - just because one could 'play' a piece, it doesn't mean one should .

chopin didn't give his pieces these 'romantic' titles, and would probably be disdainful of the now common use of 'nicknames' for many of his pieces. this was one of the things he didn't appreciate about schumann, who tended to asign his pieces romantic titles. this didn't appeal to chopin at all - but since then, performers/critics/etc, and somewhere along the line they've acquired unofficial names. so there's the "Tristesse" (Op.10 No3) "Black keys" (op 10 No5) "Revolutionary" (Op 10 No12) "Aoelian harp" (Op 25 No1) "Butterfly" (Op25 No9) "Winter Wind" (op 25 no11) and "Ocean Waves" (op25 no12)

there are probably others - i prefer chopin's method of sticking to the opus numbers

ok...WOW!!! thats impressive

The pianist was Dreyshock, not Kalkbrenner. And Liszt did the Op.25 No.2 in octaves to prove that he was the best pianist around.

I like the Polonaise Op26 - Chopin in C# minor and have almost finished it .. hard but not too hard. What one is the next one I should learn to play? I'd like to do another.

i LOVE that polonaise, i say learn the F# minor or the Heroic polonaises

Majority of Chopin's work are beautiful but painful to the player...you really need at least DipABRSM of LRSM level to play his work like Polonaise. His Mazurkas and waltz are about grade 6~8. Maybe's it's better to save these grand pieces for later when you get into some serious playing GoneChopinBachSoon.

his works really are fabulous! but Liszt...

WOW