http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSZCWapO0is&NR

I've just listened to this recording in Youtube and I've discovered great problems, just see if you agree with me.

Do you mean the style is very wrong? There are too many stopping, unnecessary accelerandos (in fact, I think he keep accelerating from the start till the end). Some of the notes are wrong and some notes are un-even, and at about the middle of the recording, a bar or half a bar is missing. Moreoever some notes didn't come out at the end when it is very soft. Does that answer your question?

That's what I think.

I think this lad is 14 years old, if I read some of the comments correctly. The dynamics are a bit awry but it is difficult to judge these things on You-Tube because they are home movie clips made with poor quality camcorders and sound recording equipment. The piece sounds to me to be 'over-pedalled' and the little chaps hands are a bit small for some of the octave and larger interval stretches.

Every pianist seems to want to play this piece yet it is a difficult piece to play in the way that I think Beethoven would have wanted it played.

Overall considering his age it was not a bad performance. Did you click on the other clips of the older boy (in tee shirt) playing all three movements?.

No i didn't, how's it?

His name is David Berube and I thought his performance of the three movements was very good. Don't much care for the 'naff' opening title sequence but then that's not important.

If you can manage to 'listen through' the awful quality of the sound (due to the heavy file compression that You-Tube has to do to get these long clips uploaded to the web) some of these performances are not bad.

As I have said earlier the big problem is the file compression applied to these small clips. CD quality is about 44-48KHz sampling rate but to upload video/audio the whole thing is compressed to 'death'.

Showing exactly the classic faults - no shape, no expression, no atmosphere - where's the melody???? - no balance......I could go on. This is why this piece is NOT easy to play - it's not just a matter of playing the notes and keeping going in time as so many people seem to think...... For his age it wasn't bad - but if anyone ever played this in a music festival I was judging - and played it like this, I would be very severe in my comments......

Agree.

How on earth can you discern 'shape', 'expression', 'atmosphere' 'balance' etc from a tiny, highly digitised movie clip on a crude web site?. I would agree with some of your comments if the performance was live, or even on a good quality CD recording. The You-Tube site is designed for people to send up movie clips for a bit of fun or 'light' entertainment. I don't think it has to be taken as a serious platform for budding performers/pianists/muscians/movie directors/actors et al.

Try this

Well, it's obviously terrible. Misses notes, notes fluffed, over-pedalled, dynamics all over the place. But this is YouTube, not the Royal College of Music.

Edward



Hands seemed much too rigid for fluent playing, fingers too straight. Was it you?

The sound of the piano is like the old piano my family used to have before my new one....

This should be banned from the internet - it's dreadful! Someone clearly playing something that's way beyond their capabilities.......

I believe he stressed so much when he play it...look at his left hand...

Interesting Audio lecture on interpretation of Moonlight Sonata here

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/11/...ven_part_4.html

How scandelous!

Nice piano....

Yes it's too loud, fast etc but there are glimpses of musicality - listen to the bit at 3.43.

Regarding overpedalling - maybe he is merely adhering to Beethoven's own direction: "This whole piece must be played very delicately and with pedal."

Apart from the delicate bit, obviously...

He should have realised that pianos from Beethoven's time are different to the ones we have now. The pedals now drag notes along for a lot longer. He should have half-pedalled.

To be fair, the kid's only 14...so to be more accurate his teacher should have told him these things...

They absolutely murdered the bit 3 minutes in, it used to be my favourite bit too: they didn't bring out the melody in the bass, then at the tremelo they played the left-hand at half-speed.

I'm not one for pointing the finger or anything - but given the limitations of home recording etc - should there not be a law against this sort of thing?

I don't think home recording is the problem - the recording linked to above wouldn't sound good on a well-tuned and regulated Steinway in a studio with an expert sound engineer. In all modesty, I have some home recordings which are okay, and even though the recording quality doesn't come close to that of a professional recording it doesn't mean the playing itself is shocking.

Home recording has its limitations but you can tell if someone is playing a piece with the right tone and emotion. Some microphones can be really sensitive but turning down the volume a little usually solves the problem.

I find it hard to understand what inspires people to put recordings on the internet when they are so far short of what could be described as "good". I was pretty gob-smacked at seeing an eight-year-old play Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu, but this was tempered by the fact that he was eight - obviously; this seemed to be the point of the recording. In the case of older musicians, I'm not sure what they're hoping to gain, frankly! If they want to benefit from listening to themselves, it's possible to do that without putting it on the world-wide web!

And who am I to criticise? Absolutely nobody! Which is why I've never put anything on the web myself!