Please will you take a look at Bars 121-122 of the third movement?

Those of who who can play this well and/or have successfully performed it - what RH fingering are you using here? At the minute I'm playing the C# minim at the beginning of Bar 122 with 3 or 4 and immediately substituting a 5, then playing the next Bb with a 3, but it doesn't get good clarity and isn't consistent; at best, it's fudgy, and at worst it's a mess. However if I just bounce off the previous G (end of bar 121) and land on the C# with a 5, this works better, but is it acceptable to break this phrase by bouncing off that G - and if so, does this mean, for the sake of consistency, that I'm going to have to bounce off the last note in bars 119 and 120 as well? Or would this actually be better?

I do play this, but haven't got it to where I'd be happy performing it yet, but my copy has the A of 120 and the C# of 122 fingered as a 5 which is what I've been doing. The edition is a Henle Urtext.

I've never performed this piece, or even studied it properly, but I still think I can help!

The tempo is too fast for awkward finger-swaps. There are many ways to handle this tricky bit. Here is one that is simple, keeps the right phrasing, and feels natural:

Take the C# minim with 3, joined smoothly to the rest of the phrase. Take the new quaver Bb with 2 (i.e. changing from 1 to 2 for clarity) and use just 1 and 2 for the next six notes thus: A-1 G-2 A-1 G-2 F-1 E-2

Thanks for the answers. And sorry I'm slow to come back; my internet is wonky.

I'm still undecided what to do here. Mad Tom's suggestion doesn't work that well for me; it just feels awkward, and may be because it's too big a stretch between 3 and 2, 3 being held. I'm wondering now how much it matters if I just come off the C# early; it's moving pretty quickly, and the effect of the C# is negligible by the time the stretch arrives!

Or I might just stick with jumping onto 4 or 5; I'm going to play around with various options for a while and see what I end up preferring.

One thing I'm noticing about this is that considering it's a piece with so many scalic passages, it actually doesn't work very often if you try to use standard fingering! (Not that it bothers me; I'm not a fan of exam-type scales anyway - as I may have said once or twice.... )

(I've been a good girl with this one and written in lots of fingering in order to be consistent sooner, rather than blunder around hoping it will sort itself out - and it's great! So any nasty bits that you come across, Digby, I actually have a note of what works for me!)

I'll have a look at it this evening, was away from home last night. I also find the last movement rather awkward fingering wise in more than one place.

Thank you!

The fingering given in the Henle edition works very well for me. The only change I have to make in bar 122 is to play the C# minim with finger 2 before substituting with finger 5. I use finger 5 on the G quavers on beat 2 of bar 121. I use the same finger substitution in bar 120.

I have small hands, so the finger substitution is not difficult, even at Presto tempo. I wouldn't just jump into the C# minim with finger 5 because that would break the phrase.

When I first learned this years ago, I experimented with finger substitution. It is difficult to achieve at a decent speed. I tried a simple stretch from 5 (G) to 4 (C#) but found this impossible at speed; bigger hands than mine could adopt this.

In the end and ever since, I decided to play the C# with my 3rd finger, take the Bb-A with 2-1, take the following G with my 2nd and simply cut the C# short by a quaver. Musically, the attention has already moved to the quavers following the C#. so the fact that the minim is not quite a minim makes no difference to the listener.

Just had a look as promised. I take that C# with finger 4.

Good grief, everyone seems to have a different fingering for this passage! We've had the C# with 5th finger, 3rd, 2nd /sub/5th, and now 4th ... It is great to see Bach causing such endless possibilities.... but what a dilemma...

denmark

The only suggestion missing is '...use the thumb ...'

p.s I love the Italian Concerto, wish I could play it ... one day ...

not sure that suggestion would work

Hehe. Someone with a long thumb would be able to hold the C#, then use 432 on the succeeding quavers. I like denmark's lateral thinking.

Real lateral thinking would be to hold the C# with your nose!

Thanks to all.
I'm still undecided here, but am taking everything on board! Will report....

Go with the nose. Go with the nose.

If you hurt it in the process, Anacrusis has the knowhow to help.

[quote name='PianoDoodler' date='Jul 14 2009, 10:37 PM' post='850704']
[quote name='Dulciana' post='848872' date='Jul 12 2009, 12:46 PM'] Please will you take a look at Bars 121-122 of the third movement?

I decided to play the C# with my 3rd finger, take the Bb-A with 2-1, take the following G with my 2nd and simply cut the C# short by a quaver. Musically, the attention has already moved to the quavers following the C#. so the fact that the minim is not quite a minim makes no difference to the listener.


[/quote]

I'm going with this. It seemed unnatural at first to negotiate the previous few notes in such a way that 3 would actually fall naturally onto the C#, but I think this is just because it's hard to change fingering that's become even half-established without it taxing the brain a little - well, my brain, anyway.

Another reason for going with this is that PianoDoodler just has a habit of being right, so I'm trusting him that this will work well once I stop stumbling over this bit! Your thought processes seem to have been the same as mine in the learning process, and I wish I'd asked the question sooner, rather than dither around for so long with finger substitution. (This is working for me in other places, though - I don't really know what made this bit different...)

Thank you.

(My nose is breathing a sigh of relief...)

You are most welcome. I suppose that having played this stuff in pro recitals for so many years means I had lots of time to sort out the problems. I was no prodigy; nothing came easily, so I had to give many aspects of my playing a great deal of thought.

Thank you for your kind words. I suspect we merely have similar hand-shapes, which is why my suggestions often gel with you. Others with different hand-shapes, probably wonder what I am on.


I bet. Think of the kudos at parties, though.

Yes, I've figured out before that your hands were similar to mine! MadTom's seem to be somewhat bigger. Now there's a thing that has never been mentioned in any of the 'What to look for in a teacher' threads, especially when you're playing Bach...
I did find myself at loggerheads with a teacher once because I wouldn't do it his way!

Hehe. Ridiculous the number of times my kids can do something (with their fingers playing the piano I mean) that would land me in hospital with a dislocation.

You probably don't need me to say this, but I will for the benefit of others to whom this has not occurred. Don't tell your students to do such-and-such your way. Tell them to do it in such a way that they can do it. Try not to be too surprised at the results either; kids are very bendy.