This is one of my favourite tracks on a favourite CD. The disc has a cumulative effect on me - the whole being more than the sum of its individually wonderful parts.

Well a combination of listening to Brendel playing Beethoven Bagatelles, and a lesson yesterday where we've started a new piece that I think is beautiful (Kabalevsky Sad Story) that's it I'm back on track So that's all I needed, listening to a brilliant pianist and a bit of F minor Russian misery

Learning? Well yes, although it's more a case of brushing off the cobwebs.

MT has only just discovered Brahms' Intermezzo in A, Op.118 No.2 it would seem!

Together with the first movement of Kabalevsky's Sonata No.3 in F and Beethoven's C minor Variations this Brahms Intermezzo completed the set of three pieces that I began to tackle with my (new) piano teacher, back in September 2008.

I had provided a choice of:

Hindemith Sonata No.2
Ireland Sonatina
Jongen Sonatina
Kabalevsky Sonata No.3
Leighton Sonata No.1

So initially we went with the Kabalevsky. However, practising all three pieces sort of came to a close when I decided that I'd like to try for Grade 8. The preparations began not long after.

Only now, two years on, have I managed to get round to looking closely at the Hindemith.

True. But how glad I am to have found it.

And it is better this way, because it now holds no technical difficulties, so I can make a really good job of it. If I'd tried to play it when I was at school working through the grades I'd have ruined it.

I've just discovered this..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi34-iPyF3c

Oh my god... it's wonderful.

Yes it is wonderful. THink how much more wonderful it would be on a proper piano.

As we are posting beautiful music, here is one of the better versions on YouTube of you know what (played by Radu Lupu). He just takes parts of the second half a tad too fast. I suppose he did not want his audience to leave and jump off cliffs and bridges en-masse (as they would if you wrung every drop of emotion from it).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h4Re5WBEAc...feature=related

Don't let Ronald Brautigam hear you say that!

I like the Fortepiano actually, great character.

Ok, so I was bad and went and printed out a scan of the Szymanowsky Metopes to sight read >.<

Seriously tempted to stick one of them in my final recital...

L'isle des Sirenes is more difficult than Gaspard: Ondine, but so beautiful! Nausicaa is around the same level. Calypso on the other hand was relatively easy to sight read and the main theme (the one that comes back at the end of Nausicaa) has been stuck in my head since I first heard it...

Technically term hasn't started yet and my teacher has no idea what pieces I've picked so I could throw one of them in there and pretend to have been working on it all summer and been focused and stuck to it >.<

I also think it's pretty funny that my teacher banned me from playing any French music this year as I play too much of it yet I've managed to find these pieces which are very Ravellian in places but are not by a French composer... I swear I have a magnet attached to me so these pieces find me, I tried my best but couldn't get away from them >.<

I've been going on about needing more focus and my teacher's rules for final year and summer repertoire ever since I had that chat with her, and I know I REALLY shouldn't go near the Metopes just yet, but I'm wavering... would it really be THAT bad to learn one?

I'm sure I have murdered it in the past though, playing it many years ago at a school event (not as a solo spot though). When I think back, it makes me shudder!

I think I played it in a programme including Debussy's Arabesque No.1 and Schumann's Arabeske, together with much of the first movements of Bach's Harpsichord Concerto in D major and Harpsichord Concerto in A.

Dear Invidia,

I think your pianistic skills must be a couple of orders of magnitude above the rest of us. I looked at the Metopes and ran a mile.

Cheers
Tom

To be honest I would just say I have a different learning style. I have a really weird skill for sight reading and as such once I can play something superficially (i.e. well enough to impress a general audience but not well enough to pass an exam or impress a post grade 8 pianist), which tends to happen after a month or two of just playing pieces through, I get bored and move on. It's a total nightmare and wholly responsible for me failing DipABRSM 3 years ago. I had my program learned and performed in public before entering then I just got bored and started tackling new repertoire. I will never pass DipABRSM because I am bored of all the pieces!

Anyway, I need difficult repertoire that requires working fingers to the bone. The most difficult piece I've ever worked on is the Ligeti etude I am doing at the moment because the multiple downbeats that Ligeti loves so much renders a lot of his music totally unsightreadable.

That aside, I am being sensible and seing what my teacher thinks of Ballade 4 before dropping it for a Metope. But I have lost a LOT of practise time since discovering Szymanowsky and have spent weeks just playing through the Metopes and his op.4. etudes.

Beethoven op 57 I've got mvt 2 done, mvt 3 all but the coda and half of mvt 1 (started on that last as it is the least interesting movement of the sonata as it has been done to death)

Chopin I HATE cross rhythms so am really struggling with the passage at the start of the second half. I am having to memorise the seperate hands and be able to play them with my eyes closed because it's not like you can do metronome work with cross rhythms...

Ligeti isn't going anywhere. I've got to the middle of the piece where you have just one note in each hand and gotten too comfortable there. It has been a LOT of work and I'm at the 'please no more' stage so haven't attempted to go on to the end...

I am learning the whole Mozart K545 sonata. 1st movement, well on its way, 2nd movement half way there and 3rd movement some sections perfected but need work on other parts.

I am also learning the Allegro Toccata in A Major (Paradies)
Still working on a Jazzy piece
a Duet
Mozarts Fantasy in D Minor K 397

and lots of other little bits here and there. I play a lot of Clementi for warming up purposes.

What I really want to do is work mainly on my new Brahms Intermezzo, so that I can play it in the DipABRSM exam in December. [If I don't get it up to standard in time I'll have to fall back on Schumann's Des Abends and Aufschwung from last year]

But real life keeps getting in the way. In just over a week I have to play 3 Chopin Mazurkas in a Chopin event. They may seem simple pieces compared to the Chopin Etudes and Ballades I have been learning recently. But to play them with precision and attention to all of Chopin's detailed instructions - and so make music of them ... they are just as hard. Harder in fact, because like Mozart's sonatas, the texture is so sparse that there is nowhere to hide.

Then there is next month's Baroque day. It is a (last) chance to try-out Bach's Prelude and Fugue in Fm from book 1, before December's exam, but I am sure the audience would enjoy a few Scarlatti sonatas more than a heavyweight fugue. However, when I gave four of them a run out last night I found that the three I had not played for a few months had deteriorated badly, and will take a lot of work to be able to present them confidently.

Then my violinist friend wants to rehearse Vitali's Chaconne. It is a lovely piece, mostly straightforward in the piano part, but with some awkward changes of texture and rhythm, and one quite tricky section. It would not be too bad except that he cannot keep to a steady tempo. If anyone thought my rubato (or lack of a steady internal pulse) was over the top .. well you've heard nothing yet. So as well as keyboard dexterity and musical skills I now need to develop mind-reading skills. No-one ver told me that accompanists needed to be clairvoyant and/or telepathic!

And I have a list longer than several arms of new things I want to learn. When will I ever have time?

Still With Bachs prelude in C. After a week of next to NO practice (little sister stayed with me up from London) I thought I had best have a bit of a run through before lesson tonight.

My scales sucked. No two ways about it - you'd think I'd never come across them before. And, oddly, the prelude sounded better than it ever had!! Maybe giving my brain a week for it to sink in did me some favours

Odd, I was playing that earlier on, experimenting with different sounds on my Roland to see what sounded nicest !

Having finally managed to acquire the sheet music today, I am now learning Rachmaninov's second piano concerto for the next four years. Currently I am optimistic and it is going well, but I expect this to change fairly quickly once I actually try to practise it.

I have started Chopin's Nocturne Opus 32, No 1. My reason for doing this is to actually start to learn a piece properly. Coming back from Chet's and back to lessons with my teacher has been...what can I say...difficult/ challenging in terms of the relationship with my piano teacher. She basically disagreed with what I had been taught (or should I say suggested) at Chets. So I have had a difficult couple of weeks.

Anyway to cut a long story short, I have realised I have never practiced properly and I have gone over my grade 7 pieces and tried to get the fingering right. I decided then to try a new approach to learning and take things slowly bar by bar...so that is what I am doing with the Chopin Nocturne.

I can only hope I can play as well as Clavi did when he sight read my grade 7 pieces at Cardiff and made a wonderful job of them too!

That's a lovely piece I'm doing the Op72.No.1 at the moment.

My teacher was relaxed about Chet's, he said my touch and control had measurably improved. I didn't study the pieces I'm learning with him while there though as I didn't want conflicting advice.

You're not the first to have the complaint of awkwardness with their regular teacher due to Chet's, btw.

Ah...I wish I had taken your approach Solari. Reassuring though to know that other folk have experienced the same sense of awkwardness. On a positive note though, I think that this awkwardness (and this is such a good word to explain how I felt with my teacher) has enabled my teacher to have conversations with me regarding my approach to playing and practising that may never have taken place.

After feeling like giving up after the first lesson back with my teacher after Chet's (that's how bad I felt) I seem to have turned a corner and made a really positive step in the right direction. But...it has been a bit of a rocky time.

Am learnin a few pieces from the new grade 8 syllabus including the Madsen 'Prelude and Fugue' (A2), the Brubeck and the Gershwin (both from the C list) and a wonderful alternative C piece 'Sonatina' Op 100 by the contemporary Russian composer Nikolai Kapustin. A great piece and a real find!

Haven't been doing a whole lot recently: real life has been intruding far too much (eg working all last weekend, for a start! ). However, I have been permitted to drop the Mozart (K545) - yes!!! - and just concentrate on the Debussy (Reverie) and Schubert (Sonata in A D664 - 2nd movement - which I absolutely adore), so when I do actually get a chance to get near the piano I'm a happy bunny!

There are two fantastic recordings of Kapustin works on the Hyperion label - one by Steven Osborne, one by Marc-Andre Hamelin. Okay, so the Sonatina is one of the easier pieces included (probably the [i]easiest[i] actually), but that doesn't preclude marvelling at the playing of these two pianists and the works themselves.

I've started on one of Bach's Fantasia & Fugues in A minor.

I did this for Grade 3 about 10 years ago, one of my students has recently learned it too. A lovely piece

I'm working on a Toccata by Khachaturian. It's for auditions next year, it's very fast so trying to learn it slowly and getting it into my fingers.
Also working on Fugue in C minor by Handel, Allegro Con Brio by Clementi and Moto Perpetuo by Elias for grade 8.
And...sightreading - let's not go there.
PSL

I haven't actually got around to looking at his Toccata, although I do have both a 'straight' and 'boogie-woogie' version of his Sabre Dance.

Debussy's La Plus Que Lent, which was somewhat harder than it looked...but managed to finish it. Some of Brahms Op76 and later pieces, and several of Griegs Song Arrangments.

Still working on my Dip retake for November (Schubert D. 664, Liszt Sonetto 123, Debussy Ballade, Bartok Mikrokosmos 152, 153)... it's a little discouraging to hear Gaspard de la Nuit and Chopin Ballades filtering out of the practice rooms here at university...

I'm still picking away at the Schubert D959 ii... pages 1, 4 and 5 are in good shape now. Page 2 is getting there... Page 3 is...um... still having a lot of work done to metronome on it. There's light at the end of the tunnel but it's a pinpoint at the moment

Le Tombeau de Couperin - the Forlane.

It looks pretty simple on paper, albeit with a lot of accidentals, but it's more difficult than it looks...
...maybe because I'm not used to playing Ravel. It's coming, very slowly.

Phew! I'm glad you said, "Forlane." I just read "Le Tombeau de Couperin" and nearly fell off my chair!

I wouldn't want to do 'a Solari' now, would I?

Hah. That is what always happens with Ravel - looks easy - isn't. And compared to the Fugue, the Forlane is a piece of cake. Ravel is REALLY DIFFICULT!

It is a good job that he didn't compose very much.

I love Ravel's Pictures at An Exhibition orchestration! So beautiful. I did like the origional Mussorgsky piano score but Ravels orchestration was lovely!
PSL

It's not fair!

I've just looked at Schumann's Des Abends and Aufschwung for the first time and I want to learn them too! I thought I had an alternative Dip' programme, but the Schumann Novelette doesn't match Aufschwung for verve and drama.

Looks like it'll be a fair old discussion when I next have a lesson.

Ravel is one of my absolute favourite composers, though I agree he is a nightmare to play.

clavi, just learn the Schumann in your own time. you don't have to play it for diploma to make it worth learning.

I've gotten over my fear of the Ballade 4 coda (finally). I am relatively comfortable with the rest of it, but was terrified of the coda, I thought I'd probably stand more chance tackling some Xenakis. But now I've come to work on it, it's not as hard as I thought. Still difficult, but not on a Xenakis level =P

Ligeti still lacking the courage to move forward from the "resting place" in the middle of the piece and probably won't be doing so until the Ballade is finished; one difficult section at a time I think.

Beethoven mvts 2 and 3 have come on a lot, I have them both memorised and have cracked the coda of mvt 3. Lacking motivation for mvt 1, simply because I've sight read through that many times before coming to work seriously on the sonata so rather than learning it it's undoing bad habits and fingerings etc which is REALLY boring...

Thought I'd revive this thread, since it's interesting seeing what others are working on.

Myself, I'm currently revelling in the first part of Granados' Berceuse (from Escenas Poeticas), Debussy's Reverie (though the triplet against 4 quavers hemiola is giving me some gyp), and the 2nd movement of Schubert's Sonata in A (D664), a piece with which I am deeply and sincerely in love. Every note is right (well - it would be if I could play it properly ), and I always feel very contented with life after playing it, regardless of my mood at the outset. One of those pieces, in other words!

I'm not revelling in Czerny (1st 2 exercises in School of Velocity) and Burgmuller (Arabesque), but I guess you can't win them all!!

Polishing Bachs Prelude in C. Starting a Beethoven Bagatelle - got the right hand sorted. Clocks continuing still, and gonna take a leaf outta JoMooks book and do some xmas carols

Silent night, God rest ye merry gentlemen and F major scale and arpeggio. Easy day although the fmajor arpeggio drives me nuts. Better get back to the 'proper' pieces tomorrow

Heck it's nearly Christmas.

Time to dig out the old carol book and Christmas song book for a spot of revision. I am sure to be asked to play something in the run up to Christmas, at the office party, or the company Christmas do. I advise other pianists on the forum to keep it secret from their workmates.

OOoh which Bagatelle?

The Mechanical Doll......Shostakovich.
I am enjoying learning this piece. Got the start and end under the fingers, and working on the slightly trickier middle bit.
Bev

My teacher's given me 'Bethena' by Scott Joplin. I have always been a Scotty fan but this piece is just...wow! Absoloutley beautiful, and a bit of a challenge. Definantly an underplayed piece, wonder why it was forgotten about for so long. It's going really well! On top of this, I can finally play Maple Leaf Rag (including the TRIO!) to a pretty decent standard. So I'm happy

I have pieces that still need work for my exam in December. According to my teacher one of the pieces I intend to play at Birmingham in 2 weeks isn't good enough, and needs a LOT of work, and then there is the London Playday coming up, and a guest spot at a little house concert in Utrecht too.

... but

this morning I listened to Cziffra playing Liszt's La Campanella, and I can't put it off any more. It is such a fantastic piece. I used to think it was empty virtuosity with a few clever effects, but it is very much more than that. Liszt the composer is very under-rated.

It is definitely at the outer limits of what I can manage (or being honest still some way outside tem), but it is no longer the ridiculous, complete impossibility that it used to appear to be.

So today (probably in 15 minutes or less) I am going to start learning it. I'll get in terrible trouble with my teacher if she finds out, so please don't tell.

What exam are you working towards Mad Tom? I have all week off work its gonna be heaven, so much time for music, rather than having to cram it in before work and when I get home!

*Mole wonders how to keep Christmas secret from his workmates...*

^

Amongst other things, the Schubert Impromptu in A flat and I'm also supposed to be polishing a piece for the quickly approaching GCSE mock solo performance.

Well, despite greatly reduced practice time..

Beethoven Op49 No.2: I was making zero progress on this because I'd begun to dislike it and wasn't practicing, however, I now quite like it again, so am moving forward with it again

Chopin Op.72 No.1: Top half of page 2 is proving a sticking point and I don't know why. Page 3 tuplets are sort of getting there now. Another month or two and I hope it'll be in some sort of decent shape - definitely the trickiest piece I've tackled so far...

And I have a lesson tomorrow. I think my teacher might be a bit disappointed in lack of progress but then life has become extremely busy and piano's taking a back seat...

I have just started on The Shy Puppet (Chanson) by Martinu. It's a grade 7 piece and I sort of tried it last week before my lesson and mentioned to my teacher that I thought it was a lovely piece. She asked me to try it and I am so pleased - she really liked it and suggested I do it for grade 7 instead of Quilter's Shepherd Song which I have really started to dislke.

I have been away for the weekend so I had better get practising before my lesson on Friday.

Ooh, I love the Martinu Puppets Must learn more of them. (I've only played The Puppet's Dance so far.)

I'm struggling to polish up the Chopin Nocturnes Op.15. Also, trying to get Prokofiev Vision Fugitive #15 up to speed (an impossible task at the moment). And started learning Leighton's Study #1 from Op.22 (which I'm scared of just looking at the notes). On the side, I'm learning just for fun Schumann's Prophet Bird from Waldszenen and revising Chopin Prelude #1 (which I haven't touched for months).

Uuuuuurrrggghhh sick of learning this piece slowly but I am not able to speed it up yet lol - one of Beethovens Bagatelles. I hate this stage of learning lol