Playing the Piano is Easy and Doesn't Hurt! Learn how to solve technical problems in Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and all the other composers you want to play. Reconsider whether to spend time on exercises and etudes or music. Discover ways to avoid discomfort and injury and at the same time increase learning efficiency. How are fast octaves managed without strain? How are leaps achieved without seeming to move? And listen to great pianists of the past.
Pages
▼
How is Schumann's Fantasy Like Beethoven's Sonata Op. 111?
Robert Schumann
My very advanced student brought the first movement of Schumann's Fantasy, Op. 17. He played rather convincingly, if a bit overwrought for my taste. That is, he had in mind that this
is a 'big' piece. Well, yes, it covers a lot of emotional ground, but sometimes, as in the opening, it's only forte strings with no brass doublings. His question for me, though, had to do with discomfort on the second page where the second violins play trills against the first violins' descending melody notes. This became a technical challenge for him:
As Written
I told him to reference the penultimate page of Beethoven's Sonata Op. 111, where a similar confusion of voices and trills encumber the unsuspecting pianist. The Schumann example is played:
As Played
Once the coordination between the voices in the right hand has been solved and coordinated with the left hand, the thirty-second-note trills can relax a bit, if desired. I leave it to you, gentle reader, to solve Beethoven, armed now as you are with the technical tools.
No comments:
Post a Comment