Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu-WTF?

[Uh Clem]

I have to agree with B'lips - that is the way I was taught - hands separately, swing the rhythms both ways - slow - slow - slowly - and it seemed to be the norm.

 

Good execution is not all about speed - many can learn to play fast - putting sufficient feeling into a piece of Chopin as you race up and down the keyboard at 90 miles an hour has always seemed like the bigger challenge.

[Bardstown Audio]

I have an MP3 of Fantasie Impromptu on the demo page of my web site, which you may want to check out.

 

 

Kip

Bardstown Audio

 

www.bardstownaudio.com

 

[ 01-13-2002: Message edited by: Bardstown Audio ]

[Byrdman]

Originally posted by stevepow:

I have to agree with B'lips - that is the way I was taught - hands separately, swing the rhythms both ways - slow - slow - slowly - and it seemed to be the norm.

 

Good execution is not all about speed - many can learn to play fast - putting sufficient feeling into a piece of Chopin as you race up and down the keyboard at 90 miles an hour has always seemed like the bigger challenge.

 

I was taught hands separately too. However, the way I was taught placed way to much emphasis on playing the notes, and not nearly enough on the ear.

 

Unless a piece is totally contrapuntal, you have to relate what the two hands are doing together musically early in the learning process otherwise you will find it hard to put the hands back together again later.

 

Its also a fact that humans learn best in context. Try learning a poem by learning each line separately and then putting them together.

 

Which is why I think playing both hands should be the basis of learning a piece and working on each hand should be done in the context of working with both hands and you should avoid losing the context. I don't mean that you should not work on individual hands at all - I don't think it is possible to get a piece up to performance standard without that.

 

Also, when you work with both hands early on, you are really "blocking" the piece (in the theatre sense). I really think you need to do this for yourself from the sheet music rather than listening to recordings.

 

I don't understand what you mean by "swing the rythms both ways". Can you explain?

[Uh Clem]

I don't understand what you mean by "swing the rythms both ways". Can you explain?

 

a technique to build speed and consistency within a fast passage:

 

e.g., a passage of sixteenth notes can be practiced as pairs of dotted sixteenth and 32nd notes and vice versa - you have to do it both ways. It sounds odd to hear, but works well.

 

we were taught that in high school band as well - so I guess it works for most intsruments.

[Byrdman]

Originally posted by Striker1080:

Don't lie-who here can play this song at tempo?

 

Not me - at least yet. I got the sheet music last week.

 

Neither hand is particularly hard. The tempo is not too brutal - its marked minim=84 on the version I have. Fast but not exceptionally so.

 

The chief difficulty of this piece is that you are playing triplets in the left hand against semiquavers in the right. Not only that, but as its a fantasia so having them locked in together is not going to work musically - there has to be the feeling of the right hand "floating" over the left, but you still have to hit the changes with both hands pretty much together.

 

So practicing the hands separately will only take you part of the way to mastering this piece while sitting down and playing both hands together real slow dropping those triplets in the slots between the semiquavers and getting faster and faster will make the finished result really suck!

 

Getting these hands to work is going to give me kittens, but what an excellent piece to work on - every bit as good as working on playing swing time in one hand and straight time in the other.

[Brittanylips]

Originally posted by stevepow:

I don't understand what you mean by "swing the rythms both ways". Can you explain?

 

a technique to build speed and consistency within a fast passage:

 

e.g., a passage of sixteenth notes can be practiced as pairs of dotted sixteenth and 32nd notes and vice versa - you have to do it both ways. It sounds odd to hear, but works well.

 

we were taught that in high school band as well - so I guess it works for most intsruments.

 

FWIW, I too was taught to do this, and am an advocate. The trick is to do the riff both ways:

long - short - long -short (e.g. dotted eighth, sixteenth, ...) etc.

AND

short-long-short-long (sixteenth, dotted eigth...) etc.

 

That way, it balances out, and draws attention to intervals that are particularly difficult. The excercise should not be done too fast overall, really planting the finger on the long note, followed by a short note and planting the finger on the next long note, short, long, short, long, etc.

 

Then, at even values, it will fly by like an F16.

 

BTW: Chopin = Nautalus for the fingers.

 

-Peace, Love, and BrittanyLips

[EZB]

Love this thread. Great to see the Appassionata acknowledged as a difficult piece, as I have recently learned the hard way. I started it a month ago, and man is it hard for me. I was expecting the 3rd movement to be hard since it sounds hard, but the first movement is already working me. Octaves are used a lot for the RH, and though they're not insanely fast, it is very hard for me to get it sounding smooth and melodic without the pedal.

 

I don't have naturally long fingers, and octaves have never been my longsuit, so this piece is great for me. The best part is that it's made me totally rethink my fingering when playing octave melodies that need to sound legato. I used to always think about 1-5 fingering, and bouncing my wrist when playing octaves, but varying the upper finger between 3, 4, and 5 as I move around sounds way better and has improved my accuracy tremendously. (Not my idea--my score has suggested fingerings in several tricky spots.) I've already gone back and started refingering more modern classical pieces in my repertiore with this in mind.

 

This is what I love about Beethoven sonatas. Everytime I dig into one, I learn something new about technique that I can apply. If I had time, I would learn every one. They seem to provide great technical grounding beyond what scales and exercises can do.

[lovepiano]

Hi,

 

I know this post is way too late but I just wanted to say that I love Fantasie Improntu! It is one of my favorite Chopin pieces. I just started playing it. I have 3 years of experience in piano and can't sight read music and I am almost done with 4 pages out 6 pages. Although most if it is repetition, getting the hang of the rythm is the key and the most difficult part of the whole score. My piano teacher tells me not to play it fast becuase later on, it messes with the fingering but without her knowing, I have gotten to the tempo the score is naturally played in. I love playing it.

Actually, if you want to learn the rythm to play this, it is advisable that you learn a little bit of the left and little bit of the right both at the same time. You also need to hear this piece a lot! By memorizing how the piece sounds, you can mimic it! Also, By memorizing just the right and then all of the left is unadvisable because if you don't understand the rythm then you are completely lost!

I recieved tons of inspiration to play this from a man at a piano store who can not read music at all. He had to write down letter by letter for every single note and he learned how to play this perfectly in 6 months with tons of practice. I know a fairy tale story but it is real!

Speeking of favorite peices and how to play them, has anyone ever tried playing Ballade no.1 in G for Chopin! I LOVE that piece also!!!! I want to learn how to play that.. any advise on how to get started?

[Clavinovaguyusa]

Bringing up Gershwin again...is there a version of An American in Paris available that is not an orchestra transcription for piano?

[K K]

Originally posted by lovepiano:

Hi, I know this post is way too late but I just wanted to say that I love Fantasie Improntu! It is one of my favorite Chopin pieces. I just started playing it...

 

...Speeking of favorite peices and how to play them, has anyone ever tried playing Ballade no.1 in G for Chopin!

Hello Lovepiano and welcome to the forums. It's a funny coincidence because I'm also currently working on that piece myself. It seems we were both four years too late for this thread.

 

After reading the previous replies, I'll simply add that it's not because a piece is more fast or complex that's it's any better musically. Music is about emotion, not gymnastics. Use of speed is okay, of course, as long as its goal is musical.

 

Too many pianists neglect the emotional content of classical masterpieces, satisfied only with technical aspects. The score of Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu isn't extremely difficult, but this piece is much more challenging to play emotionally than many other pieces that have a more dense text.

 

The important aspects about this piece are, besides the score content :

 

1) The title "Impromptu", which in the case of Chopin suggests more use of rubato,

 

2) "Agitato", which implies a worried state of mind (emotion). IMHO this also suggests close to hunt passages.

 

Hence why this piece sound so boring when played like a metronome throughout. People who think this piece isn't beautiful musically simply never heard it played right.

 

Now, about the Ballade no.1, sorry, I don't have that text. I wish I could look at the score to help you.

[C J Hoffman]

I have loved Chopin my entire life. 41 of my 45 years, anyway. A highlight of my life as a musician has been to play the Fantasie Impromptu at tempo. I don't care if it's the hardest piece to play or the easiest. To have the piece sufficiently internalized to be able to focus only on the interpretation and the emotion of it is truly a rush.

[kad]

double post...

[kad]

Originally posted by lovepiano:

Speeking of favorite peices and how to play them, has anyone ever tried playing Ballade no.1 in G for Chopin! I LOVE that piece also!!!! I want to learn how to play that.. any advise on how to get started?

If you like Ballade no. 1 in G, check out Ballade no. 4 in F minor. It is stunning - for my money, one of the most gorgeous and breathtaking pieces ever written for any instrument...

 

Kirk

[Tom Fiala]

Well, back in the day, (waay back) this was one of my five recital pieces for my ARCT exam (Royal Conservatory of Canada). It took a long time and a lot of practice for me to get the fast sections up to speed, and to play it fairly well. Do the separate hand practice to master the 4 vs. 3 rhythm that is going on.

 

Don't expect to master this one in a week or two. It might take a year or two!!

 

Good luck.

[joegerardi]

If you want difficult, look at Islamey by Balakirev. it is a Fantasy Orientale. For a long time, it was considered *the* most difficult piece to play and today, many still consider it to be in the top 3 of most difficult pieces.

 

..Joe

[gangsu]

I have to accompany this kid who wrote his own piece for clarinet and piano. It's not like there's a lot of notes (at the same time, that is. The damn thing's 5 pages long), and it's not fast, but it makes absolutely no harmonic sense. Or rhythmic, because of incorrect beat groupings. It sounds a bit like one hand got transposed into a different key. Add the clarinet, and make that possibly three. Although it's mostly all on the white keys. I asked him how he wrote this, willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, like maybe he's brilliant and has developed a completely new concept of composition, and his answer was "Finale!". Uhh.

 

Well, you were asking about difficult music to play.

 

Cydonia, I find this a very bizarre coincidence indeed. But that's just me.

[Les Mizzell]

Striker: in Flight of the Bumblebee, the fingers move fast but the hands are relatively still, so it is not that difficult.

I had the pleasure of sitting on the organ bench next to Virgil Fox and watching him play this as a pedal solo on his Allen touring organ.

 

Freaking amazing to watch that.

 

OT: While Mr. Fox was in our city for a concert, my piano instructor and I were his "host". He was a wonderful person to just sit and talk music with. After his concert, we took him back to his hotel. We got a phone call shortly after - the water in the shower wasn't hot enough for him. We had to book a room in another hotel 30 miles away for him to take a shower - then take him back to his original room. He was delightfully quirky!

 

Allen Organs has a whole section on their website devoted to this particular organ, including copies of letters from Virgil describing specs and such before they started building it: Allen Organ

 

Back On Topic

I've always found the more contemporary works to be more difficult to play. I finally gave up on the Copland Piano Concerto after awhile, for example. Having small hands doesn't help, so "big" things like Rachmoninoff was usually out for me anyway. I was a composition major and not a performance major though, so what do I know!!