I can't seem to choose a piece!

I'm thinking Albeniz's Rumores de la caleta for my C and the Mozart K332 for my B.
My teacher recommended one of the Mozarts for my B and I chose the 332.

I have absolutely no idea what should I play for my A - I LOVE Scarlatti, and in the first place I chose the Sonata in E, no doubt. but now I've seen the Soler and I really like it as well, and I do love the Shostakovich as well.

How hard is the Shostakovich? I can't seem to find the digital version online. I'm trying to find it in a day or two in a music store and look at it but I'd like your opinions.

thanks!

Certainly the Mozart K332 (or the K309 for that matter) is not difficult, I dont rate it as Grade 8 even to play very well.
I think the A minor is the better of the two Scarlattis. The Shostakovitch prelude is OK but you need pretty big hands to do the fugue as the main theme covers a 10th, I find it quite tricky.
The most straightforward C piece is probably the Grieg Nocturne, provided you are good at '3 against 2 ' its full of them. The Chopin F Minor Nocturne is straightforward too.

I'm doing the Mozart K332 for my B and the Bach (A:1) for my A. Haven't chosen a C yet as I will take ages to get started on my A + B, having a 7 month baby to look after as well!! I might go for Ravel for my C as I did Ravel for my G7 and really liked it.

Hi, I'm in a similar position too.

I think i'm doing the Mendhelssohn..
or the Bach for the A list

I think i'm doing either Clementi or Mozart for B

And is it the Granados? For the C section..
its Valso Poetico is it?

The Scarlatti
how hard is the left hand!!

Good luck with your options

The Mozart 332 does seem to be about the easiest of the whole lot of the A & B lists combined. I would imagine that the standard expected by the examiners of error-free playing and crystal clear Mozart sound would be rather high to justify this pieces inclusion on the exam....

Of the two Scarlattis, I would rather have the one in E rattling around in my head for the months and months it would take to get it exam ready. The Soler is probably the most straightforward exam choice on the A list.

The Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues are such interesting music. I like the choices for this exam period too. I also have smallish hands (and fortunately for me, so does my teacher!). He has promised to show me some "tricks of the trade" to fudge on the 10th stretches and still get the fugue lines well delineated. That is, if a fugue is not simply too "out of reach" for me period.

Much enjoying exploring the C list!!
The Bortkiewicz Prelude is a lot of fun. This is very romantic, semi-cheesy, almost kitsch, pianistic music. Advantage is that is not played much and so you learn something different than the classic "standards". It is also good for improving technique for anyone out there who like me doesn't maintain a proper state of relaxed, dynamic tension in the hand. With the exception of C1 & C15 there is not a piece on the C list I wouldn't like to have in my repertoire.

I agree that the Grieg Notturno is probably about the easiest C piece and it is a crowd pleaser too.
My first choices for just the sheer beauty of the music are:

Brahms Intermezzo,
Ravel menuet mvt.
Prokofiev Gavotte (for a real treat get the recording of Arcadi Volodos playing this one)

But, the aspiring cocktail bar pianist in me is egging me on to do the Gershwin Liza!

good luck to anyone attempting the Haydn *shudders for 6 whole minutes*

If you could find it online it would probably be an illegal copy - the copyright doesn't expire until 75 years after the composers death: In this case he died in 1975 so all his music is still copyrighted until 2050.

The same applies to photocopies; A no-no unless out of copyright (and even then, the typesetting is copyrighted for 70 years after the edition is issued). I got round this (I think) by transcribing the pieces I wanted into Sibelius and then printing that - it's not a photocopy, and I know the structure a lot better than I would otherwise have done!

For me the music is difficult. In both you need to keep legato sempre with kind of jumping intervals and reaches up to a 10th (great for the old dancing hand and wrist movements) and the fugue is, well a fugue.

I prefer to buy most of my music anyway in decent editions.
I got a good deal on an edition labeled DSCH Publishers, Moscow, 2000 that is distributed by Hal Leonard.
Not great on the music stand, but very legible and less costly than alternative.

Even if you don't play any more than the ones for the exam, it is great to follow the score while listening.
For example, Keith Jarrett has made a fascinating recording.

The Haydn's pretty straightforward for me, once you master the 'thirds' bit. But the Mozart options are easier.

I was stuck between the soler and the scarlatti, I chose soler in the end. I dont kno why, I think its probably because I enjoyed playing it more than the scarlatti, although I prefer to listen to the scarlatti.

That makes no sense. Sorry

Yes it does: When you are practicing for, and performing in, the exam you want something that's good to play. Not everything that is enjoyable to play is good to listen to and vice versa. I think anyone who's ever played an instrument will relate to that!

Luckily I liked all of my grade 8 pieces, but for grade 6, I had an awful teacher (I've changed now) but I learned a piece behind her back and actually did that piece in my exam.... guess what, I got the highest mark for that piece! But do discuss it with your teacher and see what s/he thinks as well as you.

I got the grade 8 book a couple of weeks ago and seem to be learning to play more and more of the pieces rather than narrowing down my choices like i had intended.

For B, I started off doing the clementi because i thought it looked easiest, but then decided that the mozart k332 one was almost sight readable, so it would be a good idea to give it a go too, so now i'm stuck between the two and, for now, will learn both until i can choose between them.

The last piece i learned to play (before even seeing the g8 list) happened to be the greig notturno, so i'm pretty much sorted for that, but Gershwin's Liza sounded nice, so i bought the music for that and am (very) gradually getting there with that (definitely a hard one!!). But then, after a bit of a clear out of all my old music, i found the chopin nocturne in the middle of a book of random pieces (you know the ones with an odd assortment of pieces from musicals, films, etc), and that sounds really nice and isn't too hard either (although the bit at the end with a group of 7 will take a bit of getting used to). So, anyway, not quite sure what to choose there either.

As far as an A piece is concerned, out of the ones in the book, i think i prefer the bach prelude and fugue, but the fugue doesn't seem to agree with my left hand too well, so i'm thinking of doing either the soler or scarlatti (in E), although i haven't got the music for either of them yet, so there could be some nasty bits that don't make themselves obvious in the recording.

Anyway, if anyone has some advice/opinions on what i should do, it would be much appreciated, because at this rate i'm going to be doing about 20 different pieces.

Maybe just take the time to enjoy doing about 20 different pieces and building a repertoire you enjoy rather than worry about taking some exam.

Yeh, well i'll do that for now, but i'm starting 6th form in september and i doubt i'll have time to keep up too many pieces at once.

I'm SO with you on that. The prelude is glorious - fantastic sounding and fits under the hands really well, but the fugue is just like 'eh'!

I've pretty much given up on that one (for now anyway) as i finally found the music for the soler sonata. Is it just me being stupid, or do you have to play half of it with your hands crosses over - it's really confusing me!

I think lots of things in the bass clef need to be played in the RH and other parts from the treble clef need to be played in the LH. I can't be bothered with it, I don't think.

It took me a while to get my hands used to it as well, my teacher really pushed me to do this one because i haven't really done any polyphonic stuff before.

All she said was to let that main melodic idea sing out in the fugue, make the hand that's playing it quite a bit louder than the other.

Good stuff though

Yeahh, I did this piece....
What a beauty!!
Yes, you have the static right hand playing the alberti bass type thing, with the left hand jumping all over the place!!!

I starting to get used to the whole crossed over thing now. But the 'left hand plays the bit on the bottom' instinct makes sight-reading it almost impossible for me, so i'm trying to completely memorise the right hand, then hopefully i can just concentrate on the left

Yeah definately! That's what I did, memorised the whole first two pages as I found it IMPOSSIBLE to play with the music, but good luck!!

I can play the first page pretty much perfectly (but slower) from memory now Second page is coming along well too.

Which B piece did you do? I really don't know which to choose. First i thought Clementi, then Mozart wasn't too hard and also nice. The only problem i have found with these is that, if anything they're a bit too easy (just hard enough to have to work on them to get them to a good enough standard, but not enough of a challenge to really motivate me to practice them for months), so i thought the Haydn would be good for a challenge, so i've spent most of this evening playing through that one. But i'm not really sure if this is sensible really seeing as the others would be a lot easier. Any thoughts?

Well, i started with the F major Mozart. But, I played it at a music festival in Norfolk, and it went really badly so I gave up on that, then started on the C Major which I found, slighty easy, but more easy to play well. As my problem with the f major was that i played it toooo romantically!!
Yeah, i have to agree the Haydn (in the book) is a beast to play!! Its such a nice piece, but finger/scale work is definately NOTT my forte, so i didnt even attempt learning it. I can play it through, but yeah, if you're good at finger work and stuff the Haydn is good!
But if you're referring to the the Alt piece, then im not sure!
But yes, the Mozarts are considerably easier than the rest. My teacher told me the Haydn (book) was almost a dip piece!

Sorry, didn't realise there was an alternative Haydn piece, so yeah, the one in the book. Almost a dip piece!! but I'll persevere with it for a little bit for now at least.

What about the 2 Beethoven movements in the alternative pieces list? Anybody tried them out?Any thoughts?