Deborah - I am impressed if this fugue does not scare you. I have been looking at it recently and I think it is tougher than the choices of Bach P&F's for DipABRSM and LRSM!
Sticks to No 9!

Tom, you misunderstand - I never said I wasn't scared of it, just not as scared as I once was! It's a real finger-twister.

P&F No. 9 -

I gave up on the Bach Fugue - I found it too hard. The Shostakovitch P + F is very nice, but again too difficult. I don't think I'll ever master any P +F. I finally settled for the Scarlatti E-maj sonata which is much easier. The Copland from list C is a brilliant piece and very straight-forward, even at full speed. Jason (or anyone else playing it) - how do you find the Haydn? I think it seems quite hard compared to the rest of list B - it is doable but I find the speed of it quite a big problem - managing only about 3/4 speed.

The Mozart options may suit you more than the Haydn. I suspect K332 is the most popular in Grade 8 B list.

I entirely agree that from my point of view exams are best used as a tool, to be used for monitoring progress, not as an end in themselves. However I fail to see the point in taking an exam if you aren't going to do everything you can to pass it. To me that includes 'appropriate' piece selection. Having said that, I would quite happily have played almost everything from all three lists, so picking the one with the best likely mark is no hardship for me. I would entirely agree that the time spent preparing for a grade 8 (or any other) exam would be purgatory if you were learning a piece you didn't like, but I rather assumed that a player at that level would have a wide enough range of tastes to accommodate "the highest likely mark" within the range they are prepared to play. Indeed, I might also venture that a piece you don't like playing is unlikely to yield the best available mark.



I'm feeling quite good about this now: Over the weekend I had a real blitz on this and have now played it right through on at least 3 occasions, at full tempo and so far as I can tell note perfect!!. Usually I make at least half a dozen note errors, but not usually the same ones each time these days. Also, I'm starting to be able to bring out the subject when it appears in one of the middle voices: That's hard!! Then there's the terraced dynamics idea that my teacher introduced me to. So much to do before July, and that's just the Bach!!

Interestingly the Haydn (if you mean the Eb sonata) is also on the DipABRSM list - in its entirety. I wondered why it seemed quite easy...

I'm finding the haydn really enjoyable to play but getting the scale runs up to speed may be a difficulty,the copland I've looked at a bit. I think I'm going to work on the haydn before looking at the A list again and then start properly the copland

I've just looked at the prelude by bach in the A list and it looks awfully familiar.

I just noticed an interesting post by Maizie in the Ask the Chief Examiner thread which points out
that the general regulations say that:
Candidates should use their discretion in the choice of pieces in order to present a contrasted and balanced programme
However, this is not obviously marked as you say.
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?s=&s...st&p=680805

Personally I've not selected pieces in my previous exams to try to give a complete programme, the only thing I've done is to choose the order of the pieces in a way that seems to make sense.

It is always a good idea to offer a balanced programme, even if the rules do not specifically require it. If you play three similar pieces, the examiner will get more and more critical, if you offer pieces that jar with each other it will put the examiner in a fould mood, if you create a balanced programme th recital will be enjoyable, and that cannot do any harm to your marks.

Besides, you are supposed to be developing as a MUSICIAN, and part of that is putting together an entertaining and satisfying programme - not a mish-mash of stuff that you just happen to be able to play well.

I'm now doing the Bach on the A list because I like it a lot more now. I've heard it before now as well, I just can't think where. No one was doing grade 8 in college last year/ before that.

Hey guys,

It's fascinating to read the choices people are making for grade 8 piano, and their reasons for choosing them.

Personally, and after much indecision, I have settled on:

List A

Handel Prelude & Gigu in F# Minor (Can't beat Handel for drama, and in on e of my favourite keys)

List B

Haydn Sonata in C (my fave composer - so witty and lively)

List C

Brahms Intermezzo in E (contrasts with the other two, and quite moody)

Good luck everyone,

Mine too !

Has anyone else noticed that Shostakovich's Prelude and Fugue in A, Op. 87 No. 7, which is on List A for Grade 8 is also on the repertoire list for the LRSM? (Well there are probably lots of other examples if you look for them systematically)

I wonder ... in what ways do they expect it to be better played at LRSM level?

Mad Tom,

Yes, I noticed the Shostakovich crops up at LRSM level too. I'm not sure if it's a case of 'how much better should it be played at LRSM level'; more a case of 'if anyone is brave/crazy/deluded enough to choose this piece at Grade 8, then best of luck to them...'

I love that Prelude & Fugue, but after getting hold of a copy, I promptly gave up any hope of doing it at grade 8, with a heavy heart... so difficult to pull off, especially under pressure.

denmark

Yes the prelude is OK, but the fugue theme is quite a big stretch, and it doesnt half pass through a lot of different keys. But the son of one of my work colleagues is tackling it for Grade 8. Nos 5 and 11 have been set previously , and its harder than those.

For one thing it's one of a pair at LRSM. Also, I suspect greater accuracy and clarity of articulation will be expected, probably a tad faster, perhaps greater clarity of terraced dynamics etc. I think that although this is a prelude and fugue, it's still 20th century and not baroque, so some emotional interpretation will not be out of place. Above all I would expect a feeling that this is being played for a concert, not an exam: For grade 8, 20/30 (averaged out) gets you a pass, 24 gets you a merit, 26 a distinction. I would expect an LRSM performance to be worth at least 29 and even that would be for a borderline pass - "Why did you drop a mark? What went wrong?".

On the other hand, what do I know?


Hmm. I seem to get the feeling that quite a few people feel that the whole exam list is a trifle tougher than usual - the Bach, the Scarlatti, the Schubert, the Brahms, the Rachmaninov, to name but a few. Like a lot of things, it's hard if you can't play it but gets easier when you can.

The Haydn piece in Eb is so pretty!
But so difficult that I wouldn't dare choose it

I chose B7, Mozart

My thoughts exactly!

Haydn's Eb sonata Hob XVI/52 is such a magnificent piece ... and in the long run it is no harder than the Mozart. You don't have to play is as fast as Glenn Gould! John McCabe plays it much slower in his landmark recording of all Haydn's sonatas, and it sounds every bit as good, if not better.

But the Mozart is great too. There is some good advice on how to play it in:

Mozart and the Pianist by Michael Davidson (Kahn & Averill. London 2001)

What a great list B it is this year. Spoiled for choice. I love them all.

I am doing the Haydn Eb for my G8 this Friday. Once you get into it it's not that bad, but I do play it slightly slower than the CD. Interestingly this is also on the LRSM syllabus (but the whole thing).
The Gershwin seems difficult for G8 - it seems harder than either of the two pieces from the same book listed for diploma.

I Got Rhythm at least looks superficially easier but at speed (prestissimo) there are some parts that are a degree of magnitude harder: For example, in one place on the second page there is a chromatic descending phrase for 4 bars which is in more or less four parts: Imagine the hardest sections of the 4 part Bach fugue set for grade 8 this year and then double the speed! Nonetheless, these two pieces are on the (long) list of things I might learn after grade 8 is out of the way!

I take your point about "I got rhythm", but certainly "The Man I love" is easier I think - it's very slow and whilst it requires a high degree of feeling the only reason I see for it being Diploma is because of the 3 staves - but it's quite obvious what to pedal and when.
Also, compared to quite a lot of list C "Liza" seems pretty hard, but I've not really had that much of a proper go at it.

I take it back. I just bought a CD of Alfred Brendel playing the Bagatelles. They are all wonderful.

I should have known better. The only thing "naff" was my feeble and misguided efforts to play them. So just possibly, everything Beethoven wrote IS marvelous.

Maybe it was just a crummy interpretation of the incidental music to Faust. But can you imagine that the composer of the Bb and C sharp minor string quartets (Op 130 and 131) is capable of anything less than marvelous? I am having to learn Viola just so I can have the experience of playing those - as my attempts at piano transcriptions are rather feeble - it is like trying to translate French poetry into English. It is something Liszt ought to have done for us instead of wasting his talent on his Wagner transcriptions.

In a fit of financial madness I also, at the same time, bought the Brendel and Barenboim sets of the pianos sonatas (And Argerich playing Chopin's Preludes, and Poulenc's major piano works ... ). I take back anything derogatory I ever said about Barenboim in a different thread, or anywhere else for that matter. His playing is wonderful.

My hearing must be improving with age, or perhaps the better I learn to play the piano the more I appreciate just how good the Barenboims, Brendels, Arraus, Perls, Taubs, ... and all the rest of the great pianists actually are or were. So five full sets of Beethoven sonatas! At this rate I may have to delete Motley Crue and the Backstreet Boys from my iPod!

And five very different ways of playing. (All better than me I am sad to say as, I suspect, are the other 30+ full sets that are currently available).