Those of you that play this etude - how fast do you take it?

I have been working on this for some time, and was considering including it ifor my LRSM programme, but I don't know how fast it needs to be. At crotchet=120 or less it is quite comfortable and very accurate. I can still retain accuracy up to about crotchet = 135, which sounds pretty fast. By 140 it is beginning to fall apart. I think I will eventually be able to give a clean and accurate rendition at 140 or a little above, but doubt I will ever manage it faster than that. Not this year or next anyway.

The fastest recording I have found so far is by Pollini. It sounds insanely quick, but it is still only crotchet=154!

The score indicates crotchet=176

I can't find any recordings of anyone playing it that quickly, and I can imagine it would sound quite ridiculous if anyone did.

So:

1. Is the tempo marking in the score serious?
2. Does anyone know of a recording at that speed (or approaching it)?
3. How fast do you play it?
4. What is the LRSM examiner going to think of a rendition at crotchet=140 or thereabouts?

Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this

<--- 135, 136, 137, 138, .....

I've heard great variation. I'm wondering what speeds these are played at?

Valentina Lisitsa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLBN2ZKnVo8

Ashkenazy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpZr_cbYbXo

Lisitsa is capable of electrifying speeds, but is within herself here - which might suggest that the crotchet=176 need not be strictly adhered to. Is there not a degree of interpretation allowable even at LRSM level, as long as the piece sits together well?

Incidentally, I was 'messing around' with this this morning. It is well beyond me, and I was playing the melody at around crotchet=100, and still stumbling now and again. It was quite pathetic

Could you get a copy and speed it up on the computer to see roughly what it would sound like at the indicated speed?

I don't play this but after listening to it I might try

By tomorrow I'll most likely have consigned it to the bottom shelf again in a rage

Good luck Tom. I probably wouldn't worry too much about taking it so much faster as long as you have it at a reasonable speed and it sounds musical.

Speeding up a recording raises the pitch. Next time I am in the UK I could record it in MIDI from the electric piano - it should be possible to speed that up without any pitch change. Or I could import the score into Sibelius ... if I ever upgrade my Mac from 10.3.9 so that the latest Sibelius will run. Neither would be as good as hearing a good performance at high speed.

Thanks

I've been working, drudgingly, on six etudes from the Opus 10. Numbers 2,3,4,6,9 and 12. God only knows when or if I'll finish them. But unless you have a brilliant judgement of the keyboard without having the briefest glance I have found the 1st to be a very tall order. I have also found this to be my undoing in a Chopin prelude, the 19th i think. I read in an interview with Ashkenazy that the first etude was one piece he was not over confident about playing in public.

I struggled with all the Chopin Etudes for years until I bought the Cortot versions a few months ago. The preliminary exercises are quite brilliant, and really do develop the specific type of co-ordination that is needed for each study. For example just one week with the Cortot exercises (and a couple of pointers from my teacher) transformed my playing of No 7 from total junk to reasonably presentable. I still use the fingerings from the Paderewski edition though (where they differ from Cortot's)

No brilliant judgement I am afraid, just lots and lots of repetition at a variety of speeds, so that the fingers know where they are going. And at least there is really only one hand to concentrate on.

You'd never guess it from his demeanour!

176 is insane . . . so it's probably right!!

Seriously though (and this is a question born of genuine ignorance), when it was written clocks were already amazingly accurate (thanks to the needs of navigation and the work of such as John Harrison) but were metronomes? In other words, is it possible that Chopin's metronome settings were OK for his metronome, which was simply wrong??

I checked those two out:

Ashkenazy crotchet = 147
Lisitza crotchet = 148
and a couple of others a little slower than Pollini
Peter Nero crotchet = 151
Dong-Hyek Lim crotchet = 152

but a YouTube search (rather than thumbing through the CD collection on my iPod) turns up some faster performances than Pollini - though none of them sounds anywhere near as good.

Lots more YouTube performances in the 148-154 range. Some of the unknown amateurs sound just as good as the professsionals

Christian Kvetkovic crotchet = 155 (impressive, but a bit ragged - too fast to control in places)
Bayram Karmenderes crotchet=157
Boris Berezovsky crotchet=159-162 (starts fast, slows down for a tricky bit, speeds up at the end)
Freddy Kempf crotchet=163 is the fastest I could find (and it is too fast for him in places)

Dong-Hyek Lim's performance is the most enjoyable to listen to. Lisitza's is the most enjoyable to watch

No-one gets anywhere near crotchet=176. (Then again, no-one is as slow as 135-140)

<-- 147 or bust. Pass the cue

Hi MadTom,
I once heard from a former violin teacher of mine that Dinu Lipatti was an authority on Chopin. You might check out what his speed is. I haven't got any recordings to check myself.
However, in general terms, considering that great piano-players can afford such freedom and that speed is indeed very subjective, I think I'd go for a speed which enables me to play it comfortably without letting details be lost (see what John Meffen has to say about speed in his book "How to Improve your Technique", I think the name is).
Best,

John

Op.10 no.1 is the only Chopin study I have learnt . I use it every now and again as a warm-up, playing it at half speed. It's a tremendous piece, and an incredible challenge - well done for taking it on! I might only add that a few of the tempi in my edition of the studies are, in my opinion, detrimental to the music. I am thinking especially of Op.10, no.8, which is marked as crotchet = 160 (if I had the greatest technique in the world, I would still perform it at 80-85% of the speed that most professionals play it). As for Op.10, no.1, choose whichever speed allows you effortless control of the colour of the arpeggios and chorale melody of the left hand. Somewhere on Youtube there is a video of Cziffra launching into this study, and although it's a fast performance, the choppiness of his playing misses the musical point of the work.

The Chopin Etudes are still on my to-do list, so without really knowing properly what the specific difficulties are, I'd say don't get bogged down in the speed of this - and I am using the word 'speed' deliberately as opposed to tempo, because if you're pushing the tempo beyond what's comfortable it will always sound like 'speed'. I got talking to an examiner at a time when I was struggling to get the Fantasie Imprompu up to the speed of most performances I'd heard (never did manage...), with regard to how it would be accepted in a diploma at a slower tempo, and his response was that one should never substitute precision for speed. And he also said that Chopin would probably turn in his grave if he thought people were using a metronome with his music at all!

Many thanks to everyone that has taken the trouble to make suggestions, observations, and offer insights on this thread.

Putting aside the possibility that Chopin had an inaccurate metronome, the general consensus seems to be that the important things is to play musically, and accurately, and not to strive after a speed target because of a number in a score. Certainly not to sound rushed or frantic.


This is a big help. Now I can stop beating myself up for trying and failing to get anywhere near a target speed that, even if it is not impossible, is probably not desirable.

It looks like most of the pro's take that view too. It really sounds best in the crotchet = 145 to 155 range.

Thanks again

I don't know if this will be of any help, but I played Chopin's op. 25 no.1 etude for an LTCL exam 19 years ago and I am sure I played it just about note-perfectly at an appropriate speed; however,it did not meet the required standard needed to pass - the examiners stated that 'technically, it had a lot going for it, but it lacked the necessary poise'. So, I would say that it is not so much the speed that matters but what you do with the music.

I have heard about that Cortot book, will have to check it out. As for Berezovsky, I think his recording of the etudes is among the finest and certainly my favourite, the first one is just stunning.

While we are on the subject of Chopin, can anyone recommend any CD's worthy of listening to?

Arthur Rubinstein's a good place to start.

Sorry, got the quotes completely wrong with the last post. I only meant to send the final paragraph.

It is published by Salabert, but I got mine from: Sheet Music Online in the USA (www.sheetmusic1.com). I had forgotten all about them until someone reminded me of them in a reply to a post several months ago.

There are two separate books, one covering Op 10, the other Op 25. They include both the exercises AND the scores of the etudes. So far as I know the exercises are not published separately. Each volume costs 22.95 USD (plus shipping).

There are French and English editions, so make sure that you don't order the wrong one by mistake.

It took about three weeks for them to arrive.


Re: speed of Op. 10 No. 1, I reckon that it all comes down to how well you KNOW it. Every few days I realise that I know more precisely exactly where the fingers are going, exactly what distance they have to move, precisely the adjustments the hand shape has to make, and it is a weird experience to see and hear the piece becoming more accurate, smoother, more even, and of course faster. I have played it so many times I don't have to think about the notes at all. It is like the hands don't belong to me - they just take off and do these amazing things, and I just pass down high level instructions, like, "let that tension go", "more even", "a little more quietly", "keep the tempo up"

Thanks Tom - I'll do a search. I can do that (just observe my hands) with some Bach (eg a few Goldberg Varns etc) and Mozart - ie my fingers just know it , and I'm almost on auto pilot. But that's exactly why I'm finding the Chopin so frustrating - I can play the notes, know where they go, have pretty much memorised it - but I could never play it in public. Perhaps I should give up listening to Pollini? Sigh..

If you go to Valentina Lisitsa's website you can purchase a DVD of her playing the Etudes - very well worth the money - also available on Amazon.com I think. I bought it together with the Schubert/Liszt "Schwanengesang" which is an earlier DVD, and not so well recorded (though beautifully played)

Edward

Cheers RAI

You might also enjoy a Horowitz CD (Sony) which includes a selection of etudes.

I don't think you should view metronome markings as strict, at least in what todays metronomes work like. Actually someone mentioned it on the ABRSM boards when I asked a question about Bach's markings in his scores (if memory serves right) and that proves to be pretty much correct. I think if you look at some of Mozart Sonata's and the respective crotchet values given, it wouldn't make much sense. Also something like the black key's etude is marked insanely fast; it would clearly sound like ice-cream van music and it would be unmusical and incomprehensible IMO.

Besides, mind-blurringly fast isn't always an indication of musicality. It's an indication of technique and mechanical accuracy (i.e. Lang Lang not Hamelin for instance, some people may well disagree on this, rightly so) but not phrasing and expression. The 'Revolutionary etude' should be played as fast as you are comfortable, to begin with. I think, gradually, you begin to grow tired of your slow-speeds (assumption here) and get faster anyway, at least this what is most natural. Crotchet=140 is not slow!!! by any means!

I own a collection of Ashkenazy playing Chopin, can't remeber the exact title I'll have to look it up, but by my opinion that is exactly what to listen to if you want to play Chopin. It's odd how the etude are not in order of difficulty though. I would grade prelude 19 similar to the butterfly etude at least in the difficulty and figurations.

Another essay here, sorry. Hope you are able to pick the useful information from this.

Sorry, I didn't mean 'butterfly etude' I mean Op.25 No1

Problem solved - Question answered

Apart from a couple of artistically placed rallentandos Cziffra played it (Op 10 No 1) at 173, just 3 metronome points short of Chopin's indicated 176. It is note-perfect, the dynamics are controlled, and it sounds effortless. And he seemed to have tons of speed in reserve. He could probably have played it at 200 if he had wanted to show off. It didn't actually sound much quicker than a typical performance at 150ish - until syncing it with the metronome showed just how quickly he was really going. And it works as a piece of music at that speed too - it is not just a display. So Chopin was not mad, his metronome was probably accurate, and when he wrote 176, he meant it!

It is on Great Pianists of the 20th Century: Cziffra - published by Philips

Incidentally it is hard to believe that fingers can move as fast as he takes some others: like Op 10 No 4

I should have looked at Cziffra first - he is one of my heroes - even though he died in 1991, along with Arrau, and half a dozen other great pianists.


Hey-ho, back to work
<--- 130, 170, crash, 130, 170, crash, ...

Whos Etude and why are you chopping them :S

OK I finally found what I remembered seeing on YouTube for this thread;

this etude at breakneck speed

The clip is less than 2 minutes and half of it is the guy readying himself to play

the comments are hilarious. See also here

There are people who think speed=artistry, see this site.........
it's a wide world out there..........

Don't do it Mad T!

OMG! I can't play it anything like as fast as that - indeed I can barely play it even at a snails pace, but despite playing at the speed of a stunned tortoise I still think I can give a more musical rendition than that!

Sorry I couldn't watch it all - I could only take 30s (of the so-called playing) before I hit the red button.

well if you were listening to it at 12:30 am no wonder it was unbearable. I guess I'd hit the stop bottom then as well.

At afternoon tea time it was kind of monty python-esque. What's so funny is he winds up to it like it's a
boxing match, it's so wildly inappropriate that I had to laugh. Ah well.

No the time had nothing to do with it. It is so BAD couldn't bear it at any time. (A lot of the piano playing on YouTube has the same effect. You wonder why they do it).