Anyone played "A Thérèse" ?

[Bux]

My son - 12 years, having played the piano for 6 - has just started on the opus 78 (on the second movement first, and with his teacher's blessings). Until now he has played a lot of Bach, his big love (WTC I and II, Art of Fugue, Goldberg, Suites, etc.) and latest Haydn, hob.XVI/37, but never before Beethoven!

I'm sure he would be grateful for any advice...

[Peter]

Difficult without hearing him play but well done for getting this far. Perhaps a rather odd choice to introduce Beethoven's piano music, but slow steady practice of those right hand semiquavers keeping them even and separated in pairs with a slight dip of the wrist against a very legato left hand will pay huge dividends.

[Bux]

Perhaps a rather odd choice to introduce Beethoven's piano music (...)

His own choice in fact after having heard and read through most of the other sonatas. His teacher had suggested 'Pathetique' but left the final choice up to him. (Wonder what she would have said, though, had he chosen the Hammerklavier... )

But your answer does seem to raise a whole other and very interesting question: where is the correct place to start; is there a sonata better suited than other for Beethoven-starters? Remember, he's not a beginner exactly.

Anyway, thanks a lot for your reply, Peter!

[Peter]

Again a lot would depend on hearing him and his teacher's choice of the Pathetique seems sensible to me as it presents plenty of opportunity for good technical development essential for the other generally more difficult sonatas. I'm not sure that at his stage he needs pages of the sort of slurred semiquaver work in Op.78, but ultimately it is important to learn something you like! There are other Beethoven options ranging from bagatelles to variations that may serve better as an introduction to the sonatas.

[Bux]

I'm not sure that at his stage he needs pages of the sort of slurred semiquaver work

Peter, thanks again. I really value your opinion; you seem to be a very experienced pianist.

But with the risk of being tiresome, I have to ask you why you think he should have avoided those slurred semiquavers? Is it because you see a danger for his development in him playing them, or because they are in some way untypical?

Surely, you can't possibly mean that they are technical too difficult to do properly? I have the impression that he finds them quite easy and fun to play (especially fast); they represent something new, a fresh and different challenge, something he hasn't encountered with Bach.

[Peter]

Well once again it is difficult to answer your question without hearing your son play. He is young and there can be enormous differences in the progress made by a 12 year old - Saint-Saens could play all the Beethoven sonatas from memory at 10! Obviously his teacher is happy for him to do that sonata (and it is a really lovely one) and more to the point he is enjoying it. My only point is that it wouldn't have been my first choice as an introduction to Beethoven. As to the slurs they'll come in very useful when he does Op.31 no.2.

[Preston]

Saint-Saens could play all the Beethoven sonatas from memory at 10!

That is amazing.

I do not know much about Saint-Saens. Although, I have heard numerous times that he was technically and formally brilliant.

[Bux]

Saint-Saens could play all the Beethoven sonatas from memory at 10

Amazing indeed, almost incredible - and hard to verify today, more than 150 years later.

May I ask from where you have got this information, Peter? Wikipedia says "As an encore, Saint-Saëns offered to play any one of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas by memory (...)" writing about a concert he gave when he was ten or eleven, but there is no reference given to this citation. The Spanish and Italian do repeat it but also without reference. The French Wikipedia doesn't mention it at all (!) and neither do a couple of other French links to Saint-Saëns I found.

And even if it is true - that he (or someone else speaking for him from the stage) gave that offer - it doesn't necessarily mean that he would have been able to play whatever sonata mentioned. He could still have chosen as he wanted between the many suggestions from the audience.

[Peter]

Amazing indeed, almost incredible - and hard to verify today, more than 150 years later.

May I ask from where you have got this information, Peter? Wikipedia says "As an encore, Saint-Saëns offered to play any one of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas by memory (...)" writing about a concert he gave when he was ten or eleven, but there is no reference given to this citation. The Spanish and Italian do repeat it but also without reference. The French Wikipedia doesn't mention it at all (!) and neither do a couple of other French links to Saint-Saëns I found.

And even if it is true - that he (or someone else speaking for him from the stage) gave that offer - it doesn't necessarily mean that he would have been able to play whatever sonata mentioned. He could still have chosen as he wanted between the many suggestions from the audience.

I can't recall the source but why so skeptical especially as his incredible gifts in later life are well documented? We live in such a cynical age but there are perfectly verified accounts of extraordinary prodigies such as Chopin's favourite pupil Carl Filtsch who died tragically young at 15. A friend of Chopin's, Ferdinand Denis, reported in an article in Vienna's Der Humorist in February 1843 that on one occasion after listening to Filtsch, Chopin exclaimed, "My God! What a child! Nobody has ever understood me as this child has...It is not imitation, it is the same sentiment, an instinct that makes him play without thinking as if it could not have been any other way. He plays almost all my compositions without having heard me [play them], without being shown the smallest thing - not exactly like me [because he has his own cachet], but certainly not less well." Incidentally a concerto movement by Filtsch has recently been discovered.

Other outstanding examples are Jozef Hofmann and Charles Alkan who entered the Paris conservatoire at 6. Beethoven of course knew all 48 Bach preludes and Fugues from memory at 13 and Mendelssohn was writing masterworks such as the Octet and the Overture to a Midsummer night's dream as a teenager.