Chopin's "Fantasie Impromptu"

[this is Nuh]

I'm really sorry to post this in a Beethoven Discussion Forum, but I wasn't able to find any Forums/Boards related to Frederic Chopin, it won't happen again.

What do you pianists think of "Fantasie Impromptu" (op 66) ? Is it hard, etc. whatever comes to your mind..

Any response appreciated..

[Chris]

It's a technically challenging piece, I'd say, but not impossibly so. I like it. One of my favorite Chopin pieces, really.

[Peter]

Originally posted by this is Nuh:

What do you pianists think of "Fantasie Impromptu" (op 66) ? Is it hard, etc. whatever comes to your mind..

Any response appreciated..

Well it's not easy - For starters make sure you can accurately fit 3 against 4! It is of course great fun if you can do it, and the main tune is glorious.


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'Man know thyself'

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by this is Nuh:
I'm really sorry to post this in a Beethoven Discussion Forum, but I wasn't able to find any Forums/Boards related to Frederic Chopin, it won't happen again.

I wouldn't worry. Some of us talk about a good deal of other music and art besides Beethoven here, and so we far haven't been asked to cut it out or leave by the administrators...not yet at least. I think Beethoven may be said to be our guiding spirit rather than sole topic.

[Chris]

As the rules (at the top of every page) state, topics regarding Classical music in general are allowed in the this forum.

[dice45]

Oops,then i am an awful threadjacker, with my talk about Jazz and history and how others than LvB fit into that

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Greets,
Bernhard

[spaceray]

Originally posted by dice45:
Oops,then i am an awful threadjacker, with my talk about Jazz and history and how others than LvB fit into that

Nonsense Bernhard ,I've enjoyed reading your postings and particularly your list of great Germans,Joy and Chazzs's Americans as well as Peter's Englishmen.
Recently we have read discussions on the merits of The band Queen,Kubrick's Clockwork Orange and other movies last summer there was a discussion on electric guitars,I think people have talked about computers not to mention your intrest in audio (I can highly recomend a visit to Bernhard's web site ,I didn't understand a word of it but it was fasinating none the less )as well as your view of Vinyl .How big is your record and cd collection?

[dice45]

spaceray,
you force me into braggin mode ...

about 50 shellac (sets), some very famous recordings among them, e.g. Brahms violin concerto with Fritz Kreisler and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with Oscar Levant and some Beethoven String Qartets with the Budapest String Quartet.

More than 1500 vinyls. about 40-50% of them 1st pressings or 2nd pressings.

Records i do not like, with bad music on it are not counted, no matter how they sound they are weeded out and put on a stack. Life is too short for bad music.
If the stack is high enough, say, 20cm, i can use the records to make a turntable platter out of it. For a TT with terrific sonics but looking like (made from ) crap

Phono:
About 20 fancy phono cartridges. One almost new Koetsu Urushi and one still intact vdHul Supex 1000 among them. Unfortunately two top-notch cartridges with spherical stylus still missing. One for pre1956 vinyl and one for shellac. A new job and money will bring that somewhen, i am patient.

This Koetsu thingie is a crossing between a Stradivary and a Guarnieri and Michael Schumacher's Ferrari, genetically converted to a phono cartridge
Its tone colours have a saturation beyond comprehension and its dynamics hit you like a car accident. In between it seduces you and beams you into the music.It's just music happening, you don't think about HiFi. For hours if not days.
Nevertheless, different music, different records from different eras require different cartridges, that's why i am talking about it.
If i play Koussevitzky's Beethoven 5th from 1949 with the Koetsu's razor-sharp stylus, i destroy the record and the music: the groove profile calls for a big, spherical stylus. Hence distortions are almost unbearable with the modern sharp stylus.

Each cartridge and also each record label / pressing asks for a different vertical tracking angle. That fact and the desire to have the right cartridge mounted and playing on best possible level of quality within few minutes led me to my fancy tonearm designs.

Now you tell me i am crazy. Well, tell me something new

Methinks there is a market for such and noone has tonearms like mine. Parameters can be easily dialed in and reproduced. not like with other tonearms where proper adjustment drives you crazy, takes half a day and if you loosen the wrong screw or change the cartridge, all adjustments are gone and lost.

Oops forgot to complete, less than 50 CDs.
To me CD is there to fill voids, to get music i could not hunt down on vinyl, to get music never issued on vinyl. Recent Anner Bylsma recording for instance.

Compressed digital: no MP3 at all for me, for compressed format i strongly prefer MiniDisc. I have a nice stack of MDs for travelling. Really nice performances.
I prefer MD even to shop-bought CD players. Not kidding.


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Ok, back to music,
Nuh,
if you are after Chopin in general, see that you lay your hands on performances by Maurizio Pollini ... and if you do not get Pollini, Martha Argerich will do. And if you should step into Wilhelm Backhaus performances (yes, Chopin!), grab them.

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Greets,
Bernhard

[spaceray]

I don't understand what you mean by shellac ,would this be 78rpm .

[dice45]

spaceray,

yes,shaellac is 78 rpm. ideally.
Back in those days, standardization was not considered to be important. Hence 78 can mean anything between 60rpm and 120.9rpm ...
but in most cases it's close to 78.26 rpm

Should you have or find them Be careful with them, they break eeeezy.
But the groove is far more rugged than vinyl grooves. If not flexed, shellacs are incredibly wearproof.

Shellac era and Alfred Cortot: his Chopin performances are defintiely worth a try, some folks say, Cortot is it for Chopin (i do not fully agree) ... look for re-issues on CD

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Greets,
Bernhard

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by Peter:
Well it's not easy - For starters make sure you can accurately fit 3 against 4! It is of course great fun if you can do it, and the main tune is glorious.

In reference to 3 against 4 how would you recomend a student to practice getting that rhythm correctly? (I am thinking in terms of the slow movement of Beethoven's 1st Piano Sonata--the 3 vs 4 confounds me in this lovely work!)

[Peter]

Originally posted by Sorrano:

In reference to 3 against 4 how would you recomend a student to practice getting that rhythm correctly? (I am thinking in terms of the slow movement of Beethoven's 1st Piano Sonata--the 3 vs 4 confounds me in this lovely work!)

There are 2 ways of doing it Mathematical and Musical:

Split the beat into 12

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 / 1 etc

group of 3 comes on 1, 5 & 9
group of 4 comes on 1,4, 7 & 10

Musical way Just play each hand separately several times only from one beat to next, then fit together.

Let me know if this helps - it should do though it isn't so easy putting it into words as it is to demonstrate in person.

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'Man know thyself'

[This message has been edited by Peter (edited December 07, 2002).]

[John Rasmussen]

Originally posted by Sorrano:

In reference to 3 against 4 how would you recomend a student to practice getting that rhythm correctly? (I am thinking in terms of the slow movement of Beethoven's 1st Piano Sonata--the 3 vs 4 confounds me in this lovely work!)

Hands separately at first, and get it real good with each hand. Then "let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." (Matthew 6:3) That's the only way I can play such things.

[Gurn Blanston]

Dice 45 wrote:
Oops,then i am an awful threadjacker, with my talk about Jazz and history and how others than LvB fit into that
Gerhard,
I am new to this forum and missed that. Was there any discussion in there about Sonata #32 and the jazzy way it sounds? I have thought since the first time I heard it that if one was unaware of who and when it originated, one would think it a much more modern piece, and a progenitor of some "jazzy" piano styles. I am absolutley unable to choose a favorite sonata, but this one makes the short list, just for the second movement (though the first is pretty fine, too ;-))
Regards, Gurn

[dice45]

Gurn,
if you are after a (veeery) jazzy version of op.111, look for Friedrich Gulda's performance. Due to that, my schoolmates used to call op.111 the swing sonata.

Meeehh big jazz fan but methinks that just because Beethoven wrote some fancy syncopating-around there, it is not justified to pull this mvmnt thru the coffee that way.
I see way more links between J.S.Bach and Jazz than is with Beethoven. Have a look at the Modern Jazz Quartet's cross-overing between Jazz and Bach, quite interesting and the best one around, to my taste. Ok, PlayBach is not bad either, but wears soon, atleast for me.

My favourite performer for op.111 as well as for op.106 is Solomon. If you compare Gulda and Solomon, well, form your own judgement wat gets lost by the jazzing-around. Oh, and if you are after a really mean treatment, listen 1st to Ivo Pogorelic, then to Gulda, then to Solomon. After that, you got a comprehension how performance makes-or-breaks it.

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Greets,
Bernhard