Music Discussion thread

[Froge]

Although this kind of made me want to go and learn this piece just so I can feel better about my skills and more justified in criticizing hers. So thanks for that, I guess.

Despite the rumours surrounding this piece, it's not too difficult. I learned how to play it a couple years ago, but I could never play it well. The piece requires a lot of stamina (the right hand almost never rests) and you have to be very skilled at elucidating accented notes. Despite the flowing nature of this piece, it is better that you play it crisp and clear than to make the notes sound garbled.

Sorry guys, I saw music and I couldn't resist posting D: here, have another song Piano Concerto in E Minor Op. 11 No. 1

This is probably my favourite piece of music from Chopin.

And yet I really do respect Gould and his performance of Moonlight movement 1 is maybe the best there is. I dislike the agonizingly slow and pathetic manner the piece is normally played in. Not only because it is the exact opposite of what Beethoven intended I just feel the piece loses all of its momentum and ends up being a little boring. Compare every version you've ever heard of it to:

Glenn Gould is a bit of an odd pianist (I have done a bit of research on him before, as the conservatory of music here in Canada actually has a special school named after Gould). I'm not a fan of Gould, since as you know I much prefer listening to romantic era music than the baroque era, and Gould is mainly a Bach pianist. I've listened to his interpretations of Bach's prelude and fugues before and I think he does play very fast.

The wikipedia entry for Glenn Gould notes that he rejected all romantic era music after he graduated with the performer's diploma.

I don't like Gould's interpretation of the moonlight sonata. It feels like he's not even trying to understand the music as Beethoven intended it and is instead playing the sonata as if it was written in the Baroque era. The notes are very clear but, as you said, they carry very little weight. That said, the faster tempo is indeed refreshing compared to the normally slow playing of the sonata, but to be honest, I prefer that a piece makes me feel something rather than that it is played at exactly the intended tempo and with the intended dynamics.

As Schiff explains in his lecture, by using the pedal so extensively the harmony becomes so blurred as to blend together somewhat, and the end result is a really haunting kind of sadness, rather than the pathetic Romanticized sadness that seems to be emphasized by most pianists.

I wouldn't call the romanticized sadness "pathetic," but the 'haunting' sadness is indeed very much preferable.