Piano Battle

Firstly, I would like to apologise to my opponent, the judges and other readers who have been affected by the multiple delays in starting the debate, as my progress had been impeded by pianistic and real-life factors alike. Secondly, I would like to extend my thanks again to my opponent, who has provided me with valuable advice about the piano during the course of this debate, in particular on my R3 piece. Thank you, missmozart - you are truly great. Before I begin, let me apologise also for the noisy pedal and the poor sound quality. I have abandoned some of the recordings which were especially poor in this regard, but my attempts to digitally remove the background noise ended up hurting the quality even more, so I apologise that I was unable to produce better-quality recordings. I will now proceed to introduce my pieces. R1) BaroqueJS BACH - I. Prelude from English Suite No. 3 . http://picosong.com... The English Suites were the first set of suites Bach composed for solo harpsichord, predating the French Suites and Partitas. Despite the popular name, the suites had little to do with the music of England; rather, it was so called because the pieces were written 'for an Englishman of rank'. Compared to Bach's later works, such as the French suites, this piece was relatively virtuosic. It alternates between powerful Tutti sections and flowing Soli sections with rapid, interwoven melodies. These themes are reused and developed throughout until the movement is pushed to a climax with long trills on the right hand, after which the beginning is recapitulated and the piece is drawn to a close. R2) ClassicalMOZART - I. Allegro from Piano Sonata No. 14b, K. 457 . http://picosong.com... This is opening movement of one of the two Mozart piano sonatas in a minor key, the other being the eighth, written shortly after the death of his mother. Unlike the eighth, however, the piece starts out powerful, with a series of ascending octaves forming the I chord: a technique known as the Mannheim rocket. Then descending theme with a strong tremolo accompaniment follows - reminiscent of Beethoven's 'Pathétique', which this sonata anticipates in many ways. This is followed by a modulation, an elegant cantabile section in the relative major. The songlike melody is quickly interrupted by joyous, rising passages. The first part of the piece concludes with the reappearance of the Mannheim rockets, which introduce the development section. As with most classical sonatas, this is harmonically the most unstable part of the movement and involves the various themes from the exposition. The piece settles down again with the recapitulation. This time, however, the Mannheim rockets before the cantabile section is broken up in a canon-like manner, and the joyous section thereafter is now back in the minor key, rather than the major. The movement ends in a triplet section and slowly dies away. In contrast with most other Mozart sonatas, this is piece is relatively solemn, and displays sophisticated thematic and harmonic development within the compact space of a single sonata movement. R3) Romantic CHOPIN - Mazurka No. 32, Op. 50, No. 3 . http://picosong.com... Chopin adored mazurkas, and this is apparent in the fact that he dedicated a huge chunk of his works - 57 pieces, to be exact - to them. Each mazurka is a miniature that incorporates folk Polish elements but whose complexity renders it unsuitable for dancing. The church-bell opening, with its canon-like interwoven melodies, introduces the listener to one of the most polyphonic of Chopin's mazurkas, followed by a short section with chordal accompaniments. After this part ends peacefully, however, a series of resounding chords fills the listener's ear, followed by a transition back to the original subject, this time complete with a contrapuntal left hand. The B section is quiet and waltz-like in nature, with a sostenuto section sandwiched between two appearances of a relatively lively theme. The A-section is repeated after a femata, but this time, after the transition, the listener is taken instead to a fantasia building first on the second part, then on the first part of the original theme. The church-bell opening is incorporated into a thick, polyphonic texture and rises upwards with repeated modulations until the piece's climax and subsequent coda. Here, I would like to thank my opponent again for her valuable advice, and I regret that I was not able to heed more of it in my playing. I tried focusing my energy on individual technical and musical problems while playing the piece. While that sounded okay when I played it, when I re-listened to myself in a recording, I found that this approach led me to ignore the overall beauty of the piece and resulted in very dull, unmusical playing. In the future, I will attempt to internalise these subtleties by repeatedly playing them in the intended style, but I am forced to abandon thempro tem. R4a) ModernBARTÓK - 'Ostinato' - No. 146 from Mikrokosmos, Sz. 107, BB 105. http://picosong.com... Although the 'Mikrokosmos' was primarily designed for pedagogical purposes - to serve as a series of études for the beginner pianist - the works of the two final volumes are sometimes performed as 'real' repertoire. In fact, Bartók arranged some of the pieces, including 'Ostinato', for piano four-hands. As the title suggests, this is an étude on ostinati, which appears in various forms throughout the piece. At the beginning, a single chord is repeated as the accompaniment while the right hand plays a playful tune. After a while, the chord is held for a longer time. Curiously, they are changed on the second halves of each beat. The right hand plays many variations on a single motif. After a transition, the ostinato accompaniment is broken up. The bass note remains repeated throughout, and a new voice appears above it. The right-hand melody is fragmentary and playful. After a powerful transition, the piece moves on to the more slower B section, which starts with a series of chords, then turns soft, with the right hand playing a variation on the first theme of the A section. After this part dies away, a series of accented notes on the right hand awaken the listener, and the chords on the left hand begins to show subtle signs of rising, with one of the notes in the chords rising one semitone at the time. Later, the left-hand chords rise until they are higher than the right-hand melody, at which the A section returns and the right-hand plays yet another variation on the original theme. This intensifies until the coda, when both hands begin falling gradually, both in volume and in pitch, until the final two bars. R4b) Pre-impressionistFAURÉ - Prelude, Op. 103, No. 4. http://picosong.com... This piece, like much of Fauré, draws on the modal language of the Renaissance. Charles Koechlin called it 'a guileless pastorale, flexible, with succinct and refined modulations'. One of the most innovative composers in Paris towards the end of the Romantic period, Fauré eschewed conservatism incorporated both modern and archaic elements into his works, an attitude that is given even fuller development in the oeuvre of his student Ravel. This is why I chose to label this piece as 'pre-impressionist'. Despite the pastoral nature of the piece, I regard it as an argument - a sarcastic but reserved quarrel between two friends, perhaps - on two levels. The first is between two conflicting time signatures: 3/4 and 6/8. Although the piece is notated 6/8, 3/4 bars appear alternatively throughout the piece, right from the beginning: in fact, the opening bar sounds more like 3/4 than 6/8, while the second bar is clearly 6/8. The second is between two conflicting themes, which Fauré weaved together elegantly into a single short piece. The two themes coexisted peacefully at first, but diverged significantly as they were given more development, until the argument finally turned heated - and faded away right after the climax, once the two friends had realised their differences were reconcilable. I chose this piece because it seemed technically less demanding - 'obvious' fingering solutions could be quickly found to tackle most of the tricky passages - which would allow me to focus on musicality. Unfortunately, this wish was not fulfilled as I had spent no more than five days seriously practising this piece, which I regret. ConclusionWere this a usual debate, I would conclude my round by summarising my main arguments, why my opponent failed to uphold hers, and why the voter should vote for me. Yet this is not a usual debate; it is an online musical performance of sorts, and we are accountable to our composers. Should I suggest that the voter ought vote for me, it would be a slight on the composers, the judges and my opponent alike. It is clear from our recordings that my opponent had superior technical skill. I clearly lacked practice, and made slips in every recording. Most were minor, but some broke the rhythmic flow of the piece rather seriously. I also displayed consistent problems with evenness in running passages and with pedalling (the latter was mainly because of my focus on fingerwork rather than footwork). Though these are technical problems, they impair my ability to play musically. On the musical level, I am also clearly inferior to my opponent. Though I tried to bring out the general direction of the piece, I was unable to realise the subtleties that the composer had hidden in each of the pieces. My dynamics and phrasing were also awkward at times, especially at relatively demanding passages. My opponent clearly has the upper hand, and it is only rightful for me to recommend that the voters select her as the winner.