I decided to take a closer look at one of the pieces that confused me at last week’s Thursday class: “The Rook” by Igor Stravinsky. Upon finer examination, I noticed patterns throughout the piece—repeating chord intervals were made easy by simply keeping the right hand in the same position and moving upward. The strange chords made more sense as I kept going. I also paid closer attention to crescendos and decrescendos, making the piece more flowing.
Benjamin Britten’s “Fancie” presented an occasional challenge. I made sure the accompaniment sounded like a string quartet playing pizzicato. The melodic contour of the piece became easier as I played. I made sure to create tension during the two respective climaxes through gradual crescendo and careful articulation. The final notes were a bit odd due to their high register. Overall, the piece was manageable with a few interesting parts.
I chose “Partita I” as my third piece. I played it extremely slow, due to the overwhelming quantity of notes on the page. A few accidental naturals threw me for a loop, but I was able to recover. The fingering of my left hand was shaky at times, too. When timings got out of alignment, I stopped and began again at the beginning of the respective measure.
I revisited “Gique” for my fourth piece. Instead of viewing the rapid notes as random, I pieced together arpeggio chords. From this process, I gained an appreciation for the structure of the piece and its chord progression. I discovered a lot of seventh chords. Once I played it through once slowly, I played it again at a quicker tempo. Let me tell you, it was a good time.
To crush my spirits after my otherwise triumphant sight-reading, I picked a score for my final piece: the dreaded “H.” I have vastly improved my tenor clef reading skills since the start of this semester. However, reading the piece as a whole still gives me problems unless I play it extremely slow. I did mildly well. The accidentals in the tenor clef confused me, but overall, I did okay. I need to work on seeing the score as a whole, recognizing chord structure and so on, rather than four lines of random notes. I will work on this for the midterm Thursday.
From Bob Logan, October 22, 2007
1. Bagatelle 1, Op. 126 (Beethoven)
With time signature changes, a variety of rhythmic figures, and (in many parts) three voices, this is a somewhat challenging piece to sight read. There aren't many repeated accompaniment patterns, so I had to pay attention to both staves about equally. I didn't find the cadenza-like part in the middle difficult at all, because the small notes use only the tones of a G major scale. For me, the hardest part of sight reading this piece was trying to pay attention to the dynamics and articulation – sometimes I had to ignore them to get the notes right.
2. Bagatelle 2, Op. 126 (Beethoven)
This bagatelle is a bit less complicated than the previous one. Sometimes, there is only one melodic line, which is passed back and forth between the hands. At other times, the left hand has a relatively simple pattern of repeated chords. These things helped make sight reading easier. This is an interesting, but kind of strange song. The middle section with the tremolo-like figures doesn't even sound like Beethoven to me. Something that amazed me about these two bagatelles is how effectively Beethoven uses such a small amount of space. They may be short pieces, but they don't feel like short pieces to me – they are quite complicated, and lack the simple transparency of many pieces of similar length.
3. IV – Adantino serioso (Grieg)
If there's one thing I learned from reading through this piece, it's that I'm not used to sight reading pieces with double sharps. I have to give them a little more thought than single sharps. Something that really annoyed me about the way this piece is written is how the publisher feels the need to use a natural followed by a sharp to indicate a sharped note if there is a double sharp on that note earlier in the measure. It's completely unnecessary and only adds clutter to the score. Because this piece uses so many accidentals and unpredictable chords, I couldn't always use my usual strategy of looking at each chord as a whole and making educated guesses about it based on the key, the shape of the chord, and the chord before it. Instead, I often had to look at each note of a chord. This piece reminds me a lot of several of Grieg's Lyric Pieces.
4. Hilf, Gott, daB mir's gelinge (Bach)
I didn't have much trouble with this. The fermatas give you a chance to look ahead and plan. The chords are simple and make sense.
5. A Song from the East (Cyril Scott)
I was flipping through an old piano book looking for something to sight read, and this piece looked good. It has a repetitive accompaniment pattern in the left hand, while the right hand has an interesting melody with accidentals and a variety of rhythms. I found that I was able to pay a lot of attention to the dynamics and articulation, probably because the left hand is pretty easy.
From Jessica Schallock, October 22, 2007
Sechs Bagatellen, Op. 126, No. 1 by Beethoven
This piece, the first of six bagatelles, is quite short, begins in ¾ time, in the key of G major. The right hand has a simple melody accompanied by quarter note chords and eighth note broken chords in the left hand. The piece consists of three sections: the first is sixteen measures, not repeated, followed by a longer repeated section. This longer section consists of several shorter sections, alternating between 2/4 and ¾ time. The right hand has sixteenth notes, and the melody grows more elaborate. There is a trill followed by some very fast ornamentation, which I had to play much slower than marked. The piece concludes with a longer section in 3/4; the right hand plays several voices, with octave doubling the left hand, and the melody moves up to the higher register at the end of the piece. In terms of sight-reading considerations, I found some parts of this bagatelle to be very easy to read, and some very difficult; there is a wide range of complexity of texture and ornamentation. It was difficult not to vary my tempo in accordance with the difficulty of reading; I started too fast in the simpler opening section and had to slow down towards the end of the piece.
Sechs Bagatellen, Op. 126, No. 2, by Beethoven
This bagatelle has a strong, forward-driven movement, and should be played quickly (the metronome marking is Allegro, quarter note=132). It is in g minor, and 2/4 time. The opening consists of sixteenth notes alternating between the right hand and left hand, beginning with a pick-up of three sixteenths. The forceful sixteenths, marked fortissimo, move abruptly to a lyrical melody played in both hands, with a dynamic of piano. This piece is full of abrupt contrasts; I tried to make the dynamic changes as distinct as possible. The A section is repeated. The second section is longer, and begins with a melody in the right hand and repeated dyads in the left hand. This changes abruptly into an elaborated version of the opening sixteenth notes, followed by a high, singing melody in the right hand and sixteenth note broken chords (alberti bass) in the left hand. The hands reverse roles halfway through this second section, with the let hand taking the melody, now doubled at the octave, and the right hand playing the sixteenth notes. The upper notes of the sixteenths should be brought out strongly, as these form a melody as well. The sixteenths become triplets, and the two hands become more equal towards the end of the piece, sharing the melody and interacting with each other.
Selected Chorals by Bach
I enjoyed reading through these chorals, which are rhythmically simple but require careful vertical reading. The phrases are short, but I did not exaggerate the fermatas. It was usually clear which hand should play which voice, but sometimes the voices cross or the range between the bass and alto is too great to play with the left hand alone. I played rather slowly, but with enough motion that I did not lose a sense of the phrase. I also tried to be aware of each voice rather than thinking of only isolated chords. My eye movement was about a half a measure to a measure ahead of what I was playing.
Fancie, by Benjamin Britten
This was a fun, lively song with some surprising harmonies. The left hand consists of short but pedaled eighth note broken chords, which changed about every two or three measures. The right hand has eighth note repeated notes on the second beat of the measure, sometimes tied across the bar line to a half note. Rhythmically the song is very simple, but I had to be careful of the accidentals, and I played slowly and tried for accuracy rather than speed. The right hand becomes slightly fuller and more harmonically complex, but the left hand has unrelieved eighth notes.
Children’s March (Over the Hills and Far Away), by Percy Grainger
I recently began working on the piano part for the concert band piece “Children’s March”; the first thing I did when I got the part two days ago was to sight-read through the entire piece. It is in 6/8 time, begins in the key of F major, and moves to B-flat major, E-flat major, and finally A-flat major, essentially repeating similar material in each key. I read the piece somewhat slower than the marked tempo of dotted quarter=126.
Typical of Grainger’s music for the piano, this part featured lots of four-note chords, with the bass note always doubled by the soprano, and the chords are usually repeated twice very rapidly. The left and right hand usually play these chords together, with a rhythm of a quarter note followed by eighth note (almost like a jig) or two repeated chords followed by an eighth note rest. Sometimes the piano has the melody, a lyrical tune that contrasts with the sharp repeated chords. The two hands are very interdependent; there is never a sense of “right hand has the melody and left hand accompanies)—in fact, many of the chords are incomplete in the right or left hand alone.
When the chords were too fast or contained too many accidentals to sight-read easily, I brought out the melody and the bass line (usually the outer notes of the chords). This piece provided good harmonic reading practice, and also good practice at omissions.
From Hallie Houge, October 22, 2007
This week, since I’ve been working mostly on my scales and arpeggios, I did not spend a whole lot of time on my sight reading. However, I still went through my packet of pieces and played through a few of them, including Beethoven’s Bagatelles. I decided to play No. 1 without scanning the music first, and simply began playing. I was surprised at how well I managed considering I didn’t spend more than a few seconds looking at the meter, key signature and dynamics. I believe because I’m familiar with Beethoven pieces, I was able to pick up the style quickly, and this helped me get through the piece.
I decided to play No. 2 as well, and did the same thing. I played through it without analyzing the piece beforehand, and had wonderful results. I believe that I’m getting better at sight reading. I’m definitely not perfect, but the notes are coming easier to my fingers and the dynamics and rhythms are there as well.
Finally, I played through the last four Bagatelles, simply because they were pleasing to my ear. No. 3 had challenging runs that were a little difficult for me at first, but I got through them. I found No. 4 to be very long and easy because of the chords and similar riffs, and No. 6 was challenging because of the runs with intervals of three. Overall, these pieces went well. I always enjoy playing a Beethoven piece.
Next, I decided to run through the Moskowski again, because it is a challenging piece full of leaps and strange intervals. It was easier the second time through, but still difficult to keep up to tempo because the notes were so bizarre. Towards the end it sounded better, but this was still a very hard piece to sight read, but I think perhaps I might someday come back to it because I enjoyed playing it very much.
Lastly, I decided to play the Allegro con moto No. I in the back of the packet. This song was hard because of the key signature and the strange rhythms. However, I recognized it from when we played it in class earlier last week, so that made it a little easier because the piece was familiar. The most difficult part for me was accuracy, because of the accidentals. Other than that, this piece was fun to play and I enjoyed it immensely.
From Kelvin Ying, October 22, 2007
Before the International Music Score Library Project unfortunately shut down this past week, I was able to snag a few pieces and scores of interest. So in memory of the IMSLP, this week I sight-read a piece I’ve always wanted to play: Chopin’s Fantaisie Impromptu, Op. 66 (posthumous). It’s one of the trickiest pieces I’ve sight-read thus far, if not the most difficult. For one, the 3-on-4 pattern is a much harder common mismatched tuplet pattern than 2-on-3, and it was difficult to maintain that pattern throughout the entire piece. Then, the notes are difficult. The arpeggios switch frequently, and it’s hard to catch these slight changes. For instance, right away in ms. 5, the second left hand arpeggio’s bass note is no longer C-sharp, but E. Even hard to navigate was ms. 7, where the second arpeggio moves the entire left hand upwards and even throws a D-sharp into the mix. That being said, the right hand is not that difficult. The dynamics are not unusual at all with regards to the melodic contours, and even passages such as in ms. 8 work their own way downwards to bring back the main figure. The middle section presents many of the same problems as the first, only now the right hand is playing a long flowing melody instead of a twisting series of sixteenth notes. Therefore, reading this piece remains the same throughout the entire work.
I then decided to take another look at Sparks, a rather energetic and lively piece by Moszkowski. The beginning is not too bad. But at ms. 17, everything changes. Now both hands are stretching for octaves and then retracting for smaller intervals or single notes. The basic chord progression is simple: I, IV, V, I. At ms. 25, the left hand jumps all over the place while the right hand plays these strange chords that spiral downwards. All this takes is quick reading. At ms. 33, the left hand gets trickier, but one only needs to read the bottom note to figure out the other two in the ascending figure on beats 2 and 3. Meanwhile, the right hand continues with an octave-small-small pattern. Individually, the hands are not that bad, but together they make for tricky sight-reading, as each hand requires a great deal of personal attention. In general, all this piece requires is quick eyes and fast recognition of accidentals. The rhythms are straightforward, and the chords aren’t outrageous. But the massive accidentals and hand jumps are difficult to read hands together, and that aspect alone accounts for this piece’s toughness.
