4. Papillon (Butterfly)

This song was haaarrrd! In fact, is hard would be more accurate because I'm still working on it. Playing Edvard Grieg's Papillon, my fingers have to perform these weird contortions and the speed coupled with the long stretches (especially in the left hand) gives my joints a real workout. J. T. recommends some rubato, and whenever I listen to a recording of the piece, it's in the chromatic passages (as in photo above) that I always hear the rubato happening: it speeds up! So those parts become challenging on the fingers, too. (Actually, this recording is pretty amazing, because it's of Grieg himself playing Papillon in 1906!) Like Sonata in F Minor, though, once you get through the first section, the figures repeat either exactly or via transposition, so the text becomes easier to grasp. 

Here's a picture of the second section that forces the left hand to stretch (swing) to an eleventh! To be fair, the middle (or index) finger gets to act like an anchor/fulcrum to facilitate the stretch, but it's still an awfully long one. I recall Grieg's Waltz in the 4th grade book that required a similar long stretch--probably to a tenth, but still far for me because my fingers can only comfortably handle a ninth. 

This very difficult passage requires strange couplings of the fingers while executing fast, syncopated runs. Luckily the thumb is a strong finger and can easily whack out those accented notes, but the sensation of playing the accent on that beat (and so many in succession) is strange at first. I practised for a long time without the pedal because I wanted to get the passages as smooth as I could using pure technique. Adding the pedal really does improve the effect though, and I understand why it's part of the text. 

Below the right-hand syncopation happens again, this time a few notes higher up the keyboard (begins on C, where before it began on the G below.) It does something different just after where the picture cuts off. I'm still trying to figure it out.  

These runs are arpeggios in the left hand and chromatic-like scales in the right. They are beautiful. The second time around (below), they modulate back down to the original key and the bend in the melody just tugs at something inside me. It is pathos, and I love it! I think it might not be quite accurate to say the key changes at all throughout, though, as there's so much dissonance going on that it's hard to make a distinction between that and actual modulation. Either way, it's all nuanced and brill.

Then the text returns to its beginning, but with an octave in the left hand. It was once I got here that I realised I'd been playing F instead of F# the whole time. (Yike!) Luckily adjusting wasn't difficult because the shape of the hand was familiar from the first variation on that figure, which began in measure 4 on C#. (Whew!)

Here, a higher version of the initial phrase. Way up there at F#. But not as high as the final note of the song is low! Check out that finale. It happens on the lowest note of the keyboard. Bam!

My friend Jessica made a surreptitious recording of me practising. The phrase "fits and starts" accurately describes it, but here it is... for posterity.