Burgmüller

I've fallen in love with a group of etudes by Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmüller. I'd like to learn them by heart eventually, but for now I'm adding them to my sight-reading list.

Candeur (Nov. 24, 2014)

L'Arabesque (Nov. 28, 2014)

Pastorale (Nov. 29, 2024)

La Petite Reunion (Nov. 29, 2014)

 
Innocence (Nov. 30, 2014)

 Progrès (Dec. 1, 2014)

Le Courant Limpide (Dec 2, 2013) 

Le Gracieuse (Dec. 3, 2014) 

La Chasse p. 1 (Dec. 4, 2014)

 

La Chasse p. 2 (Dec. 5, 2014)


Tendre Fleur p. 1 (Dec. 6, 2014)


 


Tendre Fleur p. 2 (Dec. 7, 2014)


 


La Bergeronnette p. 1 (Dec. 8, 2014)


La Bergeronnette p. 2 (Dec. 9, 2014)


L'Adieu (Dec. 10, 2014) 




Dec. 11, 2014: I literally forgot to do sight reading on this day! Sackcloth, ashes, and flagellation? Not exactly. Certainly some contrition, but I didn't actually forget to practise, and that does involve reading, so... 

Consolation (Dec. 24, 2014) 

9. Spinning Song

Well, I must say that this song is certainly not my favourite of the collection so far, but it does have its benefits. The opening refrain pictured to the left, is upbeat and pretty intuitive. After an initial few minutes of disciplining my fingers to the task of reeling out those leggieros and punctuating them with the posted staccatos and sustained (tied) notes/chords, I pretty much had that part down. The interesting section followed, and that was a bit more challenging. 

These nine interlocking dyads are played staccato and followed by two triads. It took a bit more effort to get my right hand to "remember" the correct fingering because the notes follow a subtle crisscrossing (or zigzag) pattern—one that is surprisingly intuitive, but nevertheless takes time to get just right. Furthermore, the first four are syncopated, coming in on the second and fourth beats of their respective measures. I must say, the syncopation in the right hand added to the overall coolness of the effect. The left hand has it very easy up to this point.. As is apparent in both photos so far, it just hammers out four notes every bar to keep the time. 

A curious thing happens after this run of dyads is repeated; the text asks for some pretty impossible fingering (see left under the "poco rit" direction) . It would take some major finger braiding (or finger crossing!) to play this as scripted here. At first I thought it was just a typo, but the exact same fingering is used in a later section in which this part repeats. So... I soon figure out they want me to use the right hand, when I'd just assumed the left hand jumps up there and takes care of it. I'd like to think it was an honest mistake: the note stems are pointing down, after all, and for no apparent reason! (Except for the rest above them that needs the space. Okay fine...) Either way, I think I'm going to keep using my left hand for that and just use a more practicable 1-2-3 fingering pattern instead—an executive decision I hope I'm allowed to make.

The middle section of this piece (not pictured) is what took the majority of the time to learn. It seemed long, unintuitive, and was mildly boring to listen to when I first heard the piece. It is rather less boring to play, but still sounds pretty clunky and decidedly un-cantabile. Lots of stamping out notes in staccato. So much staccato, indeed, that it was more notationally economical to write the word staccato at the beginning of that section than to place dots over every note! I played through this piece just as often as the others, though, because I can't afford to spurn the disciplinary benefits it affords. But in all honesty, the experience was pretty blah. Auspiciously, the ending (above) is a return to the beginning, but with an added variation on that leggiero (light and delicate) section that turned out to be pretty sweet, though I'm still working on it. 

Here is Alan Chan's rendition.

8. Serenade

Because I had familiarised myself with a recording of Serenade beforehand and fell in love with the mood, I was very eager to get to this song. It was also the first one I hadn't already heard or somehow attempted playing in the past, so the novelty intrigued me. Plus, I'm a sucker for minor keys, and this one is in D-minor. So yeah, it's got that quavering, mournful mood I can't resist. 

The triple stave makes a comeback, as this is another one of those pieces played left hand over right, so there's a lot of hand crossing going on to keep me alert and draw the uncharacteristic "big" motions out of me. I have to practise those parts very carefully because the subtle changes from one phrase to another have the potential to confuse my hands and fingers. Note the similarity between the excerpts in the images above and below. These passages immediately follow each other. At such points, it might feel like I'm about to repeat a phrase because the beginning is identical, but suddenly there'll be a subtle change that throws a wrench in everything, and I have to pay closer attention to where I am in the score or I'll mess up and get stuck in a loop forever. (Yikes!)

I really like the cantabile motion of the right hand, and the sort of syncopated way the tempo trips over those triplets, as though the moderato pace were a leisurely stroll that transforms for an instant into a skip and then just as quickly returns to its original form. It feels like a wrinkle. In time. :o)

I'm now working on understanding and articulating those quaver-to-semiquaver beams in the first two bars shown below. This isn't difficult in principle, but I find myself wondering what the difference would be between those two beams on the one hand and, on the other, the triplet in the third bar if the middle note were left out. The difficulty is that presumably each note in the triplet is worth one-third of a crotchet, while the semiquavers are worth one-quarter of the crotchet. So their rhythms really shouldn't map directly onto each other. I'm working on it. It's a subtle distinction, but I'd like to be able to make it at least detectable, both in my mind and in my playing.

This 8^vb (below) I didn't actually even see until I was perusing the score for bloggable pics. Luckily it was an easy fix, since the notes hadn't yet become deeply enough ingrained in my memory to make playing this an octave lower too problematic... 

 

But now that I think about it... I don't even want to know how many other things I've possibly overlooked! Well... I guess I do actually, since I want to be the best I can, but I really hope it's not too many. Or any! Fingers crossed. Figuratively speaking of course, as cross-hand playing is far more practicable than cross-fingered playing. The hand-over-hand articulation required in the final section supports this theory. 

Enough kidding around. Here's Alan Chan's rendition.

7. Witches' Dance

I didn't think I was going to enjoy playing this song as much as I actually have. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I like playing legato, and this song is riddled with staccato. So at first glance, I was somewhat apprehensive.

As it turns out, the wrist staccato that animates this piece is pretty fun to execute. It wakes me up, too, requiring the best posture I can muster. Good piano posture is something I haven't yet developed, so this piece is good training for me. For in order to play it at my highest level of competency, I need to use good posture. However, I'm not sure I always adhere to J.T.'s warning to "preserve a sharp, brittle rhythm throughout." I try though, and I actually have more fun whenever I'm able to pull it off without getting lazy.

An interesting dynamic exists in this song between the staccato and sustained notes. It simulates the tension of a spring or elastic, as though while you're sustaining a note, you're really just holding it back against its innate drive for release, one which it precipitately achieves in the sudden staccato. Like a slingshot! The passage quoted above does just this, I think. In fact, it does more because it requires simultaneous staccato and sustained notes, one with each hand, repeated twice in lower octaves. Challenging, but fun... and you could really exhaust an entire keyboard doing that! Almost. 

It reminds me a bit of Für Elise, actually. All those E's...

The mood of the piece, we are told, is one of "eerie mystery," and sure enough, the particular section pictured to the left (and which happens to be my favourite) has a lugubrious air, but one that also contains a tinge of mournfulness. It really highlights the fact that the song is written in A minor, a fact that is somewhat downplayed in other parts of the song where the C drops out of the A-minor triad. But here, almost all the notes that comprise the minor scale are played in succession. Only the G is missing. Note that both staves are in the bass clef, so that single note played by the right hand in the middle bar is an A, and more or less completes the scale begun with the left hand. (There's another A in the final bar that truly finishes up the scale, but it belongs not to this my favourite part, but to a later phrase, the final one of the song.)

After this, the witches fade out. I'm still working on not being too heavy handed in order to really pull off the pianissimo.

Alan Chan's rendition

6. Dorothy

The beginning of this song was very difficult for me because it required almost total hand independence. The large jumps in the left hand were really taxing and were only complicated by the fact that the right hand required simultaneous jumps of different sizes and in different directions. I really had no idea my hands were so bent on working together until I had to pry them apart for the purpose of playing Dorothy. At first, to even hit the right notes, I had to move my hands at a snail's pace, and I wasn't sure I was ever gonna get it. Eventually I did, though, my hands (happily!) being capable of more than I usually think them.

My favourite part of the song is part B, in which it switches from G-major to E-minor. I like playing the right-hand part legato, and a significant portion of this section is played right hand over left. (In the picture below, this starts in the third measure where, on the top stave, the bass clef is indicated.)

        But at first I didn't quite know how to articulate the left hand portion of this section, which seemed to just be a repetitive pounding out of more or less the same chord. It couldn't quite be played legato, and I played it pretty sloppily at first while focusing on smoothing the right hand. Later, once I was able to switch my focus to the left hand, I realised that just playing the chords straight (down) in a clean and even manner provided a solid and even mellifluous support to the melody. I'm still working on keeping the LH clean and even, but I'm glad I figured that out.

Alan Chan's rendition

5. Londonderry Air

This song was already familiar to me from a childhood spent in church. Apparently someone had taken this Irish folk tune and set Christian lyrics to it. So this prior knowledge of the melody meant I was always acutely aware of any mistake I made while tackling this piece. The cross-hand playing we did in Nobody Knows made a come back, but for me the most interesting and novel aspect of the song was that the score's given on three staves. J. T. assures us that, rather than making things more complicated, it actually simplifies things. It certainly makes things less cluttered—and since clutter is actually an aspect of notation that bugs me, I definitely find this three-stave anomaly to be helpful. 

All in all, I think this song was good for me. I'm sort of conservative when it comes to flailing my arms all over the keyboard, and this song eases me into that. Apart from repeatedly crossing hands, a couple instances exist in which its necessary to walk arpeggios some distance down the keyboard—not too extreme, but graduated in a sense that makes it the perfect stepping stone for someone of my modest (but growing!) capabilities. 

I am utterly enamoured of the particular chord pictured above—the one the diminuendo sign seems to also find necessary to point out. It's located in one of the final phrases of the song and consists (as is apparent) of two flattened C's, one flattened G, an A, and an E. It was murderous to read when I first encountered it because just about every infernal note has an accidental against it! But I was more than rewarded at the end of that effort. (Turns out to be an inverted B7 chord when all the key-signature dust clears.) And, if I recall correctly, my response to the combination was to find it at first peculiar and unexpected, then almost in the same instant it became interesting, and finally it settled on just being really satisfying.

Alan Chan's rendition

4. Toreador Song

Georges Bizet, what can I say? I had him in the second grade book aeons ago when we played Habanera. That was fun—I really loved that syncopated rhythm. And the learning never stops. I have not perfected this bullfighter's anthem by any stretch of the imagination. My current weak spots are a couple small jumps in the 4th and 5th bars. I kinda realise I just need to isolate and work on them though, because they haven't always been my weakest spots. What happened, I think, is that the polishing that I've done to the other areas have caused what I might have previously considered strong areas to appear weak by comparison. This is good, of course. It means progress is being made... but the song, as I currently play it, still sounds pretty horrible.

The good news is that the above double-time, backhanded-F-major-scale-that-starts-on-C is looking and sounding a lot better as of yesterday! Molto crescendo! Also, that trill-esque passage in bar 9 (repeated in bar 21) is looking pretty okay too in the right hand; if I could only get my left hand to keep up, I'd be set. Oh yeah, and how 'bout those acciaccaturas? They're coming along... It's a work in progress though, and I'm learning to be patient and allow myself the time I need to grow.

Alan Chan's rendition

3. Musette

Musette on the other hand is a perpetual stumbling block for me—so much so that about a decade ago when I first tried this piece, I gave it all up under the presumption that piano just wasn't my thing. (Dare I shake my fist at Bach?) Seriously though, I do like very much the modulation of volume and intensity prescribed in the piece: it's p  f  p  f alternating all throughout, and the contrast really works. Plus, that middle staccato section (below) is pretty sweet.

But for the refrain with which the song begins and ends, I simply can't get both hands to simultaneously jump the measly octave and consistently land the middle fingers  on F# without at least one sliding off or hitting a neighbouring note. It seems to require a level of precision I haven't yet developed to perfectly balance my fingers on such a narrow perch after descending at the rate of however many feet per second the term giocoso prescribes. I've managed to do it a few times, of course. I've been practising it for almost 6 weeks, and I hit the right notes maybe 35% of the time (smh).

I could get discouraged—I have done—but I no longer am. Instead, I've determined to make everything into a learning experience. Therefore, my current approach to this piece is to play it as fast as I can. Speed runs. My hope is that after several weeks at this ridiculous pace, when I finally get it back down to giocoso, the jumps will seem like a breeze.

Thank you, Bach :)

Sincerely,

T

Alan Chan's rendition

2. Melody

Luckily this time around, I found the courage to push past my incompetence in playing the first piece in order to tackle the second piece, (Robert) Schumann's Melody. For an intermediate player like myself (and one returning to the piano in adulthood after a long, loooong absence), I think this piece is a good exercise in developing hand independence.

The left hand notably doesn't just chip in with a harmonising note or chord now and then—once or twice a bar, or something. Rather, it plays continuously throughout, even more so than the right hand, and provides (as J.T. himself put it) "a subdued, but ever-moving background." I actually play this somewhat to my satisfaction, though I'm still working out some of the transitions. The legato "singing tone" required of the RH complements my style of playing, I'd say. And thank God it's not too fast: cantabile and moderato are just my "speed."

Alan Chan's rendition

1. Nobody Knows De Trouble I've Seen

This song was arranged by John Thompson (J.T.) himself, and it is a pretty easy song, I'd say. I mean, it's in 4/4 time and it's all crotchets and minims, with a few semibreves thrown in here and there... and yet for the life of me, I can't seem to play it right! It just never feels right in my fingers, and my timing's all screwed up. Now, I'm a person who prides myself on my innate sense of timing, so (ahem!) I think I'm just gonna blame a huge chunk of this problem on those arpeggios [er... broken chords!] sprinkled over the piece. (Two consecutive ones are pictured left.) I can never seem to get them perfect the first time. Every time I play them, I have to practise them once or twice before they sound right. What's the answer... finger drills, you say?  No argument there. I'm working on those, too...

Alan Chan's rendition