Chopin Prelude op 28 no 24

[mistral969]

Go easy with me - i am self taught

I can play this piece but bar 17 is a bit of a problem.

When i hit the last C with my LH thumb, how do I cope with the arrival of my RH third finger when it also wants to hit this note.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thank-you.

[Colin Nicholson]

As you will know, the LH & RH middle C are performed one after the other - not at the same time, due to the irregular grouping in the RH arpeggio.

I would suggest that you change your fingering in the RH arpeggio so that your hands do not near-collide when they come together. Using the 3rd finger on middle C may cause problems as your "left portion" of your right hand will overlap the LH too soon, and not allow a smooth progression of the hands to overlap.

I dont know the edition of your music, but my edition starts the top F on the 4th finger - then eventually using the 2nd finger on middle C - much better - so you may need to relearn the whole arpeggio again.... thats my opinion.

Here is a quick draft of the right hand part (excluding the tie & grouping), showing my suggested fingering.....

hope that helps. see below >>>

Chopin extract

Colin

[mistral969]

Colin

Thank-you for taking the trouble to respond, I shall study it carefully and get back to you.

Kind regards

roger

[mistral969]

Colin,

Once again, thank-you for your very useful comments on alternative fingering for bar 17.

I have the Paderewski edition.

Now, could I trouble you with just one more question!? This time moving on to bar 18.

I delayed mastering this bar in order to push on and complete a first run of the whole work. Now I am having difficulty with it.

I have watched numerous performances of No 24 on Youtube but as yet have not been successful in copying the hand crossover. There are cases where some performers seem to get away without crossing hands at all. !!??

Again, I would appreciate any help you could offer on this matter.

Regards

roger

[Colin Nicholson]

You cant really learn Chopin just by watching someone else - it needs to be heard only.

I havent played this prelude (dont like it that much!!), but at a quick glance I would probably try and involve the RH to strike the LH note aswell where there is confliction between the hands - I never take it literally the bass clef meaning LH and the treble clef meaning RH !! Eg.... the E and B natural could be played with one hand?

There are several examples of this in Grieg's Wedding Day at Trolhaugen - middle slow section in G major. The left & right hand 'share' various notes that are the same, or if the LH cannot stretch, I use the RH.

For things like this, a good SLOW visual display is needed with a teacher - rather than a pianist on Youtube playing at Presto speed and trying to catch how the hands overlap.... not really the way forward.

Hope that helps