Shostakovich prelude and fugue A major

Shostakovich op.87 no 7. Prelude and fugue in A major.
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFeoTaUPyR4 for the same video in better quality!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Classical
• piano
• Gerald
• Bakker

[AZliberty]

I've tried to learn this fugue and know how truly difficult it is. I admire how far you've taken it! I like the tempo - it seems almost perfect - and the clarity of the voices is mostly excellent. The range of dynamics is far too small, however, and the climax needs to be emphasized a great deal more. I hope you'll post more recordings. (I also hope you can eliminate that annoying ringing sound in the background!)

[genfbakker]

@AZliberty Thanks for your comments.

Concerning the dynamic range, I am sure this is (at least partially) caused by the recording media (a simple video camera). The hissing is due to the compression. In later recordings I improved on this.

Anyway, the sound quality can be better. Maybe I'll do it again some day...

[mickakaka]

is it hard to play this? i love this song a lot...

[genfbakker]

The prelude is not so hard. The fugue however is a lot more difficult than you think when hearing it or even when looking at the music sheet.

[Chinypl0x]

At 1:56, the tune starts to go into Fsharp minor, the actual repeated melody throughout is actually inbetween the hands. You seem to emphasise the left hand which is wrong! I know how hard this piece actually is...

At the climax, it needed to be alot louder in the right hand. Some parts needed to be voiced and a little bit more musical, as in the phrashing could be more legato and have some more colour in it.

But still, I can't even play this piece yet, so I think it's good =].

[genfbakker]

The fugue is on the limit of my technical ability. So I'm sure that it lacks musical expression here and there.

And indeed, emphasizing the theme in the middle part, switching between hands, is extremely hard...

[Catchascatchcan]

I actually like the speed the fugue goes at in this recording, if you listen to Shostakovich's own recording, he kind of butchers it by taking it so fast even he can't play it right.

I very much enjoyed it though. You can afford to use more pedal on some of those bigger leaps. An excellent performance all around.

[PianoGirl555]

The Fugue should go faster. And try to learn it not read the notes while you play it all. I liked it tho.