Misae Pergolizzi plays Chopin's Etude in E flat

Misae Pergolizzi, High School teacher from Connecticut, plays Chopin's Etude Op 10 No 11 in E flat major, during preliminary round of 4th Boston International Piano Competition for Exceptional Amateurs (www.bostonpianoamateurs.org)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Pergolizzi
• Chopin
• Etude
• Boston
• Piano
• Competition

[BrucknerEnthusiast]

The word 'amateur' has a different connotation in French, related to the word 'amour' - it means someone who does something because they love doing it, instead of doing it just because it is their job. These 'amateurs' love playing the piano, and I must say that as a professional pianist I love listening to them too. When 'amateurs' can play as well as this, it's a big incentive for 'professionals' to keep their own standards up - otherwise we are likely to get overtaken.

[mrvolvo10]

...that is the joy of playing the piano...

[TohruTwinkie]

This is very random, but she's my Japanese teacher. I didn't know she played piano. X)

[T3hL337Sesshy]

I disagree. Listen to the Lhevinne recording. He plays it even faster than this (two and a half minutes), and pulls it off flawlessly. I think it's the best interpretation I've heard.

[Pischnaholic]

Thank you for solving the mystery, cdpiano, In reacting to someone else's doctrinaire statement, I probably sound doctrinaire myself -- an irony.

Two ways to approach these études: 1) Primarily as piece of beautiful music. 2) Primarily as a means of demonstrating mastery over an absurdly difficult technical problem.

Players who perform these works have enough natural facility to do both. But, I feel it's best to play études the EASIEST way, so one can project emotion and poetic imagery.

[cdpiano27]

There was a German remark on this thread one year ago and I translated the main idea of it. It must have been removed from the user, but it was about her chord arpeggiation method.

[Pischnaholic]

Also, listen to Cécile Licad play this piece. Ms. Pergolizzi could do as well, if she followed the models of such as Licad and Freddy Kempf. It's a matter of phrasing, voicing -- and above all -- PACING.

[Pischnaholic]

Your point is debatable. Many very fine players arpeggiate the chords as they choose.

To play the score literally makes it absurdly difficult and robs the piece of much of its beauty.

"What SOUNDS best IS best."

[Pischnaholic]

There are no remarks in German on this thread. What could you possibly mean?

[Pischnaholic]

Very able playing, but it would sound much better if played more flexibly at a slower tempo with a few breaths taken between the phrases, some rubato and much more attention to voicing and dynamic contrast. As it is, it just rolls by relentlessly at one dynamic level.

Freddy Kemff's superb performance provides an excellent example.

It's easier to execute the notes when you take more time and pay more attention to potential inner voices and other fine details.

Even so, this is nice work.

[LemonPie94]

Beautiful!  Thank you for sharing.

[cdpiano27]

I think it means that she played each rolled chord as an arpeggio, INSTEAD of playing the two hands struck at the same time. So what she did was wrong. Yes, in the music it is marked as two hands rolled at the same time, and not the way she played it here.