Sounds like the nightmarish fever dream of a person struggling with the original 0p 25 no 11. Godowsky's studies make the original etudes look like exercises for beginners.
Definitely can't argue that. I feel like Godowsky might've demanded too much from the performer in this study. If someone is able to recreate a perfect performance using a player piano, I'm sure the structures would come out incredibly well. Til then though, I believe Robert Henry has played it best.
TheExarion But on the other hand, I think that Godowsky's study "allegro maestoso" of op 10. no.1 might very well be the best music I've ever heard in my life. It has more raw energy and harmonic power even than the beginning of Tausig's "Geisterschiff" which used to be my prime contender for "most powerful music". It's the definition of magnificence. The original etude sounds bland in comparison. Although I can't attribute the brilliance of the piece to Godowsky exclusively, since Chopin wrote the original, and I believe the original itself was based on Bach's prelude in C. So we can thank Bach for the harmonic progression, Chopin for coming up with the technical idea of the etude, and Godowsky for perfecting it.
You must must must listen to Robert Henry's performance of Godowsky's study of the Op. 10 No. 1 on his website. The interpretation, although cut off a minute short, is nothing short of masterful. Much better than Hamelin could ever interpret it, in my opinion.
@@niccolopaganini4268 depends on whose arrangement, Rach's arr is definitely not easy, it's pretty challeging since it requires some quite difficult techniques.
@An Apple it's definitely not easy, it's rather on the medium/challenging side. Definitely someone who has played piano for 3 to 4 years will have a lot of difficulties to learn it and will need a lot, like a whole lot of practice to complete the piece. Trust me because I have learned it, I know, not a very wise idea of me.
This and the Godowsky for op25 6 are probably the most fiendishly difficult etudes for the left hand ever written. Even he is not cruel enough to put the left hand chromatic runs on 345 for Ignis Fatuus. Thankfully, Hamelin rectified this for us with his triple etude.
Great performance. To pull a piece of this staggeringly difficult magnitude off live is impressive. The original Chopin is challenging enough. This is a different level
@@greatmallard9318 - The left hand is actually not too bad honestly, for both the original and the ossia. The right hand in the original is dastardly though.
It reminds me a documentary where Rubinstein plays a bit of this piece mentioning: "This is how it should be played". It also sounded very different than what you usually hear.
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who has enjoyed Robert Henry's recordings. The Chopin-Godowsky Op 10 no 7 is utterly amazing, and one I come back to listen every so often.
+Jordan Fernandez That's awesome to hear! I come back every now and then to listen to the Op. 25 No. 6 and Op. 10 No. 9, but all of his recordings are beautifully done.
@@thenotsogoodpianist4706 Haven't you seen Dreyschock's revolutionary etude in octaves at original speed? Also an etude, in contrast to hammerklavier sonatas or any other "piece" that lasts more than hours that are obviously more difficult to play.
@@BenjaminCartwright123 yeah just heard it , kinda insane,,, i mean the left hand is probably gonna blast out , , , , kindoff reminds me of cziffras transcription of sabre dance(left hand killer)
OH MY HOLY FCK.....!!!! WHATTA FCK IS THAT.... ITS IMPOSSIBLE FOR PLAYING.... Robert Henry YOU ARE FCKING INSANE PIANIST....WOWWWW..... CONGRATS.....BRAVOOO.....
I heard one wrong note in the middle of this performance. Ok, just a joke. Holy shit. If you like to rape your piano, this is a good piece for it. Insane performance from Robert Henry. I like the high-pitched chord at the very end.
Hot take: This one's nowhere near the difficulty of some other ones such as Op.25 No.6. Most parts in this is pretty easy with correct fingering and technique. It's not like he turned the chromatic runs into thirds...
The time signature is both 12/8 and common (4/4) time. For example, the picture at 0:31, the melody is in 4/4 time, but the accompaniment with the sixteenth sextuplets are in 12/8. The signature is there to indicate that the piece is to be felt in both 4/4 and 12/8.
Godowsky is fascinating, I first heard his Bach cello suites and violin sonata transcriptions, I thought what a love for Bach he had to take that time. Then I discovered so much more of him, made the Chopin etudes even harder, huh?This one reminds me of Ysaye's violin sonata where the violinist has a fantasy about Bach's violin sonata in E. This one is great, basically tearing the music and piano apart, such a joker Leopold is.
For me, adding a lot of other supplmentary notes to an etude of Chopin that has already a lot of notes would make it sound like two pianos are playing different melodies.
In a way, I think that's kind of what Godowsky was going for. His studies for the left hand alone aim to make the piece equally as rich for one hand as it would be for two hands. Even in one of his transcriptions for the Op. 25 No. 1, he labeled it as "Like a piece for 4 hands". He really transforms the hands into a full-blown orchestra in this transcription.
There was a man by the name of Leopold Godowsky that sought to make studies focused on technique and dexterity for the left hand, based on the original Chopin etudes (Op. 10/Op. 25). The original Chopin etude that this piece is based off of is Op. 25 No. 11, known otherwise as "Winter Wind". What Godowsky did here is switch the roles of the hands, moving the main melody to the right hand and the sporadic sextuplets to the left hand. This is arguably one of the most difficult pieces in piano literature. Godowsky's role was not to enhance or take away the musicality that is found in Chopin's original etudes. Instead, he wanted to prove that the left hand was just as capable - if not moreso - as the right hand in performance. In proving this, he hoped to see a world where the left hand was given a more glorious role rather than its typical role in providing a bass line or counterpoint to the right hand. Godowsky has transcribed some of Chopin's etudes strictly to the left hand alone, some of my favorites being his studies on Op. 10 No. 4 and Op. 10 No. 6.
Chopin isn’t god, so you should stop talking about him like he is one. You can read Godowsky’s intentions with these studies here, in the beginning of his books: imslp.org/wiki/Studies_after_Frederic_Chopin_(Godowsky%2C_Leopold) It should be quite obvious that part of the purpose of these studies is to take the right-hand-centric technique and help focus it towards the left hand too, proving that the left hand can be just as capable as the right hand with the right nourishment.
Rach 3 is harder than any single Godowsky etude but given the chance to either perform Rach 3 or an entire set of Godowsky etudes, the concerto is far easier.
@@calebhu6383 I have to disagree I played both of those, and couldn't even touch Godowsky's étude Personally I would find Feux Follets to be the more difficult of the two, Paganini 4b is only hard in the near ending with the tenths and after that the alternating jumps. While the other two we're talking about is constant pain.
I don't blame you. The audio quality isn't perfect because it was my first time recording audio from my computer, and on top of that this was a live performance, not studio.
It's important to remember that Godowsky simply used Chopin's etudes as a gateway to expand techniques for the left hand -- while, in all honesty, attempting to stay musical. I think he achieved this quite well with this study, although I will also agree that the hands may be dealing with more than they can handle to achieve good musicality.
It's true but some of the passages are really good, for example 2:43 - 3:20 would fit the chopin's etude really well, it's a place where you should really go up with dynamics and in chopin's version there is simply too few notes to make such crescendo.
More spontaneous than Hamelin's recording but I guess a live recording would be. Although it has pretty well zero musical merit, this piece certainly takes the biscuit for bare-faced virtuosity; I can't think of anything else as ferocious by anybody.
jesus I feel bad for you Genuinely speaking - while this piece is a metamorphosis of the original into something of a raging beast, both musically and technically - Godowsky amplifies all of the brutal details of the original as best he can while still making this an etude centered mostly around left hand technique. There are really intricate details and an immense amount of consideration poured into this study that make it seem like a butterfly that exploded from the cocoon that was the original Chopin etude. I'm sorry for getting overly metaphorical here, but seriously, Godowsky essentially made an orchestral masterpiece using only two hands, a piano, and one of Chopin's most iconic etudes. Even in this performance - which I specifically chose for being the greatest of its kind currently - there are details highlighted in the study that transform it from something technical to something that can stand on its own, musically. You don't have to like the performance or the study on its own. But to say it lacks finesse and is tantamount to a bang crash wallop is being disingenuous and severely discounting what Godowsky accomplished here.
As with other etudes, Godowsky destroys the poetry and clarity of Chopin' s originals with a superfluity of notes. Furthermore, placing the chordal melody in the upper register of the piano is merely percussive and inartistic. I cannot accept any analogy with an orchestra, because Chopin was NOT thinking in terms of an orchestra but a piano.
@@watkinder8288 Just because the original doesn't put the melody in the upper register doesn't mean not doing so is bad. There are tons of other masterpieces with an upper melody, that should be very obvious and are even most of them musically simple? Dude no.
I have to seriously, seriously disagree with you, especially as the performance of this study has (imo) really exemplary voicing. If you still disagree, I would ask that you consider looking into David Stanhope's series on the Op.10 studies. I already loved the Chopin-Godowsky set before watching it, but that series gave me a newfound appreciation for what Godowsky achieved here. Please, if you're interested in giving Godowsky a second chance, I'll link the video to the first etude & its studies here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dE9gGjUBQBE.html
