Thank you! Working on this now...what a great help you are. I've been playing the cello for years and when I turned 70 my husband gave me a beautiful baby grand. I've been playing for five months now, I practice for four hours every day. This is such a beautiful piece, thanks again!
Very comprehensive with some wonderful suggestions that really helped me appreciate and understand the second movement so much more. Thank you for this video.
Great lesson sir! I love this piece! I am only at piano grade 1 (unfinished due to budget constraints) but i'm quite a daredevil. An anime led me to beethoven's moonlight sonata 1st movement and since then i got determined to learn the original score, which happens to be for grade 4 in michael aaron's piano book (i got the book just because of it). Studied and read it slowly for 15 days (i am a near sighted guy btw). Years later, a friend gave me a piano book for a casio digital piano and i found this Sonata Pathetique 2nd movement (which my teacher claimed to be for piano grade 6) and fur elise (grade 3). I learned both slowly, all by myself, but i have trouble with fast passages in fur elise than this one. 6e of the trickiest parts tho, is executing the Turns. 😊😁😂😂
Thanks Clive. Good tips here. I learned the Moonlight using Bach Scholar's five progressive tempo practice method and I've got the piece done now at about 145 bpm still having room for expression and dynamics. I especially like the way you describe how to bring out this beautiful melody here in the 2nd movement of the Pathetique. I was inadvertently losing the melody a bit under the lower register chords but now it's comes through nice and clean. I appreciate your help with this. One thing I would love to hear from you. Could you explain how to practice and master the two separate time signatures in Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu C# minor? I'm having trouble merging the two together. Thanks again. Paul Zarvis
+Paul Zarvis . Thanks, Paul. Yes, I recommend that you do not try to match the 3 against 4 while learning to put the hands together in the Chopin. Instead of triplet eighths in the left hand (against four 16ths in the right), practice one eighth and two sixteenths in the left hand. As you get more comfortable and increase the speed the left hand will automatically convert to triplets, because at speed those are easier to play. Sorry for the late response!
+Clive Swansbourne Thanks so much Clive. Right now I am working on Beethoven's Appassionatta. Tough piece! In the third movement I am having a ton of trouble with measures 158 through163. No matter what fingering I'm using it's tough to get my head around the competing runs. If you have the time could you suggest a possible fingering? Thanks so much sir.
Great! Just one question: are you using the sustain pedal between min 9:30 / 10:00 and just changing it when the chord changes? Using the sustain pedal in that part doesn't spoil the melody of the right hand? Thank you very much!
Yes. If you read Czerny's descriptions of Beethoven's playing of his early sonatas, you'll see that most modern performances use much less rubato than Beethoven used. He just did not micro-manage with a lot of instructions. Slow movements such as this particularly need careful rubato.
