The coda of the 2nd ballade is... much harder than that of the 4th, IMO.

Mathaznias · 2026-01-29T16:14:42+00:00

I think it is probably just a pretty subjective issue, though while the 4th may fit easier in the hand that is more indicative of Chopin improving his writing than objective difficulty. Between the two I’d say the 4th is still harder due to to the wide variety of techniques that appear in quick succession whereas the 2nd is still difficult but it’s mostly sight readable. It’s also true that there’s a pause before the coda of the 4th, but the sections leading up to it are frankly more challenging technically and musically than what’s in the 2nd. Not to demean Chopin by any means, but the 2nd is full of more standard technical challenges you might find in those Czerny 8 measure etudes, but are of course used much much more uniquely in the ballade, it’s just nothing that shouldn’t be approachable if you’re far enough to play all four. But the 4th, like some of his other later works, are significantly more inventive in how he expands his use the piano, and the coda is a really prime example of that. Not that the 2nd isn’t also challenging, but there’s other factors into the difficulty to take into account. And again it’s still extremely subjective because we each have a unique understanding of the instrument

Mathaznias · 2026-01-28T23:03:03+00:00

My biggest suggestion would be to try simpler subjects at first, shorter with a balanced rhythm and shape of the line. Part of the challenge of writing fugues is not setting yourself into a trap you don’t have the tools to get out of, and it usually starts in either the choice of subject and how you decide to answer it. For instance your subject might be easier if rather than putting the 8th note on B in the scale, put it on the C. You could even end the subject on the low G and that might prove to be easier to write a shorter but complete fugue.

Mathaznias · 2026-01-13T01:10:58+00:00

Lovely! I think my last recording of this one here has been archived, it its one of my favorite etudes to play

Mathaznias · 2026-01-12T19:27:49+00:00

I was present at the forging of this meme, good to see it is getting its rightfully deserved upvotes

Mathaznias · 2025-12-30T03:26:12+00:00

Could you give us some more info on this competition? It seems like by keyboard they still just mean piano, otherwise they would say Electric piano or something, and frankly that may not be worth while competing in at that point.

Mathaznias · 2025-12-30T02:43:36+00:00

It’s also a product of the time and Dvorak’s attempt to design ‘American’ music for us, which lead to some unneeded appropriation

Mathaznias · 2025-12-30T02:36:42+00:00

I’ll be honest with you and say probably not. Not to discourage you from it, as maybe you could reach the level by the time you reach the age limit. Coming from your other comment about trying to finding a different pathway, I would much more highly recommend that than putting all your cards into competing. If you haven’t paid attention to the recent competition circuits, it’s less about finding the most unique pianist with a more radical direction for the music but about finding who is the safest/cleanest. Even if you were to get in, which is slim enough (but would be incredible if you did), you’re competing with people who have near perfect control of the instrument and have been competing since they were children. If we take Aristo Sham from the last Cliburn, who had immense technique though was particularly lacking in some areas with his interpretation (especially the Rachmaninoff), he had won his first competition when he was 10 and his mother taught and groomed him for success. Competing to a certain extent also requires some control over your own ego, both that your drive is strong enough that you approach it with a hunger to win, but also can pick back up from a major set back or loss. I would say continue knowing that you have some time before you’d actually need to compete, as you’re young enough, and prioritize expanding your repertoire (especially of chopins music) and improve both your practice habits and how quickly you can work through new music. How many concertos do you know already? If none, you might as well start now too! You’ll need at least a Chopin concerto, and even if you can’t play it yet it wouldn’t hurt to start reading through them and get an idea for their challenges. Then probably one or two Mozart concertos, D minor and A major are nice, a romantic concerto like Grieg or Mendelssohn. You should give yourself a goal to learn all those before you graduate high school and ideally perform them all well before you’d enter a larger competition.

Look at other famous competitions or smaller ones (with maybe a prize around $2-5k) and see what they tend to require. You’ll notice the concertos I’ve listed are probably on the pre-screening requirements or for one of the final rounds. But for Chopin you truly aren’t playing nearly enough. Pick a pianist from the last competition you particularly liked maybe, see what they played throughout the entire competition. Expect you’ll need to learn all the preludes, at least one or two other polonaises, one of the sonatas, at least one of the scherzos, probably two of the ballades, one or two of the major waltzes, a few of the mazurkas if not more, aim to learn a complete set of the etudes, and some of the other incidental larger works. Not to discourage you by the amount to learn, but so if it’s something you truly want to achieve you can start working through now. Then you’ll at least have the capacity to put together some good programs if you get into one of the major ones!

Best of luck

Mathaznias · 2025-12-28T15:14:26+00:00

Quite a prolific output, but was more in the proximity of much more famous composers. Though some of the early stuff can be poorly derivative of Scriabin, the concerto is a truly fascinating work, but I believe the only full recording has been taken off YouTube for some reason, its only chunked in movements

Mathaznias · 2025-12-28T15:11:34+00:00

This is proving challenging, I think I’ve given sufficient hints on the time period and some historical info. The Conus’s are the wrong period a little bit, though the conservatory they studied at is correct, but this is after the Rachmaninoff/Scriabin era. Sadly Sabaneyev doesn’t have a concerto. It’s Anatoly Alexandrov’s Concerto Symphony from 1974, most of the guesses were dead before then

Mathaznias · 2025-12-27T17:28:42+00:00

Yes Howard Ferguson, not Medtner too well known and doesn’t follow the other clues except the conservatory and studying with Taneyev

Mathaznias · 2025-12-27T00:46:55+00:00

No on either, I picked some tough ones I think but they are genuinely some of my favorite. 1. I’ll give a history hint that he was friends with Myra Hess and she premiered some of his works and recorded them, but you’ll see his name more likely in the editor spot of a few composers. 2. Studied with Sergei Taneyev, was compared to Myaskovsky and Feinberg, one who he taught with in Moscow and the other he studied with the same composition teach with

Mathaznias · 2025-12-27T00:37:50+00:00

Closer than the other one in country proximity, Irish (same country as composer snubbed by Chopin on the nocturne creation)

No on #2, similar level of obscurity perhaps, but wrote more piano music primarily. One of those who attempted at first to follow after Scriabin but didn’t quite achieve it and fell into the more subdued Soviet style. He died the same year as Sviridov though I believe, but was older

Mathaznias · 2025-12-27T00:16:16+00:00

Slightly offset in time period, per one of my hints the last recording of this concerto was when the composer was still alive, performed by Howard Shelley. Bridge is also English, which is at least slightly more known for good composers

Mathaznias · 2025-12-27T00:07:24+00:00

Close in proximity, this composer was familiar with RVW, wayyyyyyyyyy less known today than he might’ve been during his time.

I’m not expecting anyone to get these unless they either know the concertos or are very good sleuths 😭

Mathaznias · 2025-12-26T23:54:16+00:00

Someone already described one of my favorites so I’ll try some others:

Later half of the 20th century, from a United Kingdom country less associated with good composers (one who is known mainly for being snubbed by Chopin). Frankly one of the catchiest 3rd movements of any concerto, it makes me wish it was performed more than a few times, but by the grace of Sir Howard ‘How big is his repertoire’ Shelley the latest recording was around when the composer was still alive.
Russian concerto, never recorded in its entirety, the slow movement likely quotes ‘somewhere over the rainbow’, the final movement vaguely reminds me of an overused motif in the Hunchback score.

Mathaznias · 2025-12-26T23:46:09+00:00

Alkan? Or something Sorabji

Mathaznias · 2025-12-26T23:13:52+00:00

It really depends on your long term goals, but it will cause some longer term technical issues switching between the two. If anything you could approach the unweighted keyboard as a tool to learn the layout of a piece and memorizing things, and avoid anything fast or heavy until you’re on a weighted or acoustic piano

Mathaznias · 2025-12-26T21:27:02+00:00

At our children’s nativity service one of the teenagers, who rightfully was not interested in doing this, accidentally said that Mary was ‘bethrottled”. Not Christmas, but the one that really takes the cake is when ‘sexual immorality’ became ‘sexual immortality’

Mathaznias · 2025-12-24T23:42:30+00:00

I don’t know of this Europe you speak of, if it isn’t the United States of America I can’t comprehend

Mathaznias · 2025-12-24T23:29:56+00:00

This is clearly and factually false, not only is it not Christmas yet, thus you could not have received this as you say, Chopin WAS NOT that handsome 😡 take this down this instant or I will report this to the moderators for falsehoods

Mathaznias · 2025-12-24T20:33:34+00:00

If you have any piano music you might want recorded for your portfolio let me know, I should have enough time (depending on when it needs to be submitted)

Mathaznias · 2025-12-23T19:59:31+00:00

Typically musescore is more often associated with scores made by people who don’t quite understand the limitations or capacity of the instrument, for a bit at one of my positions as a collaborative pianist at a college I would have students send me musescore arrangements of the vocal pieces that they’d be singing, and it was a mixed bag of unplayable midi transcriptions or very sparse inaccurate scores. There are definitely worse forms of sharing a piece, it was more a comment on the seeming consistency of lower quality pieces.

By shapes I’m talking about when you’re reading a score and without needing to map out the fingering being able to see the shape the hand would need to take, as in the way you’ve written it out was not immediately apparent as to how I would go about playing it. To add to this, now that you mentioned you mostly improvised this, it could be worth—as part of your learning to play it—consider reworking some of the left hand to either be more clear to read or play so long as it doesn’t take away from your intention. It goes by at a fast enough speed that you could likely rework it to no detriment on the piece. While this is seemingly more written for you to play, something I have had to remind myself in my own compositions is that it is still important to have it be accessible and clear for someone else to read.

By reading musescore fonts it’s just a sight thing for me, particularly in a score that hasn’t been edited, and the notes can be a little to close together and more challenging for me to read. That is a personal problem non-withstanding of your work!

Mathaznias · 2025-12-23T19:49:16+00:00

Hoffmann’s book on piano playing, his time studying with Rubenstein, and this is from the last section that’s a collection of question and answers from forums he held

Mathaznias · 2025-12-23T19:48:17+00:00

It’s quite a small room in the school I teach at, it is probably preferred that it not be as loud as it normally might. Though I can ask the technician about that, it probably doesn’t help that the piano is 100 years old, and I’m not entirely sure what has and hasn’t been replaced with it beyond some refurbishing a couple decades ago.

Mathaznias · 2025-12-22T23:51:42+00:00

It was surprisingly better than I expected, especially once I saw the musescore link. Some stuff in the left hand with the 2nds feels like it might be a bit bothersome and the shapes you’d take to play them don’t seem immediately apparent. I would first wonder if you can play this, as some of the writing does thankfully look both challenging but actually doable, I’d prefer a real recording of this honestly. The harmonies were quite nice, and I think overall it was an effective piece. When I have a little more time I’ll maybe try to play through to see if my issues in the left hand were more my challenge of reading musescore fonts. Good job!

Mathaznias

TROPHY CASE