Chopin Polonaise, Op. 53, Part II

Starting to think about this piece a little more.  But musically, still haven't figured out many things yet.

But first, a few more technical points:

1) Measure 27.  

Op. 53 Bars 26-27.

So, in a previous post, I was undecided what fingering to use to especially the first turn.  I asked people on pianoworld, most like to use 4-5-4, the most natural fingering.  One person pointed out that Jan Ekier, editor of the Chopin National Edition, suggested using the left thumb to play the low F note for the F octave, which I thought, is a rather brilliant idea, since not having to worry about the following F octave makes the turn so much easier.

After some exploring, my current choice is the counterintuitive 4-3-4.  It works surprisingly well for me.  It requires a bit of wrist and arm twisting, but seeing this pattern only comes up 4 times in this one piece, it's not too bad.  5-3-5 and 5-4-5 are also possibilities.

2) Chord progressions in the right hand.  As an example:

Op. 53 Bars 178-179 1st beat.

The fingering for chords require some thinking.  I have been guilty of being a bit lazy and using whatever fingering comes naturally-est to me, but to improve my play, I need to figure out better fingerings.  Shown here, in the last beat of measure 178, is a sequence of fast moving chords.  I'm not sure if 5-5-5-4-5 is the best fingering at this point yet.  I'll play around some more and hopefully come to a conclusiong later on.




Musically, like I mentioned earlier, haven't figured out too many things yet.  One thing is that I am trying to play softer.  My ff's and f's are too loud.  It's not Prokofiev.  And with Prokofiev there's fff's so I'm banging my chords way too loud in any case.

The other is the issue of pedaling.  The edition I'm using is Paderewski.  Here's the pedaling issue I have:

Op. 53 Bars 17-19

Why are the staccato notes pedaled over?  I don't really get it.  Not to mention the pedaling totally destroys whatever other phrasing there is in the left hand.  I'm going to play the staccato notes without pedal.

Listening to about 20 masters playing this piece on youtube leads me no closer to the "correct" interpretation.  Everybody does things differently.  Some start pedaling on the second staccato (Argerich, etc).  Some pedal through the whole bar as indicated (Rubinstein).  Some pedal those two staccato notes as if it's a phrase (forgot the ones did that).

Is it the problem of playing a piece everybody knows?  Everybody wants to introduce an element of freshness and individuality to the piece and show how original he or she is.

I need to take a look at Jan Ekier's National Edition and see what he has to say about it.

But slowly, I'm beginning to think about musical issues in the piece as technical problems are gradually being solved.  Exciting times coming up!