Learning the Chopin Piano Trio -- Part III

The piece is quite a bit more difficult than I had imagined chamber music pieces to be.  Or maybe it's just me not trying to play all the right notes in the past and now I'm trying to?  Either way, this post will be more about technical difficulties I'm encountering as I'm learning the 4th movement of the Chopin Piano Trio.

1) Bar 35.

Chopin Piano Trio, Bar 35-37

  I've been following the fingering suggested by the National Edition, in blue.  I find the D circled in red to be very awkward to play with thumb.  Maybe I should have explored alternate fingerings, but they're all hard in one way or another.

  The Chopin National Edition also suggested using the left hand to play some of the notes, as indicated by the dotted lines.  Those definitely make it easier to play, although the left hand would have to do a lot more jumping around and I have been playing those notes heavier than that right hand, which is bad.

2) Broken 6ths, octaves, 10ths and 11ths

Chopin Piano Trio, Bar 69-70

  This passage is proving itself to be hard.  The 10th and 11th are hard enough as is, and jumping from the F back to the C doesn't help.

3) Big broken chords

Bar 132-136

  The big broken chord in 132 (and 131, not shown) isn't exactly trivial, but the ones in bars 134 and 36 are simply not something I'm used to playing.  Obviously, the 5th and 4th by themselves are easy, but once you combine with the rest of the chord it becomes quite hard to hit all the right notes, unless you have hands like Rachmaninoff.  I've been trying to play them as legato as possible, so I've been using a lot of 4-5 fingerings playing those 5ths and 4ths, but maybe I need to lift and reposition my hand here.  It's probably okay with all the pedaling going on, but it's hard to make it sound even and smooth when you lift your hand.

  This is where it reminds me of Chopin's Op. 10-1 etude.  Only not in the key of C major.

4) Thirds.

Chopin Piano Trio, Bar 168-170

  Well, this actually isn't as bad as I originally thought.  The Chopin National Edition had some weird fingerings that I should have ignored earlier.  Now, for Bar 168, I'm playing (52)-(31)-(42)-(31) and Bar 170 basically the same.  But I haven't quite nailed it down yet.

  I don't know why Jan Ekier suggested for bar 168 (53)-(42)-(31)-(2/3 1) and essentially the same for Bar 170.  (31)-(2/3 1) doesn't work that well for me (2/3 meaning either 2 or 3); and isn't moving the thumb like that the wrong fingering anyway?

  

Man, I didn't know having to play all the right notes make a piece so much more difficult.

There are a bunch of other things that are hard, mostly bringing some of the polyphonic stuff in the piano part.  For the time being, I'm thinking the strings will detract attention enough so while I'm paying some attention to them, I'll try not to spend too much time worrying about that for now.