Help with Prélude, Fugue et Variation- César Franck

ZigZagStory

Hello everyone! Joining here from PW.
I’m working on the Prelude part of this very exciting piece (I take lessons with a teacher but working on this piece independently).

On the B part there are a few bars where the melody is the lower note of a sequence of parallel 3rds (see attached example).
I’m trying to bring out the melody in the lower notes, but feel that the top voice is still too prominent. Any advice on how to practice these bars to better bring out the melody?

Related to my previous question, how would you split the lines between hands? There are at least 3 different options (crossing hands, switch between lines so that RH takes the top notes (to avoid crossing), RH plays both notes in the triads). I am currently most comfortable with avoiding crossings but I wonder if this is interfering with voicing.

will be happy to hear your recommendations.

rogerch

ZigZagStory Welcome to PianoTell!

That is a tricky passage. I'm not sure how I would divide those notes between hands. When I play that measure as written my hand feels contorted, but I do see people playing with hands right on top of each other so maybe that is the intent.

The approach I would take is to first work out a comfortable fingering. Then focus on voicing by exaggerating: play the melody very loud and the non-melody notes very soft. Sometimes I will try to press the keys so gently in the non-melody notes that they don't play at all when working on voicing. You may discover after doing this for a while that the fingering isn't working, so I suggest being open to trying different fingerings.

Anyway, once you have a fingering that works and exaggerated voicing, refine the voicing so that it's less exaggerated until you have the balance you want.

I hope you have fun learning this piece and I hope you share a recording here in Member Recordings!

ZigZagStory

rogerch

Thank you for your reply and nice to e-meet (also thank you for granting me the star 🙂)

In my opinion, in some renditions in YT I think that the melodic voice is not separated enough. And yes these are tricky bars.
When I tried to decide on fingerings for this measure, I also watched youtube and saw all 3 options I mentioned in my original question used. My current preference is to avoid crossing , but I’m not sure if I will eventually be able to voice the melodic line with this choice. I’ll keep practicing.

Hoping that I’ll reach a good enough level to share a recording ! I really love this piece and it’s not played enough!

ranjit

I wouldn't cross for this part imo. I'm not an expert but it looks like you could basically use a straightforward fingering like 1234 in both the LH and RH. It shouldn't be too hard to voice as you would like.

keff

To emphasise the melodic voice keep the fingers curved in the hand playing it. To diminish the seconary voice plsay it with flattened fingers. As flat as you can make them and as far up the keys as is comfortable.

PianogrlNW

I’ve played this piece. I found the most efficient way to play this passage is to 1) cross thumbs on beat 3 with the L thumb on G in towards the fallboard crossing in front of the R thumb that will be on E, 2) beats 4,5 and 6 play the RH part with your LH (D, C, B) and the LH part with your RH (F#, E, D) so there is NO crossing. As you play with your LH pull your fingers towards you so that your hands don’t collide 3) last 3 beats play as written with the RH playing F# and the LH playing C, A, F#).

If you hear the melody in your head, you won’t have any problem voicing this.

TheBoringPianist

Whoa, I just started working on this piece as well! It's achingly beautiful, isn't it?

Still working through what feels best but my current approach to that section is to keep the melody entirely in the RH so I don't have to worry about passing the line cleanly between hands (there's plenty enough of that throughout the rest of the piece heh). RH ends up being 2-5-1-3-2-1-4 and LH is something like 5-2-3-4-5-1-3-5 (going over RH). We'll see if I stick with that or end up with something else.

PianogrlNW

If anyone is interested I recorded the Prelude about 6 or 7 years ago. I would like to think I could play it better now and wince at some of the stick-out notes and clumsy rolled chords. I remember liking Alexis Weissenberg’s performance that I would listen to while learning the piece. Yes, it’s achingly beautiful I felt like Franck was trying to reach heaven with each ascending passage.

https://on.soundcloud.com/PirEszvMhDaDERvs6

ZigZagStory

Thanks for sharing, @PianogrlNW !
Indeed this piece is achingly beautiful !

I noticed that this piece has similar characteristics to another piece I like - Pas de Deux, by Samuel Barber.
Do any of you also like the Barber piece?