navindra Absolutely tremendous, riveting performance of an incredible piece of music. Stunning.
That piano sounds absolutely gorgeous.
This really sounds like a finished record. Bravo!
Rubens The thinking man's virtuoso!
twocats it's a beautiful recording and I enjoyed listening! I don't think I am familiar with this piece and it's lovely.
MarcPlaysPiano Great work! I generally liked the phrasing and the direction of the piece.
rsl12 So gorgeous!
Thank you so very much to each of you for these very kind words! I’m glad to know that the overall structure and direction is good - that was one of my foremost concerns: how it would translate to the listener. This is very helpful. It’s been about two weeks since I started committing this piece back to my repertoire for serious performance, so having people listen and and be able to enjoy it is very encouraging!
twocats at 3:10 I would love to hear much more momentum! It sounds like maybe you're struggling a little bit in the right hand (the only part in the piece where I had that impression) and I would really want to hear a Chopin-like
Yep, you’re right. This was one a one-take performance, and that cadenza kicked my butt. 😂 It’s, at least fo rme, a really awkwardly written cadenza in the context of everything going on. And I think I overshot the mark a little bit by starting with a weird fingering. I’m still working on the fingering for that particular section to get it smoother.
MarcPlaysPiano I couldn't hear the vibrato at 3:42 though. In that section you need to shake a strong magnet over the strings. (kidding 😂)
Dangit! I forgot the magnet! 😂
MarcPlaysPiano Some runs could use a little cleanup (e.g. 4:08, hands not totally in sync)--but they didn't ruin the experience.
Thanks for pointing this out. I might add that, in this particular section, the hands aren’t necessarily in sync, per se. The right hand has a sort of falling candenza, while the left hand has bass notes and arpeggios:
I’m wondering if that’s what translates to/contributes to the out-of-sync feeling? But, either way, I’m going to take your feedback advice I’m going to go back and make sure that’s tightened up!
twocats 3:33 the volume starts off much too intense
3:45 same, that huge chord is like a thunderclap 😂
MarcPlaysPiano However, I still quibble with the dynamic range. To my ears, around 4:40 is unnaturally quiet, an certain bass notes like at 3:15 were loud to the point of sounding out of place. Most of the time the dynamic range was fine, though (maybe you've turned down the sensitivity since last time?). It just seems like maybe the extremes are reached too easily. If it were me, I'd crank down the sensitivity some more, at least when making recordings, to help keep things realistic.
Thanks for these suggestions! I constantly get comments about the dynamic range, so I’ll need to revisit it and make a few more adjustments. I think part of it is, instead of using headphones, I’ve been playing just using the piano’s speakers these days. The headphones can make things sound overly-percussive, and I find myself pulling back too much, while the speakers avoid that. The trade-off though is that it seems I’m not as aware of how the dynamic range may sound from a set of regular speakers or headphones or devices. So I’ll plug in my headphones today and make some more changes. Thanks for pointing this out! Getting that perfect VST dynamic range is work, lol!
MarcPlaysPiano On the VST, the piano's sound is simply beautiful...hearing just one note played repeatedly in isolation I might start drooling.
twocats Whoa, it didn't even occur to me that this might be a digital piano. It sounds so good!
navindra That piano sounds absolutely gorgeous.
Yep, believe it or not, this is Synthogy Ivory 3 German D VST (which I just realized rhymes a lot when you say it together like that, lol).
It’s become my main VST driver, replacing VSL’s Steinway. There are things I still like about the VSL - the overall - the brilliance, resonance/ambience textures, and the overall fidelity/definition. But, Ivory has much better playability, and the piano they used was much better prepared and voiced. It also has actual una corda samples, which go a long way.
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Thanks to everyone for your comments, compliments, and feedback. It’s very valuable to me. As I said, I just started seriously recommitting to this piece about two weeks ago. So this feedback is super valuable to me as I work through what I need to fix up/clean up/tighten up. Thanks again!