Thank you Chris for uploading and embellishing the text The changed version is really good! And also I didn't get some recent notifications of new posts, indeed. But it seems to work again.

I think, that must have been a great fun to study and practise these pieces. And you play them so well and musically and expressively, so that the little mistakes, which are in there, are not bad IMO (I don´t think, there are many of them, btw, but I didn´t listen with score). I have enjoyed listening very much, Hye-Jin. And have my sincere congratulations to your birthday ex post. (I´m sorry, that I haven´t listened earlier, I didn´t see this thread somehow, because it was still quite below. )

Hey Hye-Jin! I finally got a chance to listen to these recordings. You did a great job; everything sounds really tasteful to me (besides the digital sound which we all hate probably), and I can tell that it is far from easy. I am not familiar enough with the piece to have even noticed any slips. I did notice some things that sounded a little strange to me, but I think that at least some of them were actually written that way. I am again amazed at how little it sounds like Bach at all, most of the time...

Congrats on getting all three movements polished enough to record, and have fun working on your dissertation. I might bark up your tree if I have trouble with symbolic logic in the fall, since I don't often have the chance to talk to Ray. Propositional logic was fun and easy...

Thank you so much for your kind post, Andreas Yes, I had much fun from learning this set, but at the same time was much tortured by it, too

I'm afraid those are the slips...

I once read on the web about this set: "[...]Yet the music has a mostly Bachian flavor and some have surmised that Bach himself would have made very similar modifications had he fashioned a keyboard version.[...]" (Robert Cummings, All Music Guide )

Thank you Theresa! I remember how difficult was the symbolic logic class from my undergraduate periode... But you know, about a week before the final exam of that semester I was bitten by a mosquito in my face very severely (I hate the creature most of all!!! ) so that I had to stay at home with the swollen face and nothing else to do than preparing that exam. So I got an A, very unexpectedly! Anyway I'm still weak at those things, so I specilized myself in another direction.

Belated HB (and apologies for my late wishes)!



True, but they actually are the most difficult Rachmaninoff transcriptions after the Mendelssohn Scherzo and Wohin (and perhaps Liebesfreud), especially the outer movements. And, it's Rachmaninoff, not child's play!



You shouldn't bother too much about those tiny slips. What really counts in a performance/recording is to convey the piece's distinctive features, which you do in a very effective way. There's no place for a cautious or a hesitating approach here, but a daring thrust is needed even at accuracy's expense.



I must admit that I fail to get its charm, but I found very interesting how you manage the last page or so, starting from the octave passage, which you play at a broader tempo.



Honestly, I cannot spot any unsolved technical problem. The fingerwork is not perfectly clear but I believe that you need to be a virtuoso to get it at such a level of refinement. About the hurriedness, again, I think that it can be part of the performance style. Your phrasing it's not bad and it works in a very peculiar way. As Chris remarked, you may want to increase some dynamic contrasts. Personally I conceive this Gigue like a violinist would do, maybe a tad slower but minding the bowing, so to speak.

All in all, a great job. I'm always very happy when I see a fellow pianist spending valuable time and nurturing a piece that she loves.

Thanks Alfonso I have been waiting for your returning from vacations wondering about your response to my playing

This is my first try of playing Rach's composition seriously (I alway thought that I don't need to torture myself with the pieces for large hands and that this set is just for me having small hands, as you once commented), not to mention his transcriptions, so I'm not familiar with them. But I guess the technical difficulty of them is unlike with that of this set, since it is mix of Bach and Rach. And to me, the second movement was equally difficult with the third.

Thank you for your sharp observation which articulates obscure feelings I had! I gave many tries to that "cautious approach" and could make less slips generally, but felt somehow very uncomfortable with the musical flow.

What a great pity... this is my favorite from this set

Oh, I never found it that special... This was always my conception of this piece. Or I could have been influenced by one of other recordings I've heard...

Your professional analyis of a performance is always very impressive, Alfonso. It never occurred to me!

I expected such a remark already at the recording sessions, but somehow I didn't want it that strongly. I tried to express some dynamic contrast through differenciated articulations and thought that would do. And at another spots I changed the indicated dynamic at the repeats.

It was that conception that I had about the Preludio as I started learning this set. To be exact, I wanted to realize that nice phrasing for the violin on our instrument, just because that was the very elemement I loved most of all in the original piece. But the seamless contrapunctual composition didn't allow me to do that. So I decided to make a completely pianistic approach, also to the Gigue: I had the fast gigues from the keyboard partitas on my mind

Thank you so much for this encouraging words, Alfonso Frankly speaking, I cannot say I still have the blind love toward this set Volodos said once on a interview that a long-time practice ruins the spontaneity. In addition to that I would say it lets also the love fade. However the responsibility for one's first feeling is equally important