Phase two of three of my current Schubert project. This is one of Schubert's lesser-known works (to date, mine is the only performance I've heard ). But I have to say that for me, even this youthful work of Schubert's is more interesting than lesser composers' mature oeuvres

These charming variations are reminiscent of those of Mozart. Schubert doesn't seem quite as comfortable with virtuosic cadenzas as Mozart, though the last variation does contain some interesting material in that department.

P.S. The work doesn't appear to have a D. classification number or Op. number, at least not in my Dover edition.

Joe

Schubert - 10 Variations on an Original Theme in F Major, D.156

Aw, Joe - you made me do some of your work. There is a D number for this piece! I found it on IMSLP and various other sites online. Anyway, this is up. I don't have time to listen to the whole piece, but what I heard sounded nice.

Beautiful. Terrific Schubert.

JG

Thank you for this early work from Schubert, another one which I did not know. I like the rather natural image of your piano from your recordings but I am am frustrated by the small bandwidth: there is nothing above 6 kHz, see attached spectrum. Would you be using a low-pass filter for removing noise ? Some noise cancelling processing might do that much more efficiently and without removing the brightness of the piano sound. I attached the first variation that I processed in such a way for removing some of the residual noise. (Of course, I could not recover the signal absent above 6 kHz...)

I'm not enough of a hardcore Schubertian to fully appreciate these variations (I believe Schubert did not have the variation talent of Mozart and Beethoven). So I'll sooner take more interesting work of lesser-known composers
But this is very well played. I did like the vigorous variation around 3:00 (not sure which number it was) and you handling of it. Those long trills further on could perhaps have been a bit more even - they seem to lean towards one note). But I understand they are a bitch to sustain.
I thought that around 1:40 the polyrhythm sounds a bit strange. But I did not listen with score so can't be sure.

Thanks Monica, and sorry about the lack of D. number. I guess I assumed wrongly that if there wasn't one in Dover that there wasn't one at all. I hope you therefore won't kill me if I point out two little things about the posting

1. The link on my page for the Schubert Variations goes to the PS home page rather than the Schubert Variations page.

2. Should we include the D number 156 after the title on the Schubert Variations page on the site as well?

Thanks again,

Joe

Thanks, John!

Thanks, Didier! I know very little about the technological aspect of piano recording, so this discussion is very interesting for me. Yes, I did use a low-pass filter to remove noise. I can see what you're saying about deadening the brightness of the sound a bit. That actually was part of what I was trying to do, though I know it may not have come off right. Since I record in a very small room with a large B instrument, it always seems as though the piano is overly bright and sounds a bit "tinny" in the treble range. Which is why the low-pass filter seemed like a good idea to reduce some of that. It's probably just that I don't know what I'm doing though

Your sample does sound noiseless to me, so that may be a good option (except that my current program doesn't seem to have pure noise canceling, so I may have to use a different program for that). Which editing/noise canceling program do you use?

Joe

Hi Chris,



Thanks! That would be Variation III (piu moto). Initially, I had thought maybe of breaking the set down by variations, since there are quite a few varying tempo directions throughout, but then I wasn't sure how to do that and make it play continuously from one to the next.



An astute observation. I agree, and yes they are hard to sustain Schubert not being a virtuoso like Beethoven or Mozart, he often went way beyond what was naturally comfortable for the pianist. I also use a bit of soft pedal here, a part of our piano which needs a bit more fine-tuning, so that may make the sound a bit uneven (on certain notes it tends to twang a bit). But I don't want to make excuses for myself because my right hand does always get tired at the end of those trills!



I agree, that still sounds strange to me even though I think I did it correctly It's two against three in the same hand in a rather widely spaced figuration, so it's rather hard to make sound just so.

Joe

oh @#$%! Sorry, Joe. It's all fixed now.

Hi Joe,

I am using Wavelab and plugins. There is at least a free alternative for Wavelab: Audacity. I used a noise removal plugin from Waves. I think that there are less expensive alternatives. For the same price you could buy a low-noise digital recorder with integrated mics, for instance this one.

I think that you could cope with your piano brightness issue without cancelling the signal and the noise above 6 kHz unlike what you did. A more gentle attenuation filter combined with noise removal would likely provide a better result. Nevertheless the audio quality of your recordings is good enough. I am always interested in getting a sound of higher quality but at some point it becomes related to my interest in the sound issue rather than in the music. Anyway if you are interested in listening how your recordings could sound with better processing, just provide me with some unprocessed material.

Didier

Thanks, Didier! Yes, I would very much like to do this. though at this point I will wait until I do my next project (since I had already started processing the impromptus, I decided just to go ahead with them and submit them here). But yes, I know the sound is not ideal in my recordings, since everything I have learned is just through experimentation, so I would very much like to see what you can do with them in that area. Thanks again for the offer!