Know It All Nev

On Demand Reviews – 2021

Category: mozart

Nearly any Mozart Fantasy, Progressive Items and Giving voice a Melody

Nifty Nev
Chopin, chopin fantasie-impromptu, learning a piece, mozart, Mozart Fantasy, practice clinic, Practising, Tchaikovsky, tchaikovsky sweet dreams |

In this month’s practice clinic, Graham Fitch answered questions on tips for practising a passage from Mozart’s Fantasy in C minor (K475), starting a new piece with Tchaikovsky’s Sweet Dreams used as a demonstration and bringing out the melody in an excerpt from Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu.

Practice clinic questions

WA Mozart – Fantasy in C minor, K475 – I’m wondering the best way to learn and practice the Piu Allegro section is as I have no idea really how to go about it properly without making a mess of it!
Learning a New Piece (Tchaikovsky Sweet Dreams from Album for the Young) – Your books are my first exposure to any type of practice or even the fact that there was a way one can practice other than sight reading and then playing the piece over and over! Can you suggest how I go about learning a new piece from scratch, including planning practice sessions and selecting which practice tools to use?
Chopin – Fantasie-Impromptu in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 66 – I watched your walkthrough of this piece again and while your advice helps a lot, I am missing one detail concerning bars 17-21: what kind of movement and what kind of exercises do you recommend for bringing out the melody with the fifth finger? I have no problem bringing it out with the thumb, but 17-21 do not work well. Furthermore: in some bars of this section (16, 22-24) there is no melody (according to Henle), do you make these parts sound very different? And if so, how?

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Next practice clinics
Our next practice clinic takes place on Wednesday 22nd September on our Facebook page at 12:00 BST. Please sign-up to our mailing list here for updates on future practice clinic dates.
Watch previous clinics
Recordings of past practice clinics are posted up on our Facebook page and YouTube channel shortly after each event. You can also view our full archive of previous events via these links!
How they work?
Online Academy subscribers can submit questions for practice clinics up to two weeks before each session. This can be done using the link provided on the Online Academy dashboard under “subscription benefits” (click here to sign-in and visit your dashboard).
Further information on how our practice clinics work is available here or please click here to find out more about the Online Academy.

Practising the Piano Online Academy
The Practising the Piano Online Academy is the ultimate online resource for mastering the piano. It features a constantly growing library of over 300 articles, thousands of musical excerpts and hundreds of videos on topics including practising, piano technique and performing from leading experts. Please click here to find out more about the Online Academy or on one of the options below to subscribe:

Monthly subscription – Subscribe for £9.99 a month to get full, unlimited access to all Online Academy articles and updates (click here to sign-up for this option)
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Mozart, Mendelssohn, Grieg and Ravel!

Nifty Nev
Grieg, Lully, Mendelssohn, mozart, Mozart Sonata in A minor K310, practice clinic, Practising, Ravel, Ravel Sonatine |

In this month’s practice clinic (May 2021), Graham Fitch answered questions on coordinating the hands, using forearm rotation, trills and various other topics. Works featured include Mozart’s Sonata in a minor K310, a Menuet by Lully, Mendelssohn’s Song Without Words Op. 19 No. 4, Grieg’s Summer Eve and Ravel’s Sonatine.

Practice clinic questions

WA Mozart – Sonata in A Minor, K310 2nd Mvt (Bars 16 – 17) – Practice approaches to coordinating the left and right hands, particularly when putting the hands together and playing the trills
Jean-Baptiste Lully – Menuet from Essential Keyboard Repertoire (Bar 16) – What is the purpose of the G# in what is essentially a piece in D minor?
Felix Mendelssohn – Song Without Words, Op. 19 No. 4 (Bars 1 – 4) – How to use forearm rotation in the right way in order to play the opening four bars without tension or pain
Edvard Grieg – Summer Eve (Bars 14 – 18) – Getting the left hand in synch with the right hand both slowly and up to speed
Maurice Ravel – Sonatine, 1st Mvt (Opening bars) – Suggestions for overcoming difficulties in obtaining the desired sound and evenness in the opening bars of this work (we also have our own study edition for this work – click here for more information!)

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Next practice clinics
Our next practice clinic takes place on Wednesday 23rd June on our Facebook page at 12:00 BST. Please sign-up to our mailing list here for updates on future practice clinic dates.
Watch previous clinics
Recordings of past practice clinics are posted up on our Facebook page and YouTube channel shortly after each event. You can also view our full archive of previous events via these links!
How they work?
Online Academy subscribers can submit questions for practice clinics up to two weeks before each session. This can be done using the link provided on the Online Academy dashboard under “subscription benefits” (click here to sign-in and visit your dashboard).
Further information on how our practice clinics work is available here or please click here to find out more about the Online Academy.

Practising the Piano Online Academy
The Practising the Piano Online Academy is the ultimate online resource for mastering the piano. It features a constantly growing library of over 300 articles, thousands of musical excerpts and hundreds of videos on topics including practising, piano technique and performing from leading experts. Please click here to find out more about the Online Academy or on one of the options below to subscribe:

Monthly subscription – Subscribe for £9.99 a month to get full, unlimited access to all Online Academy articles and updates (click here to sign-up for this option)
Annual subscription – Save over 15% on the monthly subscription with an annual subscription for £99.99 per year and get free eBooks and editions worth over £70! (click here to sign-up for this option)

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Handel, Mendelssohn, Mozart and Rachmaninoff!

Nifty Nev
Handel, Mendelssohn, mozart, Mozart Sonata in A major K331, Practising, Rachmaninov, Rachmaninov Etudes Tableaux op. 33 |

In this month’s practice clinic, Graham Fitch answered questions on trills, fingering, legato octaves and gave practising tips for tackling a difficult passage. Works featured include a Gavotte by Handel, Mozart’s Sonata in a minor K331, Mendelssohn’s Venetian Gondola Song Op. 19 No. 6 and Rachmaninoff’s Etude-tableau in G minor, Op. 33 No. 6 / 8.

Practice clinic questions

GF Handel  – Gavotte in G, HWV 491 by (Bar 11) – Is the trill in bar 11 played differently to the other trills in this piece? My trills are often “louder” than the notes before and after. What practice methods can I use to keep the dynamics consistent?
Felix Mendelssohn – Venetian Gondola Song in G minor, Op. 19 No. 6 (Introduction, Bars 7 & 11) – I’m struggling with the pedalling in the introduction and the LH accompaniment from bar 7 is tense, awkward and unreliable. I also find the RH fingering in bar 11 next to impossible, because of the stretch between 5 and 4.
WA Mozart – Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 331 1st Mvt (Bars 59 – 62) – The octaves in measures 59-62 are difficult to play completely legato. Can you please provide some suggestions on fingering and good technique for these measures?
Sergei Rachmaninoff – Etude-tableau in G minor, Op. 33 No. 6 / 8 (Bars 26-29) – I have been unable to get this section to my satisfaction and am looking for new approaches to practising. I find it becomes a mess especially as I go on with a lack of clarity, inconsistent rhythm and accents.

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Next practice clinics
Our next practice clinic takes place on Wednesday 21st Jule on our Facebook page at 12:00 BST. Please sign-up to our mailing list here for updates on future practice clinic dates.
Watch previous clinics
Recordings of past practice clinics are posted up on our Facebook page and YouTube channel shortly after each event. You can also view our full archive of previous events via these links!
How they work?
Online Academy subscribers can submit questions for practice clinics up to two weeks before each session. This can be done using the link provided on the Online Academy dashboard under “subscription benefits” (click here to sign-in and visit your dashboard).
Further information on how our practice clinics work is available here or please click here to find out more about the Online Academy.

Practising the Piano Online Academy
The Practising the Piano Online Academy is the ultimate online resource for mastering the piano. It features a constantly growing library of over 300 articles, thousands of musical excerpts and hundreds of videos on topics including practising, piano technique and performing from leading experts. Please click here to find out more about the Online Academy or on one of the options below to subscribe:

Monthly subscription – Subscribe for £9.99 a month to get full, unlimited access to all Online Academy articles and updates (click here to sign-up for this option)
Annual subscription – Save over 15% on the monthly subscription with an annual subscription for £99.99 per year and get free eBooks and editions worth over £70! (click here to sign-up for this option)

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New Piano Piece by Mozart Discovered: Allegro in D K626

Nifty Nev
mozart, Piano News |

Today is W.A. Mozart’s 265th birthday and Salzburg and Austria celebrate this with the world premiere of one of his compositions.
At Piano Street we celebrate by releasing the score of the composition, the recently discovered piano piece “Allegro in D K626b/16“.
Download it for free below and celebrate Mozart yourself by playing the piece today!

A hidden treasure
So, how could this manuscript have hidden from public attention? Evidently, after passing from the estate of Mozart’s youngest son into the collection owned by Austrian civil servant and amateur musician Aloys Fuchs, it was mistakenly given away and vanished off the musical map. Owned by an antiquarian book and art dealer in Vienna in the 1880s, the manuscript was brought to auction in 1899. By this time The Köchel catalogue – listing the composer’s works – started mentioning it even though the manuscript itself kept going in and out of auction houses.
In 2018, the ‘unknown’ Allegro was offered for sale to the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation on behalf of the family of its owner, a French-Dutch engineer who had bought the manuscript from a dealer in Paris in the late 1920s. The Foundation’s staff and experts from the USA and Germany confirmed that the unattributed piano piece was undeniably by Mozart.
The Allegro in D major, K. 626b/16 fills the front and back of a single sheet of music paper in oblong format. The handwriting is hasty, but error-free. The undated composition stems in all likelihood from the first months 1773, according to the Mozarteum Foundation; it thus originated either during Mozart’s third journey to Italy or immediately after his return to Salzburg. Peculiarities of style suggest that this three-part dance movement is not an original piano piece, but a keyboard arrangement in Mozart’s own hand of an unknown orchestral work.
Free download!

Download the PDF-score and play the piece today to celebrate Mozart’s 265th birthday!
The World Premiere in Salzburg

A facsimile edition of the Allegro in D, complete with extensive introduction and bibliography, has been published by Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg and pianist Seong-Jin Cho will perform the piece in the official world premiere in Saltzburg on 27 January.
Pianist Seong-Jin Cho is the unique performer in the Great Hall of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation which is also the opening day of the Foundation’s first virtual Mozartwoche festival. Cho plays a stimulating selection of works by the Great Master, including the Piano Sonata No. 12, the Allegro in C Major and 94 seconds of an Allegro in D-major, performed for the very first time.
“The Allegro in D major K. 626b/16 is a highly attractive and charming piano piece, that adds yet another facet to the affectionate relationship of Mozart to his sister. How wonderful, that we are now able to participate in this relationship after such a long period of time.”
— Dr. Ulrich Leisinger, director of research of the Mozarteum Foundation,
“The rediscovery of this new work by Mozart is a real gift, not just for the Foundation but for friends of the Mozartwoche all over the world! We are very pleased to be able to fulfil the mission of the Foundation in such wonderful style, together with Seong-Jin Cho and Deutsche Grammophon, our aim being to enable people of all ages to find out more about Mozart’s music, life and personality.”
— Dr Johannes Honsig-Erlenburg, President of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation
“It is a great honour to be invited to give the premiere of a formerly unknown work by Mozart, in the city where he was born and where it may have been written,”
— Seong-Jin Cho, pianist

Resources:
Read more at the press page:
Mozarteum.at
Watch a recording of the official world premiere that will by published here 27 January at 18.00 GMT:
DG YouTube channel
/nilsjohan

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