ctdeupree wrote:Thanks for the link, it definitely helped. I think it means only to include the primary note and the one above it, and not include a final turn to the note lower than the primary.
Correct, Nachschlag is the name for the turn on the end of the trill. Sorry I don't have a link or a reliable source to hand; I remember reading it in a table of how CPE Bach interpreted various ornaments.
It's probably part of this volume: https://imslp.org/wiki/Versuch_%C3%BCbe...p_Emanuel) - most of the versions here are in German, but there's a French translation.
]]>Thanks for the link, it definitely helped. I think it means only to include the primary note and the one above it, and not include a final turn to the note lower than the primary.
Correct, Nachschlag is the name for the turn on the end of the trill. Sorry I don't have a link or a reliable source to hand; I remember reading it in a table of how CPE Bach interpreted various ornaments.
]]>I don't know if it helps in any way but here are some excerpts from german music lexicons from the 18 hundreds. Although i'm a native speaker i got a lack of piano knowledge. In my understanding "ohne Nachschlag" means, you don't play the second tone at the end of the trill?!? The word "Nachschlag" means something like "to hit something a second time / afterwards". "Ohne" means "without" indeed.
Try google translate. Even if the result is garbage you might get a clue.
Try google translate. Even if the result is garbage you might get a clue.
]]>Good luck with the piece! Gilles is right that this definitely involved material: Kudos for taking it on!
Thanks again for the informed discussion. I have posted my rendition of the Tango on Youtube:
]]>OT: fyi, in contemporary nomenclature, "fortepiano" refers to any instrument with _Wienermechanik_ (Viennese action) and includes instruments down to the 1914 Boesendorfer, whereas "pianoforte" refers to those with the "English" action (precursor to our modern Steinway-type behemoths). I also don't know what's "simpler" about fortepianos... if anything they require much greater finesse of touch and articulation than "modern" instruments in which the action does so much of the work involved in tone production for the player...
OT continues
Agreed, but I do encounter a lot of people who can easily get them mixed up...myself included... The most amusing being when someone insists that one or the other term doesn't exist.
As far as "simplicity," yes, playing any fortepiano or pianoforte is substantially harder! Every time I play a pre-modern instrument, I marvel at the level of concentration and precision needed!
Instead, I was (unclearly) referring to aspects of the mechanism itself being "simpler" in its design and execution--particularly where pedals are concerned. In the oldest pianos that have one, an una corda was aptly literal in its name, in that it would allow only one string to be played on higher notes, and it was a much more straightforward in what it did and how--regularly being a stop knob or knee lever, not remotely allowing the kind of half-pedaling that modern pianos do. Many early una corda designs couldn't be engaged or disengaged without stopping playing entirely--usually at a movement break. You see this in Classical and early-Romantic Sonatas a lot, where instructions--if any--regarding an una corda are only at the start of a piece or movement.
Further OT: I wonder how much this delay influenced the tradition of briefly resting between movements in any Sonata-form--as you hardly see it in Baroque music, as Preludes flow freely into Fugues. Sonatas, Concertos and Symphonies only started to get that back at the turn of the century with composers like Rachmaninoff adding "attaca subito" instructions at the end of movements. I won't even touch on the ongoing war over clapping etiquette...
Now, una cordas don't really do anything like what they were originally intended, as--yes--they may depending on the position of the action play "duo corda" on high notes but their modern use is to strike most strings with a more supple part of the hammer head to "color" the sound instead of simply reducing it, and that's without covering the various half-blow pedals on modern uprights and Fazioli grands--that in their way are closer in function to the original una corda. This also makes music from Schumann or Brahms, especially Brahms, harder to interpret on modern pianos because leather hammers were more typical, which don't offer the "coloration" of the una corda, at least not in the same way.
]]>In piano scores since (as best as I can tell) Robert Schumann, "Verschieben" is used to refer to the shifting caused by the una corda pedal...<snip>
Good luck with the piece! Gilles is right that this definitely involved material: Kudos for taking it on!
Many thanks for this historically informed and articulate response! Overexposure to Schumann at a young age meant that I have not studied his work in depth as an adult. These days I have more fun exploring unknown repertoire -- at least that way nobody will have a preconceived notion of what a piece should sound like.
I stumbled across Grosz's lovely Waltz last year whilst sightreading in the irresistably named Album of Grotesques (available at IMSLP, and this year I've been working my way through the second dance suite, which contains this tango. My videos of the Boston and the Foxtrot (a one-step waltz) from this same suite are on Youtube. The recording that Gilles cited was released just a few months ago, so I didn't have the exposure to the pieces prior to developing my own interpretations, which are quite different from Ms. Golan's. Nevertheless, I'm happy to see Grosz getting some attention and exposure, well deserved IMHO.
]]>tmyoung wrote:the current reading of instructions is debatable when compared to how you'd follow the instructions on simpler fortepianos--which is itself a confusing and interchangeable term with pianoforte
OT: fyi, in contemporary nomenclature, "fortepiano" refers to any instrument with _Wienermechanik_ (Viennese action) and includes instruments down to the 1914 Boesendorfer, whereas "pianoforte" refers to those with the "English" action (precursor to our modern Steinway-type behemoths). I also don't know what's "simpler" about fortepianos... if anything they require much greater finesse of touch and articulation than "modern" instruments in which the action does so much of the work involved in tone production for the player...
Still OT. Yes, I am a competent harpsichordist, modern grand piano player, but my experiences of playing a number of fortepianos over a long period of time cause me to accept that I have not acquired the skills to be competent on the fortepiano.
]]>the current reading of instructions is debatable when compared to how you'd follow the instructions on simpler fortepianos--which is itself a confusing and interchangeable term with pianoforte
OT: fyi, in contemporary nomenclature, "fortepiano" refers to any instrument with _Wienermechanik_ (Viennese action) and includes instruments down to the 1914 Boesendorfer, whereas "pianoforte" refers to those with the "English" action (precursor to our modern Steinway-type behemoths). I also don't know what's "simpler" about fortepianos... if anything they require much greater finesse of touch and articulation than "modern" instruments in which the action does so much of the work involved in tone production for the player...
]]>The composer is being extremely specific about using both pedals in this piece. So, at the bottom of page 13, you're instructed "wieder beide Pedale" which is "continue [pattern] with both pedals" meaning--as best as I can tell--una corda and sustain pedal continue in the same pattern until the next instruction.
When you hit "nur Verschieben" it means that you are only following pedal instructions with the una corda until you're told to use both pedals again (either by a "beide Pedale" or "Pedale" instruction). It seems that you're supposed to start half-pedaling on the next system with the "etwas Pedal dazu" meaning "bring some pedal back."
The following is largely a guess, because in any score engraving methodology there's never been full agreement in how to communicate multiple pedal instructions at once, so I speculate that they are using "Ped" and "*" and the "u.s.w." ("und so weiter" or "continue [the pattern] as such") to refer to when you lift or press any pedal in question. However, it is possible that the composer is wanting the shift to be continuous until you're told otherwise. I lean towards the former more strongly because of certain consistent patterns in the instructions, but that's not necessarily guaranteed. I'd recommend that you just experiment with both as options and see how playable either one is and how it sounds. Frankly, I don't like the una corda on grands very much, as it breaks my brain to having a constantly moving target as I play, so if I'm going to engage the una corda, I'm going to leave it there as much and as long as possible, so that I don't have to compensate every few seconds for the keys moved to... But, it seems that this piece is probably intended for frequent, constant shifting.
Also, based on the future instruction in piece IV of "viel Verschieben" I'm guessing that the frequent shifting could be meant to be a lighter half-pedal of the una corda through this Tango, rather than a complete shift at every pedal marker, but it could also be that in piece IV on page 19 may not be intended to help in interpreting the instructions in another piece in the same score. Hence, we're back to the fact that nobody ever standardized how to differentiate instructions for various pedals or changes in piano design. (Beethoven Sonatas, for example, can be a pedal minefield because the current reading of instructions is debatable when compared to how you'd follow the instructions on simpler fortepianos--which is itself a confusing and interchangeable term with pianoforte. )
Good luck with the piece! Gilles is right that this definitely involved material: Kudos for taking it on!
]]>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsN9qBGgah4
It's played with a lot of rubato and maybe this shifting is in the style of the dance itself, the tango, that has a lot of those hesitations. The place where that notation appears does not sound to me very different from the rest.
Complex music these pieces...
Hope this helps a bit.
]]>I'm working on a score by Wilhelm Grosz, an Austrian composer from the 1920s. All of the musical directions are in German, and although Google Translate is mostly okay, there is one marking about which I remain puzzled: Nur Verschiebung. Google translates this as 'just shift', which makes no sense to me. It appears twice in the score, both times under the bass, where the pedal markings are located. In one case it appears just after Ped. - - *. Could one of the German speakers here please help?
For more info, the full score in question is at IMSLP, and the notations appear on pages 15 and 16.
Thanks in advance, and danke (the extent of my German).
]]>