Thoroughly enjoyable. Unfortunately many more know the lyrics to rap music performed by "artists" who cannot read music, play an instrument or stay on key. We've witnessed an amazing loss of complexity in music
@@smb123211 Not just loss of complexity in music, but common sense where the music industry is turning towards multi million dollar business rather than art.
Marc-André is not only a briliant pianist and composer, but he is a real avatar in our times, for he is not the typical 'classical' pianist that you find in our days.
Maestro is candid beyond reproach. I learned much from his interview. I have adored Marc Hamelin's recordings. His natural humility attracts me to his humanity. Yes, it makes sense, attracted first to musician now the man. Looking forward to other interviews.
Amazing but also enlightening to see that MA-H is now an editor and accepted as such within the publishing community. An ultimate authority on performance should be respected in their comments or suggestions in how to play such difficult pieces.
Dear Henleverag, if you have influence at all, please encourage Mr. Hamelin to record the Rachmaninoff 1st Sonata. It is passionate and thrilling in the extreme.
A very vital and necessary interview. This edition of Rachmaninoff's music is important, and for a pianist to have Hamelin's ideas, opinions, and fingerings is invaluable. Thank you for posting this.
Excellent documentary and a combination of great talent: Rachmaninov, of course; Hamelin, of course; but don't forget Henle Verlag who produce beautifully laid-out and accurate scores. Thanks for posting.
Whew....I could listen to Marc-Andre explain ANYTHING and be thrilled! SOOO then what did you do the to the pickle jar!!!! I MUST KNOW!!!! 4:25 Legit the passion and respect and understanding. Just wow from a true master of the art and style. Just amazing
Whatever critics thought of Rachmaninoff in the mid-1950s, we heard him then in recordings that came out then--such as Artur Rubinstein's of the Second Piano Concerto, which I fell in love with at age six. My nephew was just three years old when he heard a recording of that concerto. At the end of that recording, he jumped up clapping and gave me a hug!
Very interesting comments about how smaller handed pianists cope. I had heard that some pieces really require large hands. Thanks for this. I'm no pianist but it's very interesting to realize how complex and fascinatingly deep the rabbit hole goes in interpreting a score.:)
I've seen 8 year old Korean girls play Rachmaninov and I closed my eyes and... All the notes are there. And then you open your eyes and ask your self " how?! "
Yes, my piano teacher at the Saarland Music Conservatory told me the same truth, invalidating the Czerny piano teaching, and telling me that the bestfingerings are those that are inttuitive and and taken from other pianists' ideas-even if you put your thumb on black keys!
I never thought there's an alternative to 13/24. The only passage I found troublesome are the staccatos in the left hand at the beginning, bars 8 and 9.
Mr. Hamlin, you are a gem! Your speaking is as full of direct clarity as when you bring the piano to new life in ways no one has ever heard. Impassioned but logical, you capture the emotive content. It no longer has the great public it once enjoyed. Yours speaking and performances can change all that. God bless. I hope I can see you in concert and kiss your hand afterward. Right or Left.
The most interesting parts - in fact, really the only interesting parts - are those where Hamelin gives us an example of either Rachmaninoff's fingering or his own and shows why it makes sense. Yes, of course, fingerings are personal and depend on your hand size and shape, etc., but a fingering that you might not have thought of, or that isn't the "obvious" or "simplest" option, can often affect the sound or phrasing of the music, so, yes, there is value in adding (suggested) fingerings to an Urtext. What is abhorrent is editions that are smothered in fingerings, on almost every note, even when there really is only one possible option. Personally, I always try to find the fingering that allows my hands to remain as relaxed as possible, without making large or awkward stretches, which eventually tire the hand and can make the muscles tighten up. Each to his own! Thanks for posting.
As a small-handed pianist (octaves are a stretch), embarking on Rachmaninoff pieces were always my most ambitious journeys. Lots and lots of rolling, pedaling, and even sometimes having to leave out notes completely. Rachmaninoff definitely did not compose with the small-handed community in mind😂
You can practice all of your scales with the C Major fingering which while challenging is really useful in training the thumb to play on the black notes. This is especially useful in developing jazz solo lines.
The golden silence of Dominik Rahmer (Henle), at every time the Master had given some half-serious response, were priceless. Master Hamelin had to automatically dig into more elaborative opinions as a 20-year-old music student thinking about the efforts of someone's fingering suggestions... These reflections are meaningful to the composer's works, and wonderfully commented with fruitful details we can find.
When professional pianists are together you can be sure they will end up talking about fingerings! I remember three Chopin prize winners discussing at length Lipatti's fingerings in the double note reprise of the first theme of Bartok 3 for instance. Pianists have different shaped hands and different sized hands. Ashkenazy has small hands and has confessed to leaving out notes when playing Rachmaninoff. Hamelin's Rach examples, like the accepted sliding of the 5th finger off black notes in Chopin, make a 'musical' difference. In the end, I suppose, it's what works for you musically and technically.
Very true. My grandfather - a Moscow piano prof - told me had once met Emil Gilels at an official event and asked him what he made of John Ogdon. "Well the fingerings in the Liszt concerto are highly unorthodox but goddamn it it works", was the first thing Gilels said.
Interesting. I had heard that the author of the notorious Grove article was not Blom but Rosa Newmarch (a critic like a kind of Rosa Klebb but without the charm)
Barrie Martyn (Rachmaninoff: Composer, Pianist, Conductor. Pub. Routledge 1990), p.16, says `` contempt and ignorance were all ingloriously combined in the patronizing and by now notorious article by Eric Blom in the fifth edition of Grove's Dictionary, appearing in 1954, which replaced an innocuous if ludicrously obsolete sketch by Rosa Newmarch in the fourth edition.'' But Philip Ross Bullock (Rosa New March and Russian Music in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century England. Pub. Ashgate 2009), end note 59, says ``As well as being included in the fourth edition of /Grove's/, a number of Newmarch's entries were even carried over into the fifth: see, for instance, 'Rakhmaninov, Sergey Vassilievich' and 'Roslavets, Nikolay Andreyevich' in Eric Blom (ed.), /Grove's/... (1954).'' Anyone got access to a copy of the 4th edition to check whether the article in the 5th ed. is the same or a different one?
SR's 1st sonata is a marvelous, visionary work if it's played the right way. It's also very well made. John Ogdon's recording for RCA around 1968 is my ideal. More recently there's Alexandre Kantarow who is on the same level. It would be wonderful if Marc-Andre would give it his attention.
I bet these are good fingerings. I may want these editions. I too can reach a 12th like Rach himself. So these fingerings will be perfect. Thank you for producing them.
Shouldn't an 'Urtext' edition be - by definition - only what the composer specified without any additions. How can it still be Urtext with Hamelins fingering?!
This is amazing if op33 No 4 actually has fingering written in it? I have been looking and the edition I have is so empty. I would love to have this, sounds like a dream?!
Can Henle Verlag please discuss WHY all the handbook editions of Back,Mozart & Beethoven ect. unravel & come apart faster than their paper editions? I've had to literally re-buy the Mozart 18 Sonatas volume 3 times times already. It quite disappointing especially considering the prohibitive cost of repeat buying the score over & over again. The only solution I've had so far was ,for example, the paper editions of both the Chopin Preludes & the Etudes bound together ( IN LEATHER) into 1 volume. This book has lasted in good shape since 1987& I still use it. None of my other Henle books last long or well-the hardback material is cheap & brittle--they should reconsider & redesign these books. Most of my other Henle Verlag hardback editions see the trashcan as they get used up quick & also page turning is very problematic & unfriendly. Great editions otherwise. Thanks.
Dear Ted Allison, thank you for your comment. We are sorry that you are not satisfied with the quality of our editions. Due to the small format and the adhesive binding, we can offer our study editions as a low-priced variant mainly for text study. For regular or frequent use for music making, we recommend our practical Urtext editions, which are of a higher quality. In addition, we also offer all of our editions in digital form - always including the latest updates - in the Henle Library App: www.henle-library.com. If you have further questions that go beyond the topic of the video, please contact us by e-mail: info@henle.de. Thanks and best wishes for the New Year! Henle Marketing Team
+Josh Pfeiffer Hands vary a little but not that much. Personally I find fingerings often very useful but sometimes need to make small changes. To describe fingerings as 'useless' seems one of those ridiculously exagerated remarks common to RUclips!
+RedwolfPsx As a completely terrible piano player (I mean, seriously bad, I've been trying to teach myself off and on for a while, with almost zero luck) I've often wondered about the importance of fingerings. I've basically come to the conclusion that I should try as much as possible to go with the stated fingerings, as anything I do that deviates is bound to spring from appalling technique. But man, it's hard. And I confess that I so often just go with what feels comfortable, even though I know it will probably hinder my development as a player. But I've pretty much given up on developing, so, oh well, whatever :P
Buffoon1980 If you take any decent edition, you should really follow the fingerings as they're usually viable. When you get more experienced, you learn the patterns and fingerings come pretty much naturally.
surprised that Hamelin plays the 1931 "revision" of the original (1913) version of Rach's piano sonata #2; most world-class pianists who "know the score" now play the original. The revision is a cut-and-paste butcher job, slicing out c. 7-8 minutes of solid piano writing from the original and in no way improving the work...which was a c. 24" masterpiece to begin with. What happened is this: Rachmaninoff, who had severe manic-depressive episodes and occasional doubts about his own music, was then living in New York City and there undergoing treatment by a "psychoanalyst" who, like all of his peculiar tribe, was himself batshit crazy. He told Rach that "the attention span of the typical American concert audience is 17 minutes..." .Rach then went back to his apartment and went to work with scissors and library paste. His extensive revision of the 4th piano concerto, op. 40 - completed in Russia during 1917 and then repeatedly fooled with by the composer in America during 1927-41, is somewhat the same; he did tighten the structure, but cut out way too much good music in the process.
@@henleverlagEine Frechheit, dass ihr uns nicht das ganze Stück habt hören lassen :D Rachmaninoff und Hamelin sind eine sehr süchtig machende Mischung!
I had a piano teacher when I was a kid. 90% of the time consisted of giving me fingers to the music. I cannot afford a teacher now, so editions with fingerings from masters is good way of learning the process.
OMG, for what this shit??? Every pianist can play the piece as he thinks. That's open. When someone thinks about fingerings, the actual beginning of an interpretation is often missing.
Fingerings are often an issue of discussion. You are right: Every pianist is free in finding the right fingering for himself. But most of them are grateful to find clever suggestions in our sheet music editions as a starting point for this.
Thank you for posting this -- despite the small audience that will appreciate it -- we do!
I do!
Thoroughly enjoyable. Unfortunately many more know the lyrics to rap music performed by "artists" who cannot read music, play an instrument or stay on key. We've witnessed an amazing loss of complexity in music
@@smb123211 Not just loss of complexity in music, but common sense where the music industry is turning towards multi million dollar business rather than art.
Marc-André is not only a briliant pianist and composer, but he is a real avatar in our times, for he is not the typical 'classical' pianist that you find in our days.
Maestro is candid beyond reproach. I learned much from his interview.
I have adored Marc Hamelin's recordings.
His natural humility attracts me to his humanity.
Yes, it makes sense, attracted first to musician now the man.
Looking forward to other interviews.
Amazing but also enlightening to see that MA-H is now an editor and accepted as such within the publishing community. An ultimate authority on performance should be respected in their comments or suggestions in how to play such difficult pieces.
11:04 someone is hungry
Dear Henleverag, if you have influence at all, please encourage Mr. Hamelin to record the Rachmaninoff 1st Sonata. It is passionate and thrilling in the extreme.
With pleasure listening to such dedication of editing and playing of difficult but rich pieces. Thanks, gentlemen.
.
Wonderfully done. Marc is amazing.
I agree about chopin variations awes. piece deserves much more playings..
A very vital and necessary interview. This edition of Rachmaninoff's music is important, and for a pianist to have Hamelin's ideas, opinions, and fingerings is invaluable. Thank you for posting this.
Excellent documentary and a combination of great talent: Rachmaninov, of course; Hamelin, of course; but don't forget Henle Verlag who produce beautifully laid-out and accurate scores. Thanks for posting.
I found this to be very informative and interesting. Thank you Henle.
Whew....I could listen to Marc-Andre explain ANYTHING and be thrilled! SOOO then what did you do the to the pickle jar!!!! I MUST KNOW!!!! 4:25 Legit the passion and respect and understanding. Just wow from a true master of the art and style. Just amazing
Whatever critics thought of Rachmaninoff in the mid-1950s, we heard him then in recordings that came out then--such as Artur Rubinstein's of the Second Piano Concerto, which I fell in love with at age six. My nephew was just three years old when he heard a recording of that concerto. At the end of that recording, he jumped up clapping and gave me a hug!
Very interesting comments about how smaller handed pianists cope. I had heard that some pieces really require large hands. Thanks for this. I'm no pianist but it's very interesting to realize how complex and fascinatingly deep the rabbit hole goes in interpreting a score.:)
I've seen 8 year old Korean girls play Rachmaninov and I closed my eyes and... All the notes are there. And then you open your eyes and ask your self " how?! "
Yes, my piano teacher at the Saarland Music Conservatory told me the same truth, invalidating the Czerny piano teaching, and telling me that the bestfingerings are those that are inttuitive and and taken from other pianists' ideas-even if you put your thumb on black keys!
Reminds me of my English teacher who said paragraphs must have more than one sentence.
Thank you for the 0p.39 no.9 fingering for the thirds, it feels more in control for me just using 1+3 and 2+4!
I never thought there's an alternative to 13/24. The only passage I found troublesome are the staccatos in the left hand at the beginning, bars 8 and 9.
Very very good and pertinent questions. Thank you for this
Wonderful pianist!!!
Mr. Hamlin, you are a gem!
Your speaking is as full of direct clarity as when you bring the piano to new life in ways no one has ever heard.
Impassioned but logical, you capture the emotive content.
It no longer has the great public it once enjoyed.
Yours speaking and performances can change all that.
God bless. I hope I can see you in concert and kiss your hand afterward. Right or Left.
Exceptionally cerebral pianist. He's thought it all through in the extreme and that's really wonderful to watch
The most interesting parts - in fact, really the only interesting parts - are those where Hamelin gives us an example of either Rachmaninoff's fingering or his own and shows why it makes sense. Yes, of course, fingerings are personal and depend on your hand size and shape, etc., but a fingering that you might not have thought of, or that isn't the "obvious" or "simplest" option, can often affect the sound or phrasing of the music, so, yes, there is value in adding (suggested) fingerings to an Urtext. What is abhorrent is editions that are smothered in fingerings, on almost every note, even when there really is only one possible option. Personally, I always try to find the fingering that allows my hands to remain as relaxed as possible, without making large or awkward stretches, which eventually tire the hand and can make the muscles tighten up. Each to his own! Thanks for posting.
He seems like an incredibly charming person.
Great upload! *THANK YOU!!*
What an engaging interview. And
forget his musical gifts! Just let me have his speaking voice!
As a small-handed pianist (octaves are a stretch), embarking on Rachmaninoff pieces were always my most ambitious journeys. Lots and lots of rolling, pedaling, and even sometimes having to leave out notes completely. Rachmaninoff definitely did not compose with the small-handed community in mind😂
he is indeed an enthusiast, non pareil....so appreciative for this
You can practice all of your scales with the C Major fingering which while challenging is really useful in training the thumb to play on the black notes. This is especially useful in developing jazz solo lines.
The golden silence of Dominik Rahmer (Henle), at every time the Master had given some half-serious response, were priceless.
Master Hamelin had to automatically dig into more elaborative opinions as a 20-year-old music student thinking about the efforts of someone's fingering suggestions...
These reflections are meaningful to the composer's works, and wonderfully commented with fruitful details we can find.
6 years later we are still waiting for me Rachmaninoff works in the Henle collection! Please make it happen.
Please find all our editions of Rachmaninoff's works here: www.henle.de/en/search/?Composers=R&Composer=Rachmaninow%2C+Sergej
he is phenomenal
Amazing. Thank you for this!
Very valuable interview ...
16:20 If the text of early editions really is wrong, and accidentals really should be added, I wonder how come nobody has suggested the change before.
When professional pianists are together you can be sure they will end up talking about fingerings! I remember three Chopin prize winners discussing at length Lipatti's fingerings in the double note reprise of the first theme of Bartok 3 for instance. Pianists have different shaped hands and different sized hands. Ashkenazy has small hands and has confessed to leaving out notes when playing Rachmaninoff. Hamelin's Rach examples, like the accepted sliding of the 5th finger off black notes in Chopin, make a 'musical' difference. In the end, I suppose, it's what works for you musically and technically.
Very true. My grandfather - a Moscow piano prof - told me had once met Emil Gilels at an official event and asked him what he made of John Ogdon. "Well the fingerings in the Liszt concerto are highly unorthodox but goddamn it it works", was the first thing Gilels said.
@@punkpoetry do you have any more stories?
Great insight on how to think about fingering in general. Thanks!
A rich conversation.
11:59-12:30 Da hat er aber mal sowas von Recht! "The way he plunges into our hearts..."
Interesting. I had heard that the author of the notorious Grove article was not Blom but Rosa Newmarch
(a critic like a kind of Rosa Klebb but without the charm)
Barrie Martyn (Rachmaninoff: Composer, Pianist, Conductor. Pub. Routledge 1990), p.16, says `` contempt and ignorance were all ingloriously combined in the patronizing and by now notorious article by Eric Blom in the fifth edition of Grove's Dictionary, appearing in 1954, which replaced an innocuous if ludicrously obsolete sketch by Rosa Newmarch in the fourth edition.'' But Philip Ross Bullock (Rosa New March and Russian Music in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century England. Pub. Ashgate 2009), end note 59, says ``As well as being included in the fourth edition of /Grove's/, a number of Newmarch's entries were even carried over into the fifth: see, for instance, 'Rakhmaninov, Sergey Vassilievich' and 'Roslavets, Nikolay Andreyevich' in Eric Blom (ed.), /Grove's/... (1954).'' Anyone got access to a copy of the 4th edition to check whether the article in the 5th ed. is the same or a different one?
11:02 Come on, give Marc some food
SR's 1st sonata is a marvelous, visionary work if it's played the right way. It's also very well made. John Ogdon's recording for RCA around 1968 is my ideal. More recently there's Alexandre Kantarow who is on the same level. It would be wonderful if Marc-Andre would give it his attention.
I bet these are good fingerings. I may want these editions. I too can reach a 12th like Rach himself. So these fingerings will be perfect. Thank you for producing them.
Thanks to you!
Excellent.
Shouldn't an 'Urtext' edition be - by definition - only what the composer specified without any additions. How can it still be Urtext with Hamelins fingering?!
I've got one of Schubert Henle - the thought crossed my mind as well out of interest. Beautiful book though.
Henle has two editions: with and without fingerings.
Your choice!
Always buy the urtext versions you need to start from the source with the composer.
He said it's 23 Rubles per copy.
This is amazing if op33 No 4 actually has fingering written in it? I have been looking and the edition I have is so empty. I would love to have this, sounds like a dream?!
Can Henle Verlag please discuss WHY all the handbook editions of Back,Mozart & Beethoven ect. unravel & come apart faster than their paper editions?
I've had to literally re-buy the Mozart 18 Sonatas volume 3 times times already.
It quite disappointing especially considering the prohibitive cost of repeat buying the score over & over again.
The only solution I've had so far was ,for example, the paper editions of both the Chopin Preludes & the Etudes bound together ( IN LEATHER) into 1 volume.
This book has lasted in good shape since 1987& I still use it. None of my other Henle books last long or well-the hardback material is cheap & brittle--they should reconsider & redesign these books.
Most of my other Henle Verlag hardback editions see the trashcan as they get used up quick & also page turning is very problematic & unfriendly.
Great editions otherwise.
Thanks.
Dear Ted Allison, thank you for your comment. We are sorry that you are not satisfied with the quality of our editions. Due to the small format and the adhesive binding, we can offer our study editions as a low-priced variant mainly for text study. For regular or frequent use for music making, we recommend our practical Urtext editions, which are of a higher quality. In addition, we also offer all of our editions in digital form - always including the latest updates - in the Henle Library App: www.henle-library.com. If you have further questions that go beyond the topic of the video, please contact us by e-mail: info@henle.de. Thanks and best wishes for the New Year! Henle Marketing Team
Any advanced pianist should be able to make their own fingerings for everything, when reading scores. It's such a minor issue in my opinion.
+RedwolfPsx I agree. Debussy said our hands are all different so suggesting fingerings is useless.
+Josh Pfeiffer Hands vary a little but not that much. Personally I find fingerings often very useful but sometimes need to make small changes. To describe fingerings as 'useless' seems one of those ridiculously exagerated remarks common to RUclips!
lsbrother Yes, useless would be exaggeration. I'd say "not that important".
+RedwolfPsx As a completely terrible piano player (I mean, seriously bad, I've been trying to teach myself off and on for a while, with almost zero luck) I've often wondered about the importance of fingerings. I've basically come to the conclusion that I should try as much as possible to go with the stated fingerings, as anything I do that deviates is bound to spring from appalling technique.
But man, it's hard. And I confess that I so often just go with what feels comfortable, even though I know it will probably hinder my development as a player. But I've pretty much given up on developing, so, oh well, whatever :P
Buffoon1980 If you take any decent edition, you should really follow the fingerings as they're usually viable. When you get more experienced, you learn the patterns and fingerings come pretty much naturally.
surprised that Hamelin plays the 1931 "revision" of the original (1913) version of Rach's piano sonata #2; most world-class pianists who "know the score" now play the original. The revision is a cut-and-paste butcher job, slicing out c. 7-8 minutes of solid piano writing from the original and in no way improving the work...which was a c. 24" masterpiece to begin with. What happened is this: Rachmaninoff, who had severe manic-depressive episodes and occasional doubts about his own music, was then living in New York City and there undergoing treatment by a "psychoanalyst" who, like all of his peculiar tribe, was himself batshit crazy. He told Rach that "the attention span of the typical American concert audience is 17 minutes..." .Rach then went back to his apartment and went to work with scissors and library paste. His extensive revision of the 4th piano concerto, op. 40 - completed in Russia during 1917 and then repeatedly fooled with by the composer in America during 1927-41, is somewhat the same; he did tighten the structure, but cut out way too much good music in the process.
please i want to know the name of the piece played in the first of the video
It's Rachmaninoff's Prélude op. 32 Nr. 12 played from: www.henle.de/en/detail/index.html?Title=24+Pr%C3%A9ludes_1200
@@henleverlagEine Frechheit, dass ihr uns nicht das ganze Stück habt hören lassen :D
Rachmaninoff und Hamelin sind eine sehr süchtig machende Mischung!
great chops.......and that is about it......
I've recorded myself playing the g min op 23 prelude. Feel free to check out my fingering of the middle section...
Rachmaninoff said how is his works were to be interpreted was entirely up to the person playing them.
A true genius of our times and very humble too.
God I didn't know his English was so amazing
He’s Canadian
Bruh moment
He's French-Canadian, but he's lived in the US for more than 40 years (1980~).
It's not about hand size. Plenty of the greatest had average to small hands. All about skills.
6:06 Like to him its so rather mundane...to me its magical....Just SO cool. 8:01 (>.
0:25 al ver como presiona el teclado con el codo: me dolió y no fue a mí
he ages as fast as he plays :(
Stupid comment.
So what? Yes, biological organisms age... didn't you know? Perhaps some extra biology classes would help you?
@@bailahie4235 I actually didn't know :/ Thank you for enlightening me:)
I think he plays faster though..
Marvelous.
Roslavets is so awesome
i wish Rachmaninov could hear you say that.
I still don't understand why anyone would need to play that passage 1-2-1-2-1-2
I had a piano teacher when I was a kid. 90% of the time consisted of giving me fingers to the music. I cannot afford a teacher now, so editions with fingerings from masters is good way of learning the process.
7:00
what the heck has happened to his eyes????? Does not look good at all.
noice
gubaidulina
It is arguable that music score editions might need fingerings, but I know that most, if not all, women need fingering.
jazz sonata - is perfect !! play anything like this. no Rachmaninoff, Procofiev !!!!!
loshara !!!
OMG, for what this shit??? Every pianist can play the piece as he thinks. That's open. When someone thinks about fingerings, the actual beginning of an interpretation is often missing.
Fingerings are often an issue of discussion. You are right: Every pianist is free in finding the right fingering for himself. But most of them are grateful to find clever suggestions in our sheet music editions as a starting point for this.