Chopin's Ballade no.2 in F Major

[Tomoglo]

In regards to Chopin's Ballade no.2 in F Major, I having difficulty articulating and playing the thirds that are interlaced within the appregios. I am currently a Freshman and was assigned to this piece by my professor. Much to my surprise, she allowed me to play the Ballade no.2 on a conditional basis.

Before I even received this piece, I recently practiced and performed Beethoven's Sonata in E Major Op.14 no. 1 (Rondo). When I attended my weekly lesson the professor and I discussed potential pieces. The compositions that we generally select attempt to cover a span of eras including the "Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Impressionist, and Modern" era. Chopin, being my favorite composer was the natural choice and thus, I resolved to play something from the Romantic era.

The condition she gave me was pretty much to practice over the course of my university's Fall Break which is at least one month. Now you can imagine that this is quite a big jump in terms of virtuosity from a Sonata to a Ballade.

I was even more surprised when she suggested the second Ballade due to it being one of the initial pieces I had wished to play. So I was wondering if anyone had a solution or an effective method to tackle this piece. Over the semester break I am supposed to practice the piece by looking at the score and focusing on rhythm and tempo rubato rather than expending most of my time to memorizing the piece. Voicing, articulation, and control is what she wants me to develop during the semester break.

Back to the thirds, I am have a considerable amount of difficulty achieving accuracy of the notes hit. I am referring to the thirds after the sequence of repeated "A" pitches. The "fast with fire" transition is literally causing me to struggle in terms of proper articulation and speed. Everything seems incredibly disconnected and I have attempted to practice incredibly slowly as well. The problem that I keep having with these thirds is that my wrist locks every single time I rotate it to go downwards on the thirds. I seem to have no problems when it comes to going upwards, but the thirds are literally causing me to strain my wrist as well as my forearm. I can feel a great deal of tension after I play and need to quite often relax before I can practice the measure again.

Your advice and tips are greatly appreciated! Perhaps, if I learn the piece over the course of 1 or 2 semester I will post up a video recording of it.

Thank you,

Justin Kim

[pjones235]

Same problem here...

[jossuk]

I would suggest thinking of the downward movement as a shift to the left of each third (4th/5th fingers on F/A) _over_ the thumb without changing the angle of the wrist. Do not let the elbow move outward as the shift takes place.

[heatherreichgott]

Try [5 3] 2 1 2 [5 3] 2 1 2 etc. At the shift from 2 to [5 3], do not turn the wrist at all, just squeeze the tips of fingers 2 and 5 together like chopsticks, while moving the whole hand and forearm to the left. [5 3] is much more stable and less tense on a third than [5 4]. Don't twist the wrist on the crossover from 1 to 2 either, just tuck the thumb toward the middle of the palm. Now you should have zero wrist twisting and a lot of quick finger presses and squeezes instead.

For the G minor ones, if you don't like finger 1 on the B flat, [5 3] 1 2 1 [5 3] 1 2 1 etc. will work too.

A good technical exercise for this is scales in parallel thirds with a metronome, again without twisting the wrist or arm.