Christmas "chopin"

I had a very good piano lesson last night.

Currently I'm playing one of Frydryk Chopin's Etudes- specifically his Etude in f-minor. I love playing his music, even though it is very challenging for me. He really makes the pianist work to make his music sound beautiful. What I mean by that is, his piano pieces are elegant and aurally perfect, but are less perfect for the hands.

To put it another way, the pieces can be a bitch to play.

Not super-bitchy, mind you, and not downright cunty like Rachmaninoff, but definitely not comfy like Debussy.

And this piece really isn't one of his more difficult ones, but it still involves quite a bit of left hand movement at large intervals and also some 5 against 6 playing- hence the bitchiness for me.

However, the piece just absolutely wrecks me emotionally, which is why I chose to play it. There is one moment after the return to the first theme where Chopin breaks into F-major, but only for the briefest moment, and then it dives right back into this stabbing b-flat minor chord of some sort with an additional C--- shit I don't know what the hell chord it is, but it comes at you like a scene at the end of an action movie where the hero survives everything and the music swells and he's smiling at the camera and then BANG! He gets shot dead.

Its like that- but the piece keeps going, and building and crescendoing until FINALLY finding f-minor again.

I don't play it as fast as good ol' Vlad does, but his recording has the most angst that I've found.