Mozarts Sonata Facile KV 545: a FAKE Beginner's Piece?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ต.ค. 2024
- In this video, I explore the misconception surrounding Mozart's Sonata No. 16 in C major, labeled by Mozart's own description of it as "for beginners," Today however, nobody seems to agree with Mozart's assessment! Many describe this piece as not an easy piece to play and certainly not for beginners.
But... did Mozart make a mistake? Or do we miss something?
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Videos used:
Janna Williamson • 5 Tips to Play Mozart'...
Barenboim • Mozart Piano Sonata No...
Lang Lang -- • Lang Lang- Mozart: So...
Denis Zdhanov - • W.A. Mozart Sonata Fac...
Yuga Wang ca 10 years - • Mozart k545 by Yuja Wang
masterclass alan weiss - • Masterclass Alan Weiss...
Piano teacher Duane Hulbert • 5 Tips to Play Mozart'...
Real beginner - • Mozart - Sonata No. 16... (dog whining!)
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Thank you Wim, for making this amazing music accesible to not professional musicians as myself. For the joy of being able to play at a normal speed, enjoying the harmony, and not feeling that Im too slow. For knowing that this music can be for everybody, and not just only for the best. Greetings from Chile.
I have a "progressive" piano book from 1916 put together by French composer TH Lack. The famous sonata in C is the last piece. First movement is whole note=120. Second movement is hole note = 52 and the final movement is whole note 96.
The book is filled with the teacher's pencil marks. It is quite clear that the teacher expected the student to observe the score at all times. And it is very clear that the teacher wants the student to play the staccato notes so that they never play at the same time as the notes in the other hand. The staccato breaks up some of the long runs.
Also the book has the trills all written out. And all the fingering is provided too. It is very clear what should be played. And it is very clear to me that single beat interpretation is not possible.
Do you really mean whole note = 120?
@@DismasZelenka I found the book. It's "Les classiques favoris du piano" by Théodore Lack, volume 1a, page 100. It's in the "imslp" website. The previous commenter meant quarter note (noire) = 120, not whole note. Same for the others. The piece is in volume 1a "très facile" (*very easy*).
@@deifo Thanks. An excellent and helpful selection of easy pieces from good composers. I don't see how "single beat interpretation is not possible". A good student would be bored stiff at 'WBMP" speeds.
As I said in another comment in a previous video, the details is what matters, this kind of details are so revealing and are clearly overlooked by every teacher ever in todays day and age. Thank you so much for this videos.
This piece, especially the third movement, is one of several reasons I dropped out of private piano tutoring (about 30 years ago) after close to two years, and resulted in me developing quite the intense dislike for that piece and Mozart's works in general by extension.
However, since I got introduced to the WBMP and heard Wim's recording of the sonata on his clavichord, I decided to revisit the pieces but using a tempo that's in line with the tempi we have from the early decades of the metronome (whole beat of course), and it works wonderfully. The first and third movement get a vitality that isn't present in most modern performances, but the second... oh man, the second... it becomes absolutely amazing.
Anyway, I have a minor question here. IMSLP has the 1893 Schirmer edition for this sonata, which gives the following metronome marks: Q=132 for the first movement, Q=60 for the second, and Q=104 for the third. My intuition says these are whole beat tempi, but I'm not entirely certain. Can anyone shed more light on this?
Similar remarks could be made of Bach's little preludes for 'beginners' which were metronomized by Czerny.
Concerning Wim's old recording of the sonate facile the most shocking thing was that the Andante was almost as fast as the allegro and that Wim didn't see the contradiction inside Talsma's theory about the variable use of the metronome.
By the way, for those interested there is a practicing session of this sonata at historical tempo on the patreon page of Wim. There was also a whole beat challenge uploaded on the TH-cam channel where the community played the piece at Moscheles' tempo.
It would be a great idea to do those challenges again, Wim!
Anyway you look at it, Moscheles didn't give a "beginners tempo" for this sonata.
Whole beat or single beat doesn't matter, it's still in line with his other fast Allegro tempos.
And if the WB tempo is good for beginners, well then Moscheles gave nothing but "beginners tempos" for all of Mozarts sonatas...
Brilliant comment.
analyse your comment ☺️
No Mr W, you should analyse you video :)
You show a clip of a child playing this sonata in WB, but what you really show is that all of Moscheles Mozart tempos read in WB, are tempos for children.
He doesn't give a slower speed for this Allegro compared to other sonatas.
that is exactly the point you're missing of your comment (and still seem not to see the implication of)
@@AuthenticSound The implication of the OP's comment is that, since the first movement of K545 "for beginners" is allegro and Moscheles' tempi for all allegros is in the same range, then Moscheles must have thought that all Mozart's allegros were at tempi playable by beginners (however you define beginner and however you define MMs). Is that the implication of this video?
Nice rant. I'm one of those beginners and when I learned this piece I was happy practicing at around bpm = 80 to 84, the music just seems right at that speed. But the problem was that the teacher would soon tell you that "OK that is a nice tempo for practice and now you will have to play at a 'goal tempo' (or a tempo that everyone plays) and it's 112." Actually, that happened to every piece I learned. I was practicing at a comfortable tempo (which feels appropriate for a beginner) and next week the teacher would set a "goal" tempo that feels unrealistic for a beginner. Sometimes, I discovered that the "goal" tempo he set for me was actually the same as professional recordings I could find on iTune, but I didn't have the gut to point that out to him. I mean I was like 15 months into the piano, why did I have to play at the same speed as professional recording?
When I learned to play this sonata, my piano teacher was always disturbed by the noise my long nails make on the piano (I am guitarplayer). Some teachers don't have a clue of what they are doing.
this happens to many students who naturally choose a tempo that in many cases is close to the original intended tempo of the composer. After which the 'fun' is spoiled by dragging the pupil on the tracks of modern virtuosity and unrealistic expectations. It may be the biggest shift of all the WBMP can make.
Both classical and jazz teachers suck ass. That is the true conclusion here.
Q.N.=76 is perfect for beginners. It's obvious that this is what Moscheles intended. The trill is best begun on the auxiliary note and played in 32nd notes, with a two-note suffix at the end.
Just in case you're unaware, Moscheles together with Fetis wrote one of the most renowned books of the 19th century in piano methodology "the method of the methods", op. 98 I believe.
In it he describes how to use the metronome and obviously it's consistent with single beat.
So Mocheles was 100% a "single beater", there's absolutely no dispute.
@@MasmorraAoE The Opus 98 was published in 1840 and features only two studies by Moscheles (the first and second). Moscheles was merely a contributor to this work, not the chief author. It is not at all certain that it was Moscheles who penned the instructions for metronome use. F. J. Fétis was almost certainly responsible for these.
@@le_ciel_bleu02 If he put his name to the work, do you think he would let the supposedly erroneous reading of the metronome slide?
Isn't it more likely he just agreed with the instructions?
Which are the exact same Czerny uses in his school velocity? And countless others?
@@MasmorraAoE It is entirely possible that Moscheles never even read the prefatory material. Also, the metronome practice of Fétis simply may have differed from that of his own.
@@le_ciel_bleu02 If there were two different ways of using the metronome, wouldn't you check which one was used before putting your name on that book?
Or discuss it with the other guy?
I would.
The trills should be 1/32 notes, not 1/[6 notes like is so often the case in performance. At single beat tempo, nobody would be able to execute the trills in the correct manner on any piano, save perhaps for the special piano that Billy Joel owns, a special piano with an advanced escapement invented by Morton Esterin in the 1970s for the Prelude (The Angry Man). It is unplayable on any other piano.
Quarter note 76 ( single beat ) seems impossible to me! LOL!😁 I'm so glad I avoided classical piano and concentrated on Rock guitar ( I'm able to play and enjoy just about every piece of rock music ever written, I don't have to spend my life at the piano)
I would say that Moscheles's approach makes perfect sense. This is a piece for beginners. therefore, If you wish to perform it as a virtuoso pianist, you must play it very fast. By the way, I thought your own performance on the forte piano was excellent. -Toby
Wat een schitterende cd-box mocht ik toch ontvangen! Mijn cd-speler staat nu al twee weken vastgeroest op de zevende symfonie, daar is genoeg in te horen om nog een paar weken mee door te gaan. De eerste en de negende heb ik één maal gehoord, maar die bewaar ik als een schat voor later. Bij de negende was ik helemaal van de kaart: dit gaat veel en veel dieper dan de gekende concertuitvoeringen. Kippenvel. Een vriend kwam gisteren bij me en hoorde de zevende klinken. 'Ha, ook naar Klara aan het luisteren?' ...
Wim, je gaat nog hoge toppen scoren! Ik kan niet wachten op de Beethoven sonates met Alberto!
I think the term fascile is not about the technique per se, but more in the sense of interpretative practice. The piece is built off of very standard forms and nothing crazy happens of the hands.
It also clashes with the adagio if you play both in this way of thinking. The allegro isn’t allegro anymore when you compare it to the adagio.
I agree, and in that time the musical education was much more rigorous (for the young, beginners much more so than now) and they had a lot more time to get proficient in like a year or two. One good thing about the 1700’s is the lack of mobile phones and internet so the young can get artistically articulate so much better!
theres only an andante in this sonata, not adagio.
@@classicgameplay10 yeah I meant that, mixed up the words
I play this piece in university in April of this year
I'd like to hear more about some of the earlier K number sonatas, especially those with more rhythmic interest such as the K281 in Bb. It's my experience that students learn a lot from it.
I love the dog howling in the background.
Again, you've made a piece I never, ever thought I'd find interesting again, interesting enough for me to go through it. I'd stopped teaching it years ago.
Also, some of these earliest sonatas really benefit from the timbre of historical instruments.
I had to learn to play this sonata for my teacher in composition (Willem Kersters) and never could play it well, but the analysis of the structures was eye-opening.
It's not difficult to believe that early 19th century classical music tempi accelerated over time.
Compare the original slow-tempo studio version of Elvis Presley's _Suspicious Minds_ [as the song writer intended] with the much faster live performances to observe this tendency at work.
Great video, as always!
Mozart wrote this piece on a Thursday, which was the 26th of June 1788. I learnt an algorithm to figure the day of any date on the Gregorian calendar. Really fun stuff! 😂
Come on, Wim, 10 nps for a beginner is une promenade dans le parc. 😂
When these geniuses learn that pendula revolve in an orbit tangential to the point of suspension, there going to be pleasantly surprised, non ? 😮
You're correct and have been correct all of these many years. 💯
By the way, when the king beats his pawn to the 6th rank, a promotion is inevitable. 🤯
Be well, mon ami ! Saludos efectuosos de Aguascalientes, México!
El ❤ de 🇲🇽
I have been playing this piece for decades, and I agree it is not for beginners. (Many teachers I know stubbornly insist it's not a good piece and only for children). Anyway, for years, especially the first movement, I have struggled to figure out the right tempo. Whatever tempo I choose, it works for one part of it, but not another. I have come to the conclusion that Mozart did not anticipate a single tempo to be played throughout.
The first movement can be split into sections, each is very different from the others. Some need to be played a bit slower to hear it fully, others need a bit more speed. But never should it be played fast! My belief is that each section has its own tempo, but they are very close to each other. It gives it a more romantic way to play, and it makes much more sense musically. I also think there is room for rubato with the scale work -- go a little faster going up, and a little slower going down. No one does that, but I think it gives it a real energy without speeding up anything overall.
CRYSTAL CLEAR!
Nice video bro keep it up. Do the d minor fugue next! (No need to say whos fugue
I am playing the Op. 69 Cello Sonata by Beethoven. The tempo given for the last movement, Allegro vivace, by Moscheles is crotchet=160 (Czerny is even faster, minim equals 88). But the recordings I hear in the internet, even by top performers, all hover around crotchet = 152, so even they seem to think M and C were a little over the top. Anything faster than that would really sound a bit like Mickey Mouse music. I would be, at any rate, glad if your idea is right for the sake of my poor fingers if no other reason ... My suspicion is also that by far the most cello players back then, who really weren't used to virtuosity yet (look at the early Beethoven sonatas), would not have managed those runs in the last movement, in thumb position to boot.
In defense of cellists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, remember Haydn's cello concertos? The C major was written for Nikolaus Kraft, who gave the first public performance of Op.69. The D major, it now appears, was written for the English virtuoso cellist James Cervetto - another virtuoso, who was able to use all four fingers in the thumb position. There is a painting by Zoffany showing him doing exactly that (Self-Portrait with his daughter Maria Teresa, James Cervetto and Giacobbe Cervetto). And don't forget Boccherini's cello sonatas, only for virtuoso cellists.
@@DismasZelenka Now, that is a cool picture, thanks for pointing me to it. I stand corrected, at any rate! Doesn't the D major concerto have some doubts as to authorship, though? As far as the Beethoven is concerned, the question for me remains whether anybody but the absolute top of the top cellists could have played it at the time at the tempos given by Czerny and Moscheles interpreted as single beats. I know very good non-professional players now who would not be able to, though good students can, of course. Would it have been worth Beethoven's or his publisher's while to issue a piece that only top performers could play? Or were all the amateurs back then much better than they are today? Certainly the aristocrats had enough time to practice ... Anyway, thanks for your reply!
Apply the WBMP to these sonatas and there is no issue any longer. Even the Wiener Urtext admits that Czerny's MMs are faster than expected and a few even unreasonable. That shows we must find other ways of explaining things since Czerny, Moscheles, beethoven, .... they were no idiots :-)
@@AuthenticSound True, and neither was Mozart was he - didn't he have several piano pupils? I actually love playing through pieces at tempos where one can hear all the counterpoint and inner voices. But I do have problems with WBMP regarding slow movements. Isn't, for example, the slow movement of the Ghost Trio by Beethoven just achingly slow like that? My bow isn't long enough (I am a violinist) even at the conventional tempo today! And aren't there records of how long the first performance of Beethoven's Eroica took (longer than today, I think, but not twice as long)? In general, however, I find many of your arguments practically irrefutable!
@@Finannza You are welcome. There were doubts about the D major, until Haydn's autograph MS turned up in 1953. More recent research shows fairly conclusively that it was commissioned by Willoughby Bertie (real name!), 4th Earl of Abingdon, to be played by James Cervetto, in a concert series at Hanover Square arranged by Bertie in 1783/1784. There is an informative blog about it on the Cellobello site "The Origins of Haydn's Cello Concerto No.2 in D Major" (I don't give the url in case YT blocks it). Yes, I do think that composers/editors gave the tempi they thought the work should be performed at for maximum effect. Even if an amateur couldn't reach them, at least they would have an idea of what a professional performance would be like.
The way I view it, is that beginners can "begin" the enjoyment and absorbtion of sonatas such as this one, and k.280-283, not that a beginner will play it at a world class level. Even if they don't play it at our modern tempo allegro, they can learn so much compositionally, pianistically, and musically by just playing it at half tempo. As they progress, and become more comfortable with their fingers, then the tempo will naturally rise. I must respectfully disagree with the whole beat theory, but I will continue watching in hopes of being proven wrong.
It will be hard to proof someone "wrong" if facts cannot speak for themselves. When Mozart wrote this sonata is for beginners and Moscheles confirms that, they didn't mean beginners could learn so much compositionally by playing it at "half tempo". They just meant: this piece is for beginners to play. Period. If not so, one should come up with (at least contextual) evidence proving this speculative answer. In this case you won't find any of that. So only this video already has proven you "wrong", you just seem not to realize it!
it would be nice to hear this sonata played in your beautiful fortepiano...
This is a very convincing video, on the assumption that keyboard instruction then was like typical piano instruction now. But was it? Perhaps a pupil then had daily hour-long lessons for at least the first six months, and practiced alone for two or three hours - then was ready to 'begin' on actual piano sonatas, starting with simple ones like this? Mozart wrote Allegro on the first movement, not Allegretto or Andante. I don't know the date of Moscheles' edition, but if it was in the context of the time of virtuosos like Herz and Kalkbrenner and Liszt and Chopin, the very high tempo is not surprising.
Wim is a champion. He's a champion at what he does. He's amazing, he's different. He has a unique mindset. I often say that his mind doesn't work in an organized way because he's a genius. It's hard to translate what he's thinking because he's thinking way ahead of my mind, your mind, or the minds of the people around him. So, our challenge is to turn his creative and disruptive mindset into practical actions in musical practice.
What he's done changes the entire history of music, not just the pieces he and his protégé Alberto re-record. Everything he's done has been disruptive, in a good way. He revives the history of music, creating new forms of interpretation, even with pieces we thought were "case closed". Wim came to change the history of music, and year after year, he's proving that he's capable of delivering a much better musical experience for everyone. What he has is something very serious that must be taken seriously.
I know it's not easy to understand; you take a Beethoven sonata recorded in whole beat and think, let me draw my conclusion on how this piece sounds. Surprise! The conclusion will be wrong because neither you nor I have Master Winters' vision. So, to combat our ignorance, we must consume more and more historical videos of the sacrosanct Doctor Winters to understand his disruptive theories more deeply. I always try to seek out information, talk to other specialists, and so on, so that my mind can also work "outside the box" like the venerated, learned champion Winters.
My conclusion is that he's correctly leading this process. I think it will be for the good of world music, not just classical but also all that will be created in the future.
@@nouser54 Wow! Sacrosanct, venerated, a genius. Is this paean of praise sincere or a spoof?
Theres a channel of Anko chen, I think 5yo or something playing this sonata.
Its anke Chen.
I believe that if sonatas were intended to be played at home, it's unlikely that single-beat fast tempos would be accurate.
It is not possible that all composers were thinking about the best players only when composing
That is very much possible and most likely the case.
And that's because a lot of the great composers were very skilled performers themselves.
Composers marked their works at the speeds at which they thought they would sound best, not at the speeds that a lazy amateur might reach. Of course, at the time, amateur players will often have had had excellent teachers (most of Beethoven's students were amateurs!), were willing to practice one or two hours a day, and would not have had a problem with those tempi.
q=152 is no outlier (regarding your statement around 15:45)! It's exactly the tempo Maria Joâo Pires chooses and it sounds brilliant...
Also Kristian Bezuidenhout, on a fortepiano, also brilliant. Of course a beginner couldn't play like either of these, but a beginner who had worked long and hard on scales, arpeggios, and basic five-finger exercises (and in Mozart's time they did) could certainly sight-read it, slowly at first, and build up gradually to a real allegro. Anything less than 120 as a final performance speed is too slow (in my opinion).
@@DismasZelenka I have worked the Czerny's The School of Velocity Op.299 in and out for years, and no matter which way I try to stretch it, I always come to the same conclusion: the WB version is great for practice and clarity, but not very exciting as a final performance. Like allegro would be 92 to 108... Boring. And of course the single beat versions are way too fast and trying to reach those tempi is a sheer waste of time and energy.
@@martingauthier7377 Agreed, for the average amateur pianist (like me)! But don't forget that Czerny wrote those Etudes for would-be virtuosi, at least some of whom would become professional performers. It is worth remembering what he says in his preface to Op.299:
"Among the indispensable qualities which the pianist must possess *if he is to rise above the mediocre,* true and regular dexterity of the fingers, even in the quickest movements, is one of the most necessary and should be developed in every student as early as possible. Only when every degree of speed is freely available to the pianist will he be able to perform the other genres of performance with true perfection; -- just as the suppleness of the tongue is a main condition for expressing oneself beautifully and well in a language. The following exercises have the sole purpose of developing and increasing this branch of virtuosity, and also of preserving it for the future if (after thorough practice has been completed) at the very fast pace indicated everywhere, with observation of all the other rules of beautiful and correct performance, they are played through daily before everything else."
Excellent and very convincing. However: why start with Barenboim's fast tempo when you know like I do that Gould's version is almost twice as fast as Barenboim's. So, why wasn't the mad Canadian referenced? Honestly, you want to ask what was Moscheles thinking? Well, what hell was Gould up to? It is probably his most exaggerated Mozartian tempo. What was he smoking?
Gould plays the first movement at almost exactly double the speed of Wim's old and lovely clavichord performance. Hilarious. Like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, with Lang Lang (or even better Maria Joao Pires) the 'just right' one in the middle (88, 132, 176).
Edit, correction, Gould plays at half=80. Wim takes just under 4 and a half minutes for the first movement, Gould 1 minute 50 seconds, but he doesn't repeat the exposition, so add 40 seconds: 2 minutes 30 seconds.
I simply took the first versions - Gould I checked now, plays at H=80, that's 10% faster compared to Barenboim. Not "almost twice". I appreciate all decent comments but please do a bit your homework before making claims like this. It spoils the conversation.
So Gould plays at quarter = 160, even faster than Moscheles' 152. What were they both thinking? That it is a technically simple sonata, the first movement is allegro, why not take it at a cracking pace if you can? It is something for a beginner to aim for in time, a challenge. In Gould's case, he probably thought it was facile, in the worst sense. Strange that Gould's ultra-slow performances of some Beethoven movements are showcased on this channel as unconsciously and instinctively wholebeat, but ultra-fast performances are passed over without comment.
Gould hardly qualifies as a beginner... or is this the level of logic we get to to still make some sense out of a Single Beat reading?
@@AuthenticSound Of course Gould wasn't playing it "as a beginner". No "beginner", even in the sense of somebody who could already play scales and arpeggios at 8 notes a second (1/4 = 120) and was 'beginning' to study real pieces, could play at Gould's, or Moscheles' tempo (both, in my opinion, too fast by about 15-20%). But aren't we talking about the 'right' tempo range for an Allegro and isn't that the same whether it is for a beginner or an expert? Moscheles thought that 1/4 = 152 was how this movement should go, and that is, as you say, about the same range as his other allegro movements for Mozart. If all Allegros are at the speed one of your modern beginners can play (i.e. WB), is there any Allegro intended for a fully-trained amateur or professional? The fact is that this sonata is much simpler conceptually and technically, and much shorter (Eine *kleine* Klavier-Sonate für Anfänger), than many of Mozart's other sonatas, so playing it at a credible Allegro tempo would not be difficult for a young 'beginner' of Mozart's or Moscheles' time (after practice, naturally).
Telemann has an infamous 'sonata facile' for recorder (TWV 41:F2). The name has to be a joke - it ls by no means an easy piece. It demands a range of 2½ octaves (F4-C7 on the alto instrument). And Telemann was a recorder player - he surely knew how difficult it is to produce those stratospheric notes. I suspect that 18th century practice was to use 'facile' ironically. 😉
The Mozart KV.545 It's a great way for intermediate players to get practice in playing scales, while making actual music. I suspect that's the reason that no piano student escapes it.
There are obvious places where whole-beat is necessary: Look at movements marked 'tempo di menuetto' and imagine dancing to them. (The same for any of the other courtly dances.)
But its a recorder sonata ?
@@classicgameplay10 TWV 41:F2 is a recorder sonata. KV.545 is a keyboard sonata. And I don't see where you're going with the question - WBMP applies to non-keyboard instruments as well.
Actually, towards the end of his life in his last year played exclusively the clavichord…Who is the source? His wife when she donated the instrument.
In my Jr High School school days, I played Sonata Facile read at sight between Gawd Awful Spinet Pianos in the beginning studio where I took my lessons to and the heavy keyfall weight and depth of the Steinway in the showroom of Gadsby’s Music it wasn’t so easy to reach 1/4=144. In college, In my freshman year I took lessons with a student of Peter Bartok, she recommended the G major Sonata K 283 over the Old Warhorse K 545. My first and fact my only true teacher, Millicent Reese, similarly had recommended Beethoven’s 2nd Sonata Quasi una Fantasia for a similar reason, such pieces are too well known there’s no discovery to make the piece your own. Plus the too well known pieces you will be compared to a recording by a virtuoso or you’ll just play the work after your favorite rendition and where is the art in that?
One lesson, when I was finally at the owner’s studio with a very fine pianos, and sound proof, no repairs intruding into the lesson, half way into 1/2 hour to surprise her, I extemporized on a theme of my own invention for 10 minutes. I asked to not relate this to dad as I was paying Gadsby to play them piano and not receiving tutelage. The lessons were $5.50 for 30 minutes…which correctly adjusted for inflation of comparable buying power in 2024 dollars (not the U.S. Government tweaked and anemic lies…would equal $110 per 1/2 hour. Dad always said I didn’t know the value of a dollar.
First!