Product Description
This may be the most beautiful piece of piano music ever.
In teaching adult piano students, I have found this (along with the Moonlight Sonata) to be the most requested piece by Beethoven.
All fingerings and hand positions are presented so that students can work towards their goal rather than spinning their wheels. Students find this piece to be a tremendous gift from Beethoven, but they also need a little help with some of Beethoven's technique tricks!
This edition has been created to enable Adult Piano Students to play the entire piece, by presenting technical solutions to address Beethoven's sublime challenges.
To me, this piece illustrates Beethoven's nature as a true magician at the keyboard, using both hands together in an integrated manner to achieve transcendent musical results.
By comparison, J. S. Bach frequently integrates the hands to achieve marvelous effects, e.g., Prelude No. 21 in Bb (WTC). Mozart's piano music for the most part requires less integration to create its beauty and textures. Beethoven practically revels in the deception, as he seems to get a kick out of mystifying his audience with shock and awe, beauty and grace.
For adult piano students the barrier to playing this piece is not primarily an inability in music reading. It is the lack of understanding the hand positions and fingerings required to play this piece, and to understand clearly what demands are actually being made.
The hand positions are merely an extension of what everyone learned as beginners:
C position means the lowest finger (LH 5, RH 1) is on C, and each finger is assigned its own note.
Here's how hand positions work for extended reaches, introducing the symbol "v", same for either hand:
Cv means:
C position, with one skipped key between finger 1 (thumb) and 2.
Cvv7 means:
C position (lowest finger on C)
-two skipped keys between finger 1 (thumb) and 2
-reach a 7th (fingers 1 and 5)
Cv8 and Cvv8 would therefore mean:
-C position (lowest finger on C)
-one (v) or two (vv) skipped keys between finger 1 (thumb) and 2
-hand reaches an octave (8)
I truly hope that this edition will enable you to experience this music the way you have always wanted. Let me know how it turns out for you.
Scott Camp
scottcampislandpiano@gmail.com
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard's global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.