I worked on the piece with my metronome set to 116 as specified [ie 58] and I was feeling OK about it, and then I finally got round to hiring a teacher. When I showed her the piece I’d been working on, she said everything is pretty good but I’m playing at half-speed. Yeah, I somehow never realized that pianists were playing at 100+, which is why theirs sounded much better than mine. I thought I was just that bad at playing the piece. So for the past few lessons, we’ve been working on bringing the tempo up and I just feel utterly defeated. I’m playing it with my metronome set to 72 and I just feel like I can’t keep up. I can’t process the notes fast enough, I don’t even think my fingers can move any faster. I just feel so discouraged now.
Best version for me is Hofmann. This is definitely one of Liszt’s best transcriptions, with a comparable effect to the original song. I think the WIM’s version would be bad for my soul, so I will abstain from listening.
Seriously, what the hell is up with him? I actually gave this a bit of a chance but he’s babbling away in a world of literalisms which leave you with the impression that he metronome times horses, but forgot that his own dogmatic literalism implies that this is a fucking three legged horse…