Liszt - Sonata B minor (learning notes)

I use Peters Edition.

So far I've "learned" nine pages of this work. By "learned" I mean they are half memorized in middle tempo. They wasn't so hard as I expected.

First page is all about proper mood and rhythm. I use 3-2-1 for sixteens triplets, so they are not a problem to sound light and sharp. I don't worry about thumb on a black key ;).

Passages on the second page aren't so hard too, fluent hand movements are needed but that's all.

At the third page I'm still not sure about fingering, I don't like to use 5-4-3-2-1 fingerings (first group in right hand).

At fourth page there are some triplets, which need more attention. I use 1-2-3 in right hand for them and 3-2-1 in left hand. I think it's better fingering than indicated in the score. Thumb in right hand needs to be fast to get to the octave, but it's easy to have proper clarity and energy. The thumb needs to be really relaxed.
In left hand the 3-2-1 works good, the passage after this triplet it's easier when started from the second finger (2-1-2-4-5 1-2-4-5) because there is one position instead of two.

I was thinking a lot about fingering in right hand in those bars. I decided to start passage (beginning of each bar) from the second finger, so it's 2-1-2-4-5-1-2-3 5-4-2-1-2-1-2-4-5. There is one problem in that fingering, from 5th finger in last sixteen I need to get to the second finger and the interval between them is sixths, which is a little stretchy for me.

Octaves. I like octaves, but there are some jumps in these (especially I don't like 7ths jumps). Pattern is easy. I practice in a few ways:

1. only thumb in right hand
2. only pinky in right hand
3. only thumb in left hand
4. only pinky in left hand
5. thumbs in both hands
6. pinky in both hands

In this kind of octave passages I try to always use pinky on top note, because it's just less thinking about fingering.

This one seems easy, but chords in left hand contains some repeated notes from part of right hand, so this spot needs some attention.

In this spot I can't still decide which notes I should play by right hand, only melody or use a little help in accompaniament too?

 From the third bar in this picture starts some hard section. It needs to be light, pianissimo, but intervals are quite wide. I use thumb instead of the second finger in this figuration - the second finger plays only last note in each group. I'll see if it will be good.

New repertoire

It is a time for a change of repertoire. Recently I received an offer to become pianist on cruise ship. Cruise starts in June, so I've a little time to get ready with everything. I've to learn many new pieces, but I don't need to memorize them - I don't want to talk about them here, these pieces are just known classical, jazz or even from musicals.

But I don't want to abandon advanced piano repertoire. I'll have limited space for scores, so I decided I'll choose one piece which I'll learn during my cruise. I needed a piece with a lot of changes of mood, because I don't want to get bored. And it should be technically challanging and not possible to polish in four months with extensive practice (to compare on Sonata by Schumann I was working for about three months, I was practicing it about hour or two per day). So I decided to take Sonata B minor by Liszt. It's too hard for me I think, but I'll learn a lot. Also I'll take Etudes by Chopin and that's it.

Schumann - Sonata g minor op. 22

Here are recordings of this sonata. It was pretty hard journey for me. I know that I don't want to play Schumann in the future ;). The score is misleading, some spots seem to be repetitive. But getting it all together is something which is main problem in this work.

First movement - it could be more accurate, also I could fix the balance between left and right hand. It's quite hard to show all the voices and not blur them with accompaniament.

Second movement - I don't like my rubato, I could play more freely. Descending from the climax is not good.

Third movement - it looks like I don't have idea how to interpret this one. There is too much "sameness".

Fourth movement - this one was the hardest one for me. The tempo was killing me, still I had issues with slowing down. The notes are pretty easy, but putting this all together in this tempo with necessary clarity is very hard in this one.