Recital programme triage: 23 minutes into a 20-minute slot
At a European School, a 4-period Music candidate has a 20-minute recital slot. The programme is Chopin’s Ballade No. 3 (about 11 minutes), Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1 (about 4 minutes) and a living composer’s 6-minute piece for prepared piano. The candidate needs 2 minutes to reset the piano and speak. Rehearsals show the Chopin climax is secure, but the coda loses rhythmic control at bar 205; the Debussy is accurate but cautious; the contemporary piece has an unsteady 7/8 section. The candidate proposes cutting the Chopin’s first repeat (saving 90 seconds) and dropping the Debussy. The teacher fears losing stylistic contrast and damaging programme coherence. The panel will mark technical control, interpretative understanding, and programme balance. The school has one grand piano, no page-turner, and a 5-minute changeover before the next candidate.
1. Which change is most defensible: cut the Chopin repeat, drop the Debussy, or replace the 6-minute contemporary work with a shorter one? Justify using time, contrast, and the panel’s criteria.
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Time check: 11 + 4 + 6 + 2 = 23 minutes, so the set is 3 minutes over. Cutting the first repeat saves 1.5 minutes but still leaves 21.5 minutes; dropping the Debussy leaves 17.5 minutes but removes the French early-modern contrast. Replacing the 6-minute contemporary work with a 4-minute one gives 9.5 + 4 + 4 + 2 = 19.5 minutes and keeps three stylistic areas.
Judgement: replacing the contemporary work is the best option because the panel marks programme balance as well as technical control. A Romantic ballade, a French early-modern work and a contemporary piece demonstrate range; a Chopin-plus-contemporary programme is narrower. If no shorter work can be prepared, the next best is to cut the repeat and drop one piece, but the candidate should not cut the 7/8 section arbitrarily because that damages the contemporary work’s form. Do not cut the Chopin coda: it is the structural closure, and the cut would be heard as a technical evasion. Put the prepared-piano work last so the 5-minute changeover is used to remove preparations, not to reset the instrument mid-programme.
2. The candidate wants to solve the coda problem by omitting the repeated forte chords after bar 205. Is that musically defensible? What should the teacher advise instead?
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No. The repeated forte chords after bar 205 confirm the tonic and cap the coda’s rhythmic drive. Omitting them would create an audible hole and would not solve the actual problem, which is coordination at bar 205 rather than lack of stamina. A cut there changes the structure, not just the difficulty.
Advice: isolate bars 201–207. Practise hands separately, then block chords with a metronome at 60, 72 and 84; record and listen for the second beat; mark a breath before the coda; practise entering the coda from bar 190 so the transition is automatic. If the coda is still insecure after five days, the teacher should consider a shorter Chopin work rather than mutilating the text. In performance, the candidate should recover the pulse and continue without a verbal apology.
3. What practical steps should the teacher take about the 5-minute changeover and the lack of a page-turner?
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Order the set for the instrument, not only for the music. Put the prepared-piano piece last so the school’s 5-minute changeover is used after the candidate’s slot to remove preparations. If the contemporary piece were first, the candidate would have to remove preparations and reset the grand within the 2-minute reset, which is unrealistic.
Page turns: memorise the Debussy’s first and last pages so turns fall at rests, or use a discreet folded copy with two pages visible. Rehearse the 2-minute reset: who moves the piano, where the preparations go, and the exact words of the introduction. Do not rely on the panel to turn pages. The practical plan should be written into the rehearsal schedule so the candidate is not solving logistics on the day.