Customer Reviews

Music Minus One Piano: Rachmaninov Concerto No. 2 in C minor, op. 18 (Sheet Music and 2 CD Set)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I also have Mozart's 23rd concerto and Chopin's 2nd one. So my comment will summarize common experience of these products. (For some reason I can't review the Mozart Minis One concerto I bought here).

The most important drawback of the several similar items I have bought is that the original concerto was performed WITH the pianist who's part was just not included in the final mix. So, the pianist plays own interpretation, freely. In live performance the director point to orchestra when to start or finish, synchronizing both parts. That's understandable. However, it was done once for another pianist, not for YOU and you can not change it. In most cases it's slower or faster then you want to play, especially in cadences. So you need to adjust your style to someone else's one. Moreover, sometimes you also find sudden accelerando which shall NOT be there according to the scores provided. The some records has defects: In Mozart's 23rd concerto one track (34th track) ends for 1/2 bar earlier for the silent part of the orchestra when piano should play solo.

As a summary, the product can provide you with a glimpse of experience of playing with the orchestra, but not give the real pleasure of it. I also emphasis that timing of the record is different then the timing in supplied scores. So it's a bit hard to practice.

I bought Rachmaninoff Minus One piano with the discount here on Amazon for $22. I was in the US when I purchased it: in a business trip. The standard delivery to Broomfield,CO took 7 days and costs $4. So, it was a good deal.

The music of Rachmaninoff is GREAT!

I was quite disappointed with that product. First of all, the key doesn' t exactly match the piano key( and my piano is definitely not off key). When you use a digital piano, you are able to change the key half a tone up or down, to match the recording, which is not possible with a classic piano.

What kind of annoys me the most is that the first movement is way too fast: where is the orchestra running to??? Faster than the actual music sheet shows, MUCH faster than most of the unforgetable recordings of this music ( sviatolsav richter's as a state of art), and the orchestra' s interpretation lacks emotion, it sounds more like an automato playing fast.

The piano recording is only technical, no emotion to be found anywhere during the interpretation, so it's useless for any inspiration or reference ( for that, buy richter' s recording instead).

It's just for study... Don' t think that you are going to turn it on and feel like playing with a wonderful orchestra. The orchestra is everything but wonderful.... Unfortunately...

I am keen on Rachmaninov's 2. Piano Concerto but unfortunately I don't have an orchestra available as so many people. So buying this product is a good way to practice the "whole music" without needing a group of about 35 musicians. I already practiced all the three movements of the concerto for about 1 year and performed it several times with my piano teacher who accompanied me on another piano. You have to be aware of the fact that the music CD with the orchestra part won't adapt to your playing like a person would do it. But you can practice playing with the CD and you will get better although you have to modificate your performance for being synchronised with the CD. So you shouldn't be frustrated if it doesn't work within your first or second test of this CD package. And you should consider buying it once you are ready to play the piece of music by heart. For me it was absolutly necessary to modificate the tracks of the accompaniment to my individual purposes because otherwise it would have falsified my own interpretation of this beautiful and monumental composition extremly. So I worked on every single minute of the CD tracks with an audio program after I copied them on my computer. Then I made my individual CD. Some parts had to be much faster (especially large parts of the second movement which is way too slow in my opinion what makes it drowsy), some had to be faster. Furthermore I had to put some "taps" as reference points for the beginning of the bars in the silent parts when only the piano plays. That makes sure that you really start to play together at the next entrance of the orchestra. You can use those taps as an orientation for the tempo and you really need that to be synchronised with the orchestra all the time. It is a bit of a pity that the makers of this CD didn't think about doing that themselves. So there is a lot of work to do for you in case that you don't want to adapt your way of playing this piece too much to the style of the CD. The Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra did a really good job providing the raw material for your accompaniment, and it is a blessing for all of those people who admire this concerto like me, but the orchestra of course has its individual way of playing it and had to cope with the fact that they had to record the accompoaniment without a soloist. Sometimes their way of interpreting a "ritardando" or a fermata is a bit to extrem or not as expanded as you want it to be, and you can suddenly hear an acceleration which actually shouldn't be there at this point. But if you take it serious and know how to use a not too sophisticated audio program you are able to extract the high value from this product. The audio quality was not so much changed after I modificated it with the program "Audacity" which was appropriate for this job. Once you did all the work of making it "individual" it is a lot of fun playing it with this Play-Along. If you practiced enough it would be even possible to perform the concerto with the CD accompaniment in front of an audience. If you like. The product can't substitute a real orchestra but it can give you the feeling of how it would be like with an orchestra, and also a lot of fun.

This one of the most challenging works in piano literature. Unlike piano concerto 3, majority the main theme is with the orchestra. Therefore the CD is a must to play this concerto. The quality of the product is impeccable. The CD portion is divided into 50+ tracks for easy access when practicing.

If you are thinking about attacking this monumental piece of art, I cannot tell you anything you don't know already. Just a curtsey reminder; play slowly, play hands separately, listen carefully, and practice diligently.

Good Luck!
Kevin

i was very pleased with what i got. one negative that i can say is that there are measures where i like the orchestra crescendoing / decrescendoing more, as well as spots where i like it played faster / slower, so if u do not own a sound editing software, then i would give this a 4/5, but with a program like Adobe Audition or even something as simple as Audacity, u can change some stuff around according your own style. i personally did not like the pianist's / conductor's style, his ritenutos or accelerandos, so i found it necessary to edit pretty much everything, but other than that, i thought that this was a very high quality sound of a professional recording.
Thanks!

I didn't expect to be given this product with the low quality.
In musician world, there are lots of performances of pieces and as a professional, we prefer to listen to the best performance cause we respect to our ears.
this performance was one of the worst ever in terms of tempo and the balance between orchestra's sound and piano.
Generally speaking, the sounding is not rich.
Besides, the picture of the cover is totally different from the one in the amazon.com(i don't like it) .
I think, it would be better if i could listen to a sample of this performance, provided by amazon.com .

I have not tried the whole thing, but I sense that it is of a high standard.