On December 7, Friday, three students participated for a piano masterclass which was given by Professor Pavel Raykerus from Russia. The students are from China and Mexico, they are Xia Jia Qi, Wang Jun and Marco Levi.

Firstly, Xia Jia Qi from china presented a piece of Clementi Sonata Op25 No5 . After she performed this piece, Professor told us that this piece was a typical early baroque period piece. We have to be aware of the tempo sign, don’t trying to be fast or slow while playing, they should be played in equal and stable tempo. It is a traditional music, there is no free time at all. He mentioned that we also have to colourise the piece.

There is a lot of motif in this piece, a motif can’t be connect to each other, it has to be played one by one. The pedal should be control with a correct way. The importance of the pedal is to colorise the sound. Every last note in each motif have to keep it sounded until the end to the next motif. Traditional music was made from the idea of vocal. It is bad to connect notes with pedal. Let’s try imagine on how a singer sing, if the notes is connect with the pedal, it seems a singer have to sing two notes at a same time, it is impossible. Hand and leg movement must be synchronized to each others. When we practice on the piano, we don’t have to practice with pedal for all the time, try to listen to the sound and makes them connected. He mentioned that if we saw there is a change in the tonality, it has its own meaning. It is actually the combination of musical expression and impression. We could have a change in our mind to present the music.

The second performer was Wang Jun, she played us by Sonata in C Major by Ginastera. Ginastera composed this piece by imitating the sound of the musical instruments from orchestra. This piece has wild rhythm and it is technically challenging

Since this piece starts from the lower register, with a stable rhythm, all the notes have to play in order. The bass notes have to play out more and clear. We have to follow the grouping of the rhythm as stated by the composer. When it reached climax part, it has to be played as it sounded to be in climax zone.

The second performer was Wang Jun, she played us by Sonata in C Major by Ginastera. Ginastera composed this piece by imitating the sound of the musical instruments from orchestra. This piece has wild rhythm and it is technically challenging

Since this piece starts from the lower register, with a stable rhythm, all the notes have to play in order. The bass notes have to play out more and clear. We have to follow the grouping of the rhythm as stated by the composer. When it reached climax part, it has to be played as it sounded to be in climax zone.

Throughout the masterclass lecture, Professor mentioned a few of important facts on learning a repertoire. He said, human nature mostly are lazy to do a thing, but if a score contained a lot of performance directions, for example, articulation about imitating the bow direction on a specific rhythm, the composer himself has his own ideas for everyone to bring the sound of a section, this is the character of an early classical pieces.

Secondly, try to sing the melody line out from the score by imagine how a vocalist sing a song. When we start to sing a song, we will take a breath. When we sing the first note, it will be sound very full and round, until it reached the last notes of a phrase, we won’t have enough air to sound it loud instead of sing it in a softer way.

Thirdly, he mentioned to us that when we started to learn a new piece, read all the text on the score before you played, respect all the performance direction that written in the score, every labeling has its own meaning and objective.

In overall, it was an interesting masterclass after all. Every participants and observant surely received a lot of knowledge on piano technique and also practice skills.