More Challenging
A list
Farrenc ~ Mouvement de Valse (A2) is a beautifully poised, eloquent piece in late Classical/early Romantic style. The most important consideration is that of tempo/feel, which should be a suitable one-in-a-bar. The scale and broken chord passages in the right hand are reasonably easy to negotiate as long as one's scales and broken chords are well known. Practise the left hand with a full-length lower dotted crotchet and lightly detached second and third beat quavers - a plodding or heavily toned left hand will not allow the music to fly through the lines in the graceful and understated virtuosic fashion intended.
Compare these two professional recordings. Whilst the tempo itself is a little quicker in the second version, it is not the tempo that is the deal breaker. It's more about the feeling of one-in-a-bar, along with suitable rubato and flexibility through the phrasing and timing, which allows the second version to skip through the lines and not feel earthbound.
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C list
Florence Price ~ Ticklin' Toes (C3) is a great opportunity to get to know and play some ragtime piano, that is if you have a pretty good left hand technique. Playing accurately at speed takes some practise, but is best done through building up the playing in bits and ensuring that the arm movement is free from undue tension. This recording by William Chapman Nyaho is at a good tempo and has a great ragtime feel. It's not necessary to play it this quickly. More important is to have a good sense of rhythm and ensure that the playing is also well phrased.
Stoyanov ~ Bulgarian Peasant Dance (C9) is a lively piece in 5/8 rhythm. This is easy enough in bars that contain five equal quavers. The challenge comes where the timing is crotchet/dotted crotchet and where there may be the tendency to let the timing lapse into a more 6/8 feel. Note the need to sustain the dotted crotchet lengths fully, and don't be tempted to allow the playing to become lazy with only a crotchet or quaver lengths (especially in the left hand chords). The rhythmic integrity of the piece relies upon detailed textures.
Waller, Razaf & H. Brooks ~ Ain't Misbehavin' (C13) is a great arrangement of this well-known song. Put it like this, If you're gonna misbehave then you gotta do it in style! That is what may well put this particular piece out of bounds for many, since the swing feel should sound natural with that unassuming cheekiness of character which demands a certain sophisticated musical palette.
That said, there's much to enjoy in this appealing arrangement, not least when you see this particular sequence with Fats Waller playing and singing in 20th Century Fox's iconic film of 1943, Stormy Weather:
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