The CHORD of resignation

Before you read any further, please be aware that none of this post will make sense unless you've read this first.

The minor 7th chord consists of a stack of alternating major and minor thirds: min 3rd, maj 3rd, min 3rd, maj 3rd. It's always been my favorite chord, and at the time of writing the post linked above I was even vaguely aware that there was some connection between this chord and the chord progression I was analysing. However, I was so new to harmonic analysis at that time that I was happy to leave the analysis at a series of chords.

It's only very recently that I've been able to piece together and understand some of the connections I've always sensed existed between a handful of musical patterns and elements. This post is an attempt to explain these connections, with the aid of some examples. I still have much to learn about this topic, and I'm sure there will be many more blog posts to write as I make new discoveries.


Let's say we're in the key of B flat minor. In this key, the notes which correspond to the degrees of the scale that form the Chord Progression of Resignation are B flat, D flat, E flat and G flat, from the bottom up:

Let's now invert this chord to the 2nd inversion, so it starts on E flat (note that the dominant of E flat is B flat...) The resulting chord is E flat minor 7th:

The notes used in the examples above are 4 of the 5 notes of the pentatonic scale. If we were still in B flat minor (which we're not, since E flat is our new tonic), the missing note (an A flat) would form the 7th degree of the scale - a fairly common addition to the 'pure' chord progression of resignation.
The pentatonic scale is the mode you get from playing only the black keys of the piano (although it can be transposed into any key). It's an interesting scale in that it's very pure sounding - you can combine any of its 5 notes, or play them all at once, and as long as you stay within that mode nothing will ever sound jarringly dissonant.
It's also quite tonally ambiguous - shifting from major to minor and between keys is effortless. I've yet to figure out what gives the pentatonic scale this ambiguous quality, as - depending on which note you begin it on - the degrees of the scale that are 'missing' vary.

The pentatonic scale is prevalent in the traditional music of many vastly different and geographically separated cultures. This can hardly be attributed to coincidence, and the discovery of its relationship to the 'chord of resignation', and by assosciation the chord progression of resignation, has only reinforced my impression that there's something fundamentally significant about the pentatonic scale.

Below are some examples of the 'chord of resignation'. As with the chord prog list, I'll add to this over time, so check back! (Quite a few examples I could easily include here would double with ones already in the chord prog list, so I'm leaving some - though not all - of them out.)

To make collecting examples easier, I'm attempting to group them by harmonic structure a little.
The following examples simply use the minor 7th chord in its purest form:

1. Leo Ornstein - Piano Sonata No. 4, 2nd mvt (see 0:07, and probably most prominently 0:14) Aside from the timecodes noted, the opening of this appears to make use of the minor 7th constantly in other ways too complex for me to try to analyse yet. This piece already appears on the chord prog examples list, but I had to repeat it here because it has such a wealth of interesting harmony.
2. Ravel - Le Gibet (see 13:42 and several times again until the end)
3. Gershwin - Summertime (see 9:11)
4. Leo Ornstein - Piano Sonata No. 4, 4th mvt The opening of this is practically built out of minor 7th chords (or stacks of 3rds, in any case).
5. Steve Reich - Six Marimbas (see 6:15 onwards) The uppermost note of this chord shifts constantly between the 7th and 8th degree of the scale, while the underlying 3rds remain 'fixed'. Interestingly, the tonic doesn't appear in the bass until 6:32, and it dissappears again at 13:42. The inversion of the minor 7th created by this is the one shown in the first image above - the degrees of the chord prog of resignation stacked on top of each other in order: I, III, IV, VI.
6. Ravel - Une barque sur l'ocean (see 4:47)
7. Ravel - Noel des Jouets (see 2:26)
 
8. Ravel - Ondine (see 5:20) This example is really in a class of its own, as the chord is not only broken into a myriad of semiquavers and tuplets with a scattering of arbitrary notes in between, but it also isn't even a minor 7th. Nevertheless, a Chord of Resignation it undoubtedly is. A far more conventional example can be found at 5:49.

A very common way in which the minor 7th chord manifests - especially in minimalism - is where a particular interval or combination of intervals are maintained over the top of a changing base chord progression, resulting in the 'Chord of Resignation' seeming to grow naturally out of a pure tonic triad. The following examples demonstrate this.

9. Stellardrone - In Time This is a fairly simple example - harmonically and texturally - so well suited for explanatory purposes. The bass is progressing as follows: I, [V], VI, VII. To start with the...er, constellation of notes being repeated over the top is simply part of the tonic triad, but as it remains the same while the bass changes, it forms a minor 7th over the VI chord.
10. Porcupine Tree - Trains As with the previous example, the upper notes in the harmony here remain constant over a changing bassline, resulting in a minor 7th forming over the VI chord. However, there are other relevant complexities to the harmony which you can read about in the chord prog examples list.
11. Steve Reich - Electric Counterpoint III This is an interesting example because the underlying chord progression consists only of the degrees of the scale that form the minor 7th - IV, VI, Im. As a result, in this instance it's impossible to say that a minor 7th is only formed over, say, the VI chord, as was the case with the previous 2 examples. The harmony just morphs organically, an effect intensified the gradual introduction of each degree of the scale in the bass at the start of the piece (you have to listen to the whole thing to get what I'm talking about). PS in case you're curious what happens when it briefly modulates, the progression is III, IV, V, but effectively that III chord becomes the new tonic.
12. Steve Reich - Music for large ensemble Initially, the uppermost note of the chord is simply the 3rd degree of the tonic triad (i.e. the dominant), but each time the bass plunges down a third it becomes a minor 7th.

Yes, there is a lot of Ravel on this list. :P

A compositional project

Link to the project

About a year ago I wrote what I suppose you could call a 12-track piece for percussion ensemble. I say '12 track' because, although it used 10 separate instruments, I feel like 'track' is a more appropriate way to describe the way in which each stave was a whole composition unto itself.
I named this piece 'Mechanism No. 1', with the aim of writing more pieces in a similar style in the future. I recently completed Mechanism No. 2, which also has 12 'tracks'. You can find both pieces here:
Mechanism No. 1
Mechanism No. 2

I write most of my music in Sibelius, which has a mixing panel. While writing
anything with more than a few instruments, I usually mute or solo tracks and adjust volumes to hear how different combinations of instruments sound together and to make sure there aren't any unwanted dissonances.

With these very large, complex scores, such as the Mechanisms, often things come out in a reduced combination of instruments that are completely lost when all parts are blaring away at once. For example, just the marimba, vibrophone and harp together can convey a completely different mood to the work as a whole, and sound almost like a separate composition in their own right.

Often this has to do with each instrument's place in the harmony: with the combination of instruments just mentioned, you might never hear the tonic, so the whole key of the piece sounds different. In the work as a whole, these instruments might be filling in the 4th, 6th, or 7th degree of the scale (perhaps all at the same time!), but on their own, they create a new scale altogether.

It made me sad to think that my listeners would never get to hear all these different combinations of instruments I encountered while writing the Mechanisms. Short of uploading a Sibelius file to the web and hoping that everyone who wanted to hear the piece HAD Sibelius, there was no way of providing the same 'customizable' listening experience that I had from within the software during the composition process.

For this reason, I've decided to export several extra audio files of Mechanism No. 2 using a couple of different instrument combinations which I think are particularly interesting, and plan to do the same with Mechanism No. 1. I'll upload these to a Soundcloud playlist in the coming week. A link will be posted here when it's ready!

P.S. I originally considered exporting and uploading EACH STAVE individually, making them downloadable, and letting people remix. While I love projects like this, it would take a lot of time and probably not be worth it, since nobody knows I exist :P

This blog will no longer be limited to music...

Almost ever since I started this blog I've been itching to post about things other than music. However, I did initially set it up to be music-specific, and I didn't think I'd be posting frequently enough about other topics to justify changing that.

However, I recently changed my mind in light of the amount of stuff I have to say about technology (although literature is also a possible topic). I'm studying IT, and increasingly finding myself wanting to air my views or share my discoveries in relation to this pursuit.

So from now on, this blog is no longer exclusively music-themed. I'm going to have to think of another title! I'm also working on a widget to create navigation that elegantly divides it into sections based on post labels, but until that's finished, a flat link list will have to do.

Seeing music through the eyes of a programmer

I always intended this blog to have a music-only focus. I've often found myself wanting to blog about other things that interest me, but always refrained because it would have been outside the scope of the topic. However, I'm going to make a slight exception for this post because although it isn't exclusively music-related, music does come into it and I think it might be of interest to the very few people who read my blog.

A couple of years ago I did a web design course, learned about HTML and CSS, and loved it. This encouraged me to pursue IT further, and 3 months ago I enrolled in an introductory computer programming course which is just coming to an end at the time of writing. Although the course only taught the very basics of programming, even within a few weeks of starting it I had begun to 'think like a programmer'. Let me provide a few examples of what I mean.

There is a weatherboard house in my street which has always fascinated me because of the unusual staining of the wood. It appears that over time the stain on the boards exposed to the weather (furthest away from the eaves) wore off. The result is a perfect gradient, with the boards near the bottom of the house very pale and those directly under the eaves still a dark brown color. I found myself trying to figure out how I could write a program to manipulate an image to create the same effect. I never actually did it, but later on in the course we worked with gradients so I got to experiment then.

More recently, I attempted to draw parallels between music and programming from a conceptual point of view. In case any geeks are curious to know what I actually came up with, it was along these lines (I added the 'print' statement just to make it do something; it's kind of cool because it shows you the bars and the strong beats in each bar):

for bar in range (120):
      for note in range(1, 4, 2):
            print bar, note

The idea is a piece 120 bars in duration, where each bar is in 4/4 time and contains 2 minims. Obviously a very boring piece of music (where every note is the same duration!) but I needed something that simplistic to be able to translate it to this context at all.

The thing I love about studying programming is it's given me a whole new perspective, not just on music but on EVERYTHING. It's made me think about everything from a logical, even a slightly mathematical, perspective, and it's also made me realise that, contrary to what I've always thought, I don't actually hate maths.

Learning Jython has been intense and pretty stressful at times, but in the past 3 months I've discovered that although programming can be incredibly frustrating, the thrill when you finally solve a problem you've been scratching your head over for weeks is huge. I can't wait to move on to learning Java. In the meantime, to relax a little (haha, we'll see about that...) I'm returning to web design, this time to learn JavaScript.

Bach is hard

I've discovered that, at least in the pianistic field, pieces by Mozart are often given to young musicians as their 'first concerto'  or 'first sonata'. This seems to imply that such works are technically and perhaps emotionally less demanding than sonatas or concertos by other composers, and therefore suitable material for budding musicians who have, presumably, not yet developed these faculties.
I have even read things that imply that Mozart is widely considered to be inferior music ONLY suitable for this purpose, and not serious or "difficult" enough for fully-fledged musicians to pay any attention to.
As I am not personally fond of Mozart, I haven't played much of his music and thus don't feel qualified to judge whether it really IS less technically or emotionally demanding than that of other composers. However, it recently came to my attention that Bach is treated, by some, in much the same way: as excellent 'first concerto' material for children learning the piano, or (in the cases of the preludes and fugues) excellent exercise material, but not really of any worth to the experienced musician.

This horrifies me for a number of reasons. First, to suggest that anything Bach - possibly the greatest composer that ever lived - wrote has no musical worth is nothing short of blasphemy. I can hardly think of a great composer since Bach's time who has not, in some way, been influenced by his music. However, I hardly need that as an excuse for defending the excellence of his compositions. The main reason I'm offended by this devaluing, as it were, of Bach's music is because it implies that, like Mozart, playing Bach requires less technical skill or musical understanding than playing the music of other composers.

I've noticed a curious thing when I tell people (generally musicians or music lovers who aren't pianists) about the pieces I'm working on. The conversation usually goes something like this:
Me: 'I'm learning two concertos.'
Friend: 'Which ones?'
Me: 'Bach's D minor...'
Friend: *no reaction*
Me: '...and Rach 2.'
Friend: 'OOOH! That's one of the hardest concertos there is!' *impressed face*
Me: *mumbles something about Prok 2*
Misconceptions about hardest concertos aside, it seems like Rachmaninov universally holds the status of Serious Music, while Bach is...well...less serious music - even inferior music - in the eyes of many people. If I hadn't seen evidence of this attitude elsewhere, it would never have occured to me that people might think about Bach this way. Someone once told me they were surprised when they tried to play a Bach prelude and found it difficult. It strikes me as strange that people can listen to Bach and not hear the complexity of it.

To me, Bach has always been characterised by both outstanding complexity and technical difficulty; in the early music circle I grew up in, it was widely acknowledged that Bach was pretty much the hardest early music there was. But how does the technical difficulty of Bach compare to the music of the 19th and 20th centuries?

In Rach 2, most of the notes are for texture, and the few that form a melody are the ones that need to be brought out. This is usually achieved using the damper pedal and playing the textural notes lightly while the melody notes are played strongly. More often than not the 'textural' notes end up being drowned out by the orchestra anyway, and this combined with the concealing qualities of the pedal mean that you don't need to get every note right for the overall effect to be pleasant.
Since I like to actually hear all the notes, I strongly advocate NOT swamping them in pedal to hide technical inadequacies. The technique I describe above is one of things I find most frustating about modern pianists. But the fact remains that you can do that and get away with it, because romantic music was sort of written to be played like that. In fact, most of it is unplayable without a certain amount of pedal, although swamping is totally unnecessary if you are a good enough pianist (I could probably write a whole book blog post about pedal-swamping). I personally aspire to the clean, minimally-pedalled technique which the composer himself utilises, but the truth is my technique isn't good enough to pull that off most of the time.


On the other hand, under no circumstances will I resort to the pedal in Bach. It simply isn't in keeping with the sound I envisage for his music. I like a clean, percussive, articulated technique in Bach; it helps to emphasise the counterpoint and also makes the piano sound more like a harpsichord. But this clarity is a lot harder to achieve than the pedal-swamped passages found in romantic music. One wrong note in Rachmaninov might be barely noticable, but in Bach it could be a disaster. You can't fake it: every note is of equal importance (this is especially so in fugal passages, where each voice needs to be heard clearly.) Even if you do use the pedal (and thereby conceal half the notes, making wrong ones less apparent), the keyboard instruments Bach wrote for had a much lighter action than a modern piano, and so were much easier to play on. This made it possible to execute leaps and incredibly fast fingerwork that are awkward, to say the least, on a modern piano. When playing Bach on the piano, the performer often has to battle against the unwieldiness of an instrument for which the music was not designed.

Rach 2 is hard, and as soon as you introduce the concept of actually hearing all the notes, it gets much harder, because there are lots of them, and they are often very fast. But aside from one or two awkward passages (which can be glossed over with the pedal if necessary) most of the notes feel just right - so right that, once you've learnt them, they are not only easy, but actually physically pleasant to play. This can be attributed to Rachmaninov's own skill as a pianist, which enabled him to write music perfectly designed for the piano and the capabilities of the performer.

By all accounts, Bach was equally accomplished at the harpsichord, and no doubt his own concertos were similarly well-tailored to his instrument. Like Rach 2, the Bach concerto was never easy in the first place, but (if Bach's vocal works are anything to go by) it was probably written in such a way that once the keyboardist had learnt the notes, everything just flowed - at least, on a harpsichord, where the keys are much shallower than a piano's and only require about a quarter of the effort to depress. I actually have two harpsichords in my house, but they're both in such poor condition that I haven't been able to try playing the concerto on them (apart from the fact they don't have enough keys for the low notes; Bach must have had much bigger harpsichords.)

In the end, it's hard to draw a comparison, because the technique required to play Bach is so different from that required to play Rachmaninov.* All things considered, the two pieces are probably at around the same level of difficulty. This alone would probably surprise a lot of people. However, I'm finding the concerto that was written for the instrument I'm playing it on, regardless of the number of notes, is actually easier to execute successfully. Meanwhile, I've just started learning the last movement of the Bach concerto, and for the first time since I undertook learning these two concertos, I'm really struggling. I haven't started on the last movement of Rach 2 yet, and I'm fairly certain it's going to be the hardest. Will it be harder than the corresponding movement of the Bach? Even I would feel silly if I said it wasn't, but only time will tell!

*I have encountered pianists who fully appreciate the technical challenges of Bach, and even go so far as to admit they can't play it. These are accomplished musicians who have no trouble executing extremely difficult 19th and 20th century music, which demonstrates just how different the necessary technique is.

Concert review: Stefan Cassomenos 26/6/13

In 2012, I was fortunate enough to witness two incredible young pianists playing alongside each other - one as soloist and one as accompanist - in the Piano Concerto section of my local Eisteddfod. They were Konrad Olszewski and Stefan Cassomenos. Even in what one could say was the secondary role of accompanist, it was evident that Stefan was an extraordinary musician. They played one of my favorite concertos, Prokofiev's 3rd, and the whole experience was unforgettable. I was therefore very excited when I found out that both Stefan and Konrad had got into the Sydney International Piano Competition (SIPCA), and heartbroken when they didn't progress to the 2nd round.

I've just returned from the first recital I've heard Stefan play in person. This took place in the salon at the Melbourne Recital Centre, and I have to admit I much prefer this more intimate setting to the Elizabeth Murdoch Hall - the acoustic is beautiful and, in my opinion, far more flattering to the piano.
The closeness to the performer also gives me the opportunity to study a pianist's pedalling at close range, which I certainly did tonight.

I loved Stefan's choice of repetoire, some of which I'd already heard him play in SIPCA, and some of which he obviously learnt for SIPCA but didn't get the chance to perform due to not progressing past the first round. This included one of the Australian works commissioned for the competition, Carl Vine's Toccatissimo, with which Stefan opened the program and in which I would be completely confident to say his accuracy was 100%. For some reason I never fully appreciated this masterpiece when I heard it on the radio during SIPCA - I don't know whether it was never played particularly well (it's a technical monstrosity) or whether I was just so exhausted from hours of listening that I couldn't even take it in. But tonight, it left me fervently wishing I was able to compose like that - as did the 3 Ligeti etudes (Nos. 4, 11, and 8), during which I simply gaped the whole time.

After the Vine and before the Ligeti, Stefan played 3 Liszt etudes (Nos. 7, 11 and 8). I confess I'm not a fan of Liszt, but I marvelled at Stefan's technique in these extraordinarily difficult works. I particularly noted that Wilde Jagd, which I heard several times played by different pianists (including Stefan) during SIPCA, sounded distinctly more accurate than when I had heard him play it previously. In fact, I would venture to say it was 100% accurate.

Following the Liszt and Ligeti, Stefan played a Debussy etude (No. 11) which for some reason has left less of an impression on me than the other works on the program. I quite like Debussy, and I like that etude, but it didn't particularly stand out for me, perhaps because I was so busy anticipating the 5 Rachmaninov Etudes that followed.

When I hear what is, for me, a definitive interpretation of a work, from then on I never really like any other interpretation. This is how I feel about Ashkenazy's Rach Etudes, with one exception - Op. 39 No. 1, which I first heard played by Konrad Olszewski in SIPCA. Ever since then, no other interpretation of that etude has sounded right to me, and Stefan's interpretation of Op. 39 No. 1 doesn't quite cut it for me simply for that reason, but on some levels he has more technique than Konrad. It was interesting to hear how Stefan brought out melodies in this etude that I hadn't heard before.

At this point I can no longer put off discussing the one thing that struck me most about Stefan's playing this evening: his pedalling.

I was watching Stefan's feet the whole way through the recital, and was amazed to see that he frequently took the pedal completely off in technical passages where most pianists I've heard leave it down. Stefan used little to no pedal wherever he could, and only a pianist with impeccable technique can get away with the exposure this results in.
When he wasn't playing completely pedalless, Stefan changed the pedal frequently and subtly - sometimes fully changing, sometimes half or quarter-changing - so that there was always the utmost clarity. I was particularly struck by the way he used the sostenuto pedal in one piece to hold a bass chord while he played a delicate, virtuosic passage in the right hand, completely without the damper pedal. This is the kind of pedalling technique that seems to have been forgotten, or has gone out of fashion, and of which Rachmaninov is the supreme example.

My only criticism of Stefan's pedalling is a fairly minor one. He has a way of very abruptly lifting his foot off the pedal. He never does this in the middle of passages - as many pianists I've heard do - but only when he comes to the end of a pedalled section. Often it's quite effective, if the music is agressive, since the 'clunk' of the pedal adds to the overall harshness. But occasionally he does it when the music is less suited to added clunking, and I don't like it. However, it's part of his playing style and insignificant in comparison to his otherwise extraordinary command of the pedal, which particularly made itself clear in the Rachmaninov etudes.

Most modern pianists I've heard pay little, if any, attention to pedalling, and I gather that many judges don't either, considering some of the finalists in competitions. It's refreshing to come across a pianist who grants the pedal the importance it deserves. I reckon if we could hear Rachmaninov play his own etudes today, in person, his pedalling would not be unlike Stefan's. And as a self-confessed pedalling freak and Rachmaniac, that's more or less the highest praise I could give anyone.

Concert Review: Valentina Lisitsa 8/6/13

I originally discovered Valentina Lisitsa when I came across her Chopin Etudes DVD on Youtube. To start with, I didn't like her all that much. I appreciated that she was an excellent pianist with formidable technique, but her style wasn't to my taste. It was only once I realised how she was revolutionising classical music through the use of social media that my respect for her really took off.
Gradually I began to realise what she was doing was very different: she talked about the music when she did a recital, tweeted to people in the audience, and was prepared to livestream her practise and performances to the whole world.  Last but not least, whereas most pianists achieve fame by winning prestigious competitions at a tender age, Lisitsa's career took off via the internet when she was middle-aged, without the aid of any competitions (and the agents and record companies they entail) whatsoever. 

The Royal Albert Hall recital was what finally made me a fan. I'd listened to Ashkenazy's Rach preludes CD, but his intepretation, while excellent, had never really communicated the essence of the music to me in the way Lisitsa's did. I felt like I was hearing the preludes for the first time. It was then that I decided to learn Op. 32 No. 10, and my obssession with Rachmaninov began.

Some time later I joined with hundreds of other pianists and music lovers around the world to watch Lisitsa livestreaming her 12 hours of practise a day, and later a performance of Rach 3. It was an amazing experience, not least because of the wonderful live chat board, where I was able to talk with fellow pianists around the world and discuss what Lisitsa was playing in real-time.

Last weekend, I flew to Brisbane for a couple of nights and saw Valentina Lisitsa perform at the Queensland Performing Arts centre. It was unforgettable, and a very different experience to other piano recitals I've been to. Lisitsa talked at length about the music, the composers, her own childhood and the reasons for her programming (which was refreshingly unconventional) before sitting down to play, straight through, 6 Rachmaninov preludes, followed by Prokofiev's 7th sonata (a personal favorite of mine) and then the Beethoven Appassionata. And that was just before interval. She didn't want applause between pieces, but couldn't prevent a few outbursts from the enthusiastic audience.

From the very first piece, I disliked the piano. Lisitsa favours Bosendorfers, and it's a pity she wasn't able to play on one, because the Steinway in the auditorium was poorly tuned (not out of tune exactly; just poorly tuned), unevenly voiced and jangly. However, Lisitsa was able to make it sound beautiful, especially as she warmed up.

Hearing her play the Rachmaninov preludes again since I'd gotten to know them better, I realised I didn't actually like her interpretation of Op. 32 no. 10, the prelude I learned. Some of the more technically challenging preludes were also a bit messy, but when a performer sees the bigger picture rather than focussing on the details, mistakes are unimportant, and Lisitsa certainly saw the bigger picture. In fact the Rach preludes were really just a warm-up, and the fact that Lisitsa was able to play 6 such challenging works to open a recital is indicative of her pianistic skill.

The Prokofiev sonata and Beethoven which followed were flawless - and very fast, something which seems to be Lisitsa's trademark. After interval, she spoke some more and then played 8 Chopin nocturnes. This time the audience managed to not applaud between pieces. Again, the bigger picture was of the utmost importance. I was particularly impressed with how Lisitsa had programmed the nocturnes according to key; she had obviously put a lot of thought into the order of the works, rather than simply arranging them chronologically (as most pianists do). It's practically unheard of to put a Op. 55 before an Op. 15.

The final piece on the program was Liszt's Totentanz. There are several recordings of Lisitsa playing this on Youtube, but I swear she played it better in this recital than I've heard in any of her recordings (in fact, I would say that about everything she played). It was interesting to hear Totentanz again since I wrote my own variation on Dies Irae - I know the plainchant melody so well now that I hear it everywhere, and this familiarity meant that Totentanz made a lot more sense to me than it had before; I suddenly heard it as a piece of music and not merely as a way for the pianist to show off.

There followed a well-deserved standing ovation and two encores. The first was Liszt's transcription of Schubert's Ave Maria, which was very beautiful. Amazingly, Lisitsa then played La Campanella - a piece I would hardly have considered appopriate encore material after such an exhausting program! But Lisitsa's stamina is unfailing and this, too, was stunning. I couldn't help comparing the ending with Gavrilov's, which I think someone on Youtube once tried to call the 'fastest La Campanella' or something like that. Gavrilov fakes it, and in the last few bars is basically just playing random notes as fast and loud as possible (don't get me wrong, I do actually like Gavrilov - just not his La Campanella.)
In any case, Lisitsa did NOT fake it. I would even go so far as to say her accuracy was 99.9 percent (I heard no mistakes, but I have to leave a .01 percent margin to cover the possibility - after all, there are a lot of notes....)

The thing that impressed me most about Lisitsa's performance was her incredible stamina. Even some of the best pianists tend to hold back when they have a big climax to reach in a piece, or if they know they have to play something very technically demanding later. Lisitsa never held back once - she kept playing with the same intensity, showing no signs of fatigue, and maintaining an incredible volume. The secret to this is complete relaxation: you can tell just by watching Lisitsa play that she is very, very relaxed. Of course, physical strength is also necessary, but strength is completely useless without relaxation, and that isn't as easy as it sounds. In fact, the inability to keep my arms and wrists sufficiently relaxed is probably the thing that holds back my technique the most.

I think a lot of young pianists (including myself) could benefit from taking a leaf out of Valentina Lisitsa's book by viewing a piece of music, and the challenges it entails, as a whole and thinking about the overall impression rather than worrying about every mistake; and RELAXING and letting their entire weight sink into the piano. Relaxation doesn't just improve stamina: it also results in a beautiful rich tone, something that is distinctly lacking in most of the pianists I hear in competitions.