# Alberti bass taken to the next level



## caters

I notice this exact thing in the left hand of Brahms' Hungarian Dance no. 5. It isn't just your normal Alberti Bass. It isn't even like in Bach's Prelude in C minor WTC Book I where it is very fast but otherwise normal. No, Brahms just had to take it to the next level. What I see basically amounts to this structure:

Single note, Arpeggiated chord that spans an octave, Note up to an octave down from the arpeggiated chord, sixth with the lower note an octave up from the previous note

And the arpeggiated chords are where the dynamic accents(sforzandos to be more specific(which since it is at forte where the alberti bass occurs, I assume means that the arpeggiated chords should be closer to fortissimo)) lie.

This is like almost the exact way I see the notes for Hungarian Dance no. 5 in my book Everybody's Favorite Piano Pieces(except the beginning forte passionato I see above the treble staff in my book and of course, in my book it is in F# minor whereas in the image it is in A minor):









This left hand part I am finding to be challenging because I am leaping all over the place, sometimes by more than an octave but usually by an octave. I am definitely not at full speed yet. But, even doing it slow, it's challenging. By contrast, the right hand I can almost play at full speed(the hardest spot for me in the right hand is where Brahms goes to the parallel major and the tempo goes up to Vivace).


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## Vasks

caters said:


> It isn't just your normal Alberti Bass.


 It isn't Alberti Bass.


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## caters

Vasks said:


> It isn't Alberti Bass.


Really? Sure sounds like Alberti Bass to me. I mean that alternation of lower single note with higher arpeggiated chords and sixths is just so fast that to me it sounds just as much like Alberti Bass here:






As it does in the Presto section of this Bach Prelude:






And as it does in this Beethoven sonata movement(which has Alberti Bass going past an octave):






They all to me sound equally like a very fast Alberti Bass even though in Hungarian Dance no. 5, the initial note is the middle in terms of pitch and in the Bach prelude it completely inverts in the right hand compared to the left hand in terms of pitch pattern in some places. So why is it that in Hungarian Dance no. 5, that fast alternation of pitch isn't Alberti Bass but in the Bach prelude and Beethoven sonata movement, it is Alberti Bass? Does it have to do with the initial pitch being in the middle instead of being either the highest or lowest pitch?


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## Vasks

The LH is a march type of accompaniment. Think of some bass instrument like tuba playing the downbeats and the horns playing all the upbeats.


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