Brahms, 2nd Rhapsody
Chopin, étude op. 25n2
Bach, WTC1 P&F 23 in G sharp minor
Bartok, Allegro Barbaro
The Allegro Barbaro is pretty epic win. It's easier then it sounds/looks, until you get to the good tempi. then its a fun game to practice the displacements.
Sofronitsky, have you settled on rep yet? You should do the Copland Passacaglia! Because 1. passacaglias are awesome and 2. that passacaglia is particularly awesome and 3. people need to perform more of Copland's non-nationalist stuff so the world doesn't forget he wrote other music too.
I am in a piano drought right now, because I've gone from having very easy access to pianos at school and at home to this situation here in Philly where I have to walk two miles to get to a piano I'm allowed to play and I can rarely get there before they close since I'm working. I was complaining about this to my cousins last night and my cousin's husband offered to let me borrow his keyboard. So now there is a keyboard in my room. It is not a weighted keyboard and does not feel like a piano, which will take some getting used to, but at least it has a sustain pedal. You take what you can get. I'm working on the second movement of Beethoven's Op. 2 No. 3 sonata and the G major fugue from volume 2 of the WTC - my first fugue! And I am working on learning guitar and progressing quickly. I have my clarinet here as well, but don't play it often. It is my ensemble instrument, and I seldom feel like practicing it when I'm not going to be playing with other people.
I'm not quite sure by how much, but I would say they are. Liszt is probably the most pianistic composer ever - he simply knew how to write for the instrument. Now there are some sections that are immensely difficult - like those leaps in the right hand near the end of the first waltz - but Liszt, while very difficult, is often a fair bit easier to play than he sounds/looks.
My advice to you would be to keep at it, and sight read constantly. Go to your local music store and (if you have some money for music)find a compilation of easy classical or other type of piano music. Alfred has some good ones. I did that when I was developing my reading. It worked very well for me, and I was studying that same piece around that time!
I'm curious to know how many people here are not still studying music, but are not yet competent instrumentalists and have to work at getting a piece to sound good. That's where I am at. I still have to work at the notes.
Bach: Harpsichord Concerto in F minor
Bach: Prelude and Fugue in F-sharp minor from WTC II
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 5
Chopin: Ballade No. 3
Chopin: Nocturne Op. 27 No. 2
Prokofiev: Selections from "Ten Pieces from Romeo and Juliet" (Montagues and Capulets, Pater Lorenzo, Mercutio, and one or two others)
The beautiful and highly obscure CPE Bach Sonatas with varied reprises. I am working on the first three, but hope to finish all of them. Then I shall move onto the Prussian sonatas, and finally, the Wuttemburg.
Bach's two part invention 2 and 6, in C minor and E major, two études from a XIXth century guy named Köhler or something like that but at a quite slow tempo (working on articulating, anticipating), Ravel's Prélude (1913, the two pages one ) and I've begun a long-term work on an Haydn sonata (Hob XVI:50 in C major). I'm an happy guy. The bare fact that as a beginner, I work on three absolutely major composers, already makes it an amazing instrument.
Bach's two part invention 2 and 6, in C minor and E major, two études from a XIXth century guy named Köhler or something like that but at a quite slow tempo (working on articulating, anticipating), Ravel's Prélude (1913, the two pages one ) and I've begun a long-term work on an Haydn sonata (Hob XVI:50 in C major). I'm an happy guy. The bare fact that as a beginner, I work on three absolutely major composers, already makes it an amazing instrument.
Bach - Prelude and Fugue As dur I book
Chopin - Etude op.10 no.8
Chopin - Nocturne op.32 no.2
Mozart - Piano Sonata K311 D dur
Debussy - Passepied from Suite Bergamasque
And now I'm learning Schumann's masterpiece Carnaval op.9 ... A wonderful, magical music! I am pretty in love with this piece. When I first listened it, I was like in trance. And the feeling when I play this piece is more than amazing. Yeah, it's really difficult for performing, but it's worth!
Just got the complete Schubert sonatas in the mail today going to start D. 960.
Also got the first volume of Couperin's pieces de clavecin, trying to decide which ordre to play. I'm leaning towards ordre VI, since it has the mysterious barricades...
Chopin's B Minor Waltz. My first Chopin piece that i think i am capable of not ruining! Such fun to play, and so much room for expression.
As soon as i figured out the fingering to the melody is much easier when using the third and fourth fingers to hit the F#/G instead of scrambling about madly with a three fingered claw, it started to take off.
Liszt: Spozalizio from Années de Pèlerinage (Italie). The work inspired by Raphael's painting, The Marriage of the Virgin, I've begun to read Raphael's biography in-parallel.
Liszt: Spozalizio from Années de Pèlerinage (Italie). The work inspired by Raphael's painting, The Marriage of the Virgin, I've begun to read Raphael's biography in-parallel.
Another year gone by, played recital, got Bachelors.
Next year: Shostakovich's 2nd concerto, Listz's Gnomenreigen, Bach's 2nd French suite, Scriabin's étude op.8 no. 11, Chopin's 2nd Scherzo and Mozart's sonata in b flat major k. 720, all this to be spread over two recitals in the next year.
Here's a recording of a Chopin Prélude I made for Reddit's piano jam:
Good luck with that! Leslie Howard who, as you may know, recorded the complete Liszt solo piano works, considered the Scherzo und Marsch to perhaps be the most technically difficult piece Liszt wrote.
Here's my recording of Scriabin - Prelude Op. 11 No. 24.
It took me a while, one of the most difficult pieces I've played so far... What I like about short pieces is that you can easily record it 10 times in a row and pick out the best one. https://www.box.com/s/44831b92f10fda4c4499
Sadly, I have a digital piano only (Roland HP-201)...
It's been almost 4 years now since I've started to play the piano, and I am both happy and unsatisfied with the progress I have made so far, if that makes sense. I am beginning to sight read much much more efficiently, and I can read most Mozart slow movements and pieces of that difficulty at a fair tempo. It's really exciting how fast I can learn new things and keep on learning them, and I'm really hoping that this continues.
I am currently working on a program of old and new pieces to compete in competitions this year:
Bach: Prelude and Fugue in G Major, Book 1
Schubert: Sonata in A minor, op. 42 (1st movement only for now, but I am in love with the entire sonata! I hope I am not jumping the gun taking this as my first Schubert sonata)
Liszt: Valse Oubliee No. 1
Rachmaninoff: Prelude in B-minor Op. 32 no. 10 (Might cut this one for time)
Rachmaninoff: Etude-Tableaux op. 39 no. 3 in F-sharp minor
Copland: Passacaglia
It seems like an attractive program to me, and I will hopefully have it all memorized by the start of October. If anyone has any suggestions for different pieces I might be better suited to compete with, or tips for learning the pieces themselves I would really appreciate it!
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