Ridiculously Virtuoso Piano Works

[snyprrr]

All of a sudden I've got a fever for cascading, twinkling, monstrous snowstorms of piano notes. I was checking out Sciarrino's on YouTube, along with some Finnissy (though, there wasn't really that much choice here), I recently got that famous Pollini 20th Century Album, and the Stephen Hough Piano Albums. I'm sure Ligeti's Etudes can't be far behind.

Style is not the most important thing here, any Era will do, though I imagine most of the candidates will probably come from the 20th Century.

Of course, too much overbearing virtuosity can get annoying sometimes, so, other, less overt forms of virtuosity can be considered also (something like Boulez PS No.3).

Liszt?,...Busoni?,...Nancarrow?,...who takes the cake??

[bhodges]

Hamelin's Kaleidoscope will surely satisfy this craving.  It is an entire disc of encore-style miniatures by many different composers, including Hamelin himself.



--Bruce

[CRCulver]

Boulez's Incises is my favourite virtuoso piano piece. I'd recommend the performance by Gianluca Cascioli on a DG disc. Cascioli was the winner of the competition for which Incises was written, and he recorded the original three-minute version (the piece has now been extended to 10 minutes and is plodding).

[imperfection]

Alkan's op.39 set of etudes, his Symphony for Solo Piano, Symphony for Solo Piano, and Grande sonate: 'Les quatre âges' are among the most unbelievably virtuosic pieces in the repertoire.

[greg]

Yeah, Hamelin should do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/6utk2nFjpXA&feature=related

[listener]

a couple of mainstream knuckle busters:
BALAKIREV     Islamey     RAVEL   Gaspard de la Nuit
GODOWSKY    all those Chopin Études transcribed for left hand solo...
               Hamelin and Carlo Grante.   Douglas Madge conveys too well their difficulty.
and REGER  5 Chopin transcriptions - Funf Spezialstudien für Pianoforte  1899 recorded by Fredrik Ullén on BIS 1083 (Got a Minute?) transcriptions on that waltz and other pieces.

The LISZT Totentanz for piano and orchestra is quite impressive in live performance.   One of the variations requires wide glissandos up and down the keyboard.   I remember a live televised broadcast where the piano had not been securely anchored and slowly crept away from the player with each assault.      His Transcendental Études fit this category as well   (inexpensive score published by Kalmus).

[snyprrr]

I'm glad you mentioned those 'standards'. Yes, it doesn't really matter hooow your knuckles are getting busted,... just that they are.

Hamelin,...yes!!

And thanks for mentioning Bach.



I was watching a YouTube performance of Skarbo that was pretty cool, with the overlapping hands. And there's a cool Takahashi/Xenakis.


MORE MORE!!!

[springrite]

The Three Etudes of Alkan are amazing. The three movements are for the left hand, right hand, and both hands together. You'd think it was for two hands, two hands and four hands! What is more amazing is that Hamelin recorded it LIVE! Available from Hyperion (Wigmore Hall Recital).

[mc ukrneal]

Well then, you should check out all the etudes from Godowsky's The Complete Studies on Chopin's Etudes. I always seem to end up going back and forth between the original and this, but they are truly amazing. Hamelin's is a great recording (if you want a complete cd).

Berezovsky has also recorded some of them, and I believe these may be available at youtube as well.

[snyprrr]

ok, so,... new question, then...



The consensus seems to be that total, overt virtuosity is the servent more of old fashioned type actual music, rather than post-war Avant Guarde? In the Avant, there is no real room for the kind of 'human' virtuosity,... so, I wonder, what is 'the' computer type sounding masterpiece? Something by Babbitt? Somehow, I don't think...

Godowsky does seem to be the winner here, so far. I was checking Hamelin's discography last night, and the Kaleidoscope album does look like a lot of fun.

[DavidRoss]

You might like .

Haven't heard Hamelin, but he ought to do a decent enough job...especially if he's loosened up first with a few drinks!

[Josquin des Prez]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaPeks0H3_s

[Josquin des Prez]

Hamelin is a boring pianist. He has enough chops to bring a lot of those compositions to life but its a sort of dull form of existence, a kind of un-life. Surely, there must be other virtuosos out there capable of playing those excruciatingly difficoult works without sounding completely two-dimensional in the process.

At any rate, i was listening to Sorabji lately and the only pianist i found that seemed to do his music justice is Jonathan Powell:

http://jonathanpowell.wordpress.com/

[MN Dave]

Hamelin is a boring pianist. He has enough chops to bring a lot of those compositions to life but its a sort of dull form of existence, a kind of un-life. Surely, there must be other virtuosos out there capable of playing those excruciatingly difficoult works without sounding completely two-dimensional in the process.

Maybe the works are two-dimensional. Nah. I've also thought him boring on occasion.

[Josquin des Prez]

Maybe the works are two-dimensional.

I thought that too, until i heard him play the music of Kapustin, which led me to discover the recordings issued by the actual composer. The difference was amazing.

[DavidRoss]

Hamelin is a boring pianist. He has enough chops to bring a lot of those compositions to life but its a sort of dull form of existence, a kind of un-life. Surely, there must be other virtuosos out there capable of playing those excruciatingly difficoult works without sounding completely two-dimensional in the process.

I guess that settles it: proof (if such were possible), or at least compelling confirmation, that Hamelin must be among the least boring pianists on the planet!

[Josquin des Prez]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do1NJL4SIwE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_6r4Nn9tXk

I rest my case.

[snyprrr]

Yeah, Hamelin should do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/6utk2nFjpXA&feature=related

That's really just a piano?? Some of those glisses sound out of this world, like a synth. This is on the Kaleidoscope? Mind boggling,... the way the staves are just added on to the end,...wow !!

[bhodges]

This is on the Kaleidoscope?

No, no...just one of the many Hamelin clips on YouTube.  Great, isn't it! 

--Bruce

[snyprrr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do1NJL4SIwE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_6r4Nn9tXk

I rest my case.

Kapustin does sound fresher.



What about Cecil Taylor? I think he's the reason certain friends call Stockhausen/Boulez 'jazz'!! Honestly, if my fingers were faster I think I could do this kind of stuff. As it is, I can do a great impression of a tortured pianist playing Freudian tooth bashing, haha!