Music similar to X

[Moe]

Hey GMG.

I would very much like if somebody could recommend me some pieces which are similar to Mozart's; Sonata for two pianos in d minor, k. 448.

I love that piece very much, and I get really happy and giddy from it, anybody have some recommendation of something like it?

Thanks a bunch,
Moe.

PS: Where do you buy your music?
I find it hard to find good CDs with classical on it.

[The new erato]

PS: Where do you buy your music?
I find it hard to find good CDs with classical on it.

Really? We all here find far more than we can handle....

mdt.co.uk, prestoclassical.co.uk, europadisc.co.uk, various amazon outfits (amazon.es being the cheapest). jpc.de......the list goes on.

Does it have to be 2-piano stuff? Then Schubert does it in his Fantasia. For single piano works continue to explore Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Beethoven.

Welcome BTW.

[Moe]

Really? We all here find far more than we can handle....

mdt.co.uk, prestoclassical.co.uk, europadisc.co.uk, various amazon outfits (amazon.es being the cheapest). jpc.de......the list goes on.

Does it have to be 2-piano stuff? Then Schubert does it in his Fantasia. For single piano works continue to explore Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Beethoven.

Welcome BTW.

Thanks a bunch for the welcome and the answer!

It doesn't necessarily need to be a dual-piano piece. I'm just looking for something similar in style, something a bit happy.

Already looking into the different composers you've mentioned, but I was thinking of specific pieces, if you knew any.

As to the places to buy CDs; Thanks a bunch for the tips. But my biggest problem is to find good CDs where there is not 2/3 stuff I don't want to listen to.

[Octave]

I'm not sure I know what you will like, but I have really enjoyed Schubert's Impromptus for solo piano; a lot of people (including me) like Alfred Brendel's 2cd set of these pieces on Philips; but there is a single disc of Murray Perahia playing them with some Schubert-Liszt song transcriptions for solo piano, and there is a kind of gentle, cheerful, also melancholy rollicking feel to that disc that might be enjoyable to you.  I think it is the same feeling I get from Perahia's Mozart K448 w/Lupu.  At any rate, that is a lovely disc.

I have also recently really been enjoying a 7cd cheap box set of Haydn symphonies played by Bruno Weil and Tafelmusik.  Period instruments, so the sound of orchestra and the speed of the music might sound different from other Haydn you have heard; and it is a great joy.  Of course, maybe you would want to hear some of it before buying 7cds of that kind of music, but in the last year I have listened to that box at least a few times and loved the music more each time.  I thought Haydn was kind of boring when I first heard him a long time ago.  Stately, aristocratic, shallow, suffocated.  I do not feel this way now!  And it is not the period instruments or Bruno Weil that have made the difference.  Listen to the opening movement or two of his "Bear" symphony; at one point, this theme opens up like time-lapse photography of a flower, except that's no flower....it's a clown, saying "Come in, buster!"  Okay, no more drugs for me tonight.

Also, I don't know if this is the kind of "happy" you are looking for, but sometimes viol music can be quite beautiful, like cellos melting.  There is a 5cd set of English music by the viol group Fretwork, and it is very cheap and might possibly be the best ~$14 you've ever spent, even if you only end up using it as background music (which is perfectly okay).  Not all spritely like Mozart, but frequently just as graceful and playful.

It's a little more risky for me to recommend vocal music, because sometimes singing styles from different period (and for different eras' musics) can take some getting used to; but I have found some music by Monteverdi to be extremely joyful and organic and exciting.  A 2cd called COMPLETE CHAMBER DUETS (conducted by Alan Curtis, released by Virgin) has actually been a great source of pleasure for me, though I think Monteverdi obsessives would not choose that as a single 'desert-island' disc of Monteverdi. 

Finally, I wonder if you would like solo piano music by Poulenc (I am only really familiar with Pascal Rogé's famous single disc, I am sure there are other good ones and larger collections), but that is playful and sweet and I have enjoyed it several times.  Same with Erik Satie's music, though to me there is a darker and stranger and more mysterious edge to his music, perhaps.  (I like Reinbert de Leeuw the most, so far; there is a 2cd on Philips called something like 'Early Piano Works'.)

[prémont]

Hey GMG.

I would very much like if somebody could recommend me some pieces which are similar to Mozart's; Sonata for two pianos in d minor, k. 448.

I love that piece very much, and I get really happy and giddy from it, anybody have some recommendation of something like it?

En landsmand kan jeg se.  Velkommen hertil.

Mozart wrote some sonatas and variations for four-hand piano. I do not know if they may interest you. But the work, I would tend to recommend the most, is the concerto for two piano´s and strings in C major (BWV 1061) by JS Bach, which exists in a recording coupled with the double piano concerto by Mozart, played by Clara Haskil and Geza Anda. I have not heard the release below, but the interpretation is outstanding.

http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Wolfgang-Amadeus-Mozart-1756-1791-Klavierkonzerte-Nr-10-27/hnum/8183886

[Octave]

Incidentally, Moe, you made it sound like 2-piano or piano-four-hands music was not specifically what you had in mind; but I am mad about the following series/box, which can still be had pretty cheap:

[asin]B00280WCEW[/asin]
Schubert piano music four hands by Tal/Groethuysen (Sony, 7cd)

I think I love much of this music for the same type of reasons that you love the Mozart K448; in fact, Perahia/Lupu play the hands-down most famous piece by Schubert in this genre on the same disc that I mentioned above, with their Mozart K448.  (That was not my introduction to Schubert's world of four hands, though.)  It is hard for me to place why I love even some of the most minor of these minor (sic?) pieces.  I have said before that there have been days when this music (the Schubert) has seemed like the best music in the world.  Certainly worth checking out from your library or whatnot.   It is certainly possible that there are better performances of some of these pieces, but so many are neglected, afaik.

[mszczuj]

Not bad:

[asin]B004KDO2WA[/asin]

[Gurn Blanston]

I think I love much of this music for the same type of reasons that you love the Mozart K448; in fact, Perahia/Lupu play the hands-down most famous piece by Schubert in this genre on the same disc that I mentioned above, with their Mozart K448.  (That was not my introduction to Schubert's world of four hands, though.)  It is hard for me to place why I love even some of the most minor of these minor (sic?) pieces.  I have said before that there have been days when this music (the Schubert) has seemed like the best music in the world.  Certainly worth checking out from your library or whatnot.   It is certainly possible that there are better performances of some of these pieces, but so many are neglected, afaik.

I have (on a video) a very old but still wonderful Rudolf Serkin and son Peter playing some of those 4 hands marches (which I really like) of Schubert. The pure joy with which Rudolf attacks the music gives an idea of why it was composed to begin with; it is a social thing. I like it! 

[Karl Henning]

The Marches militaires?  Played a couple of those in band transcription when I was a mere slip of a lad.

[springrite]

The Marches militaires?  Played a couple of those in band transcription when I was a mere slip of a lad.

... and quit playing the piece after hearing the far superior Minuet Militaires?

[Karl Henning]

I don't believe I know them, Paul.