Your favorite cadenzas!

[Brian]

Here's a very...interesting cadenza to Beethoven's 3rd PC that Alkan wrote. WARNING: If you're easily offended by over-the-top virtuosity and the borrowing of themes, you might want to skip this one.

Wow. That was really totally preposterous. I loved it!

[BobsterLobster]

For pure virtuosity, Marc-Andre Hamelin's cadenza for Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2 is hard to beat

http://musicaljournal.blogspot.se/2011/12/marc-andre-hamelins-cadenza-on-liszts.html

And the Prokofiev 2nd Piano Concerto 1st movement cadenza is quite a beast.

[jochanaan]

One or two that haven't been mentioned yet:
Bartok: Violin Concerto #2
Britten: Piano Concerto
Britten: Violin Concerto

[DavidRoss]

Prokofiev PC #2 is basically death metal for its day.

I think it's great! So, too, the Sibelius VC cadenza. And the Elgar VC. And the furious presto final movement of Barber's VC, which is really a cadenza with orchestral accents. And the Ponce guitar concerto!

[snyprrr]

Stairway to Heaven?

[jochanaan]

Stairway to Heaven?

Oh, you like The Musical Offering's Canon #5?

[Sean]

I'll chime in with the piano cadenza in Turangalila first movement, and perhaps the related one for two pianos near the start of Carnival of the animals...

[Karl Henning]

Stairway to Heaven?

You prefer that even to "Outside Now" from Joe's Garage?