Great composers whom you like a few works of, but who usually bore you.

[Jay F]

What are the "usual pieces" one likes by Ravel, Fauré, Delibes and Satie?

Ravel: Bolero

Faure: Pavane

Delibes: Lakme Flower Duet

Satie: Trois Gymnopedies; Gnossiennes

[amw]

What are the "usual pieces" one likes by Ravel, Fauré, Delibes and Satie?

I like the chamber music of Fauré, hardly now the piano music,

Interesting; for me Fauré's chamber music is excellent, but he is, with Debussy, the great composer of piano music after Chopin. You just lost interest in it over time, or what?

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Interesting; for me Fauré's chamber music is excellent, but he is, with Debussy, the great composer of piano music after Chopin. You just lost interest in it over time, or what?

I do gotta say I think Ravel and Ligeti kinda deserve to be in there as the 'great composers of piano music after Chopin' as well as Debussy and Faure.

[amw]

Obviously there's also Alkan, Th. Kirchner, Brahms, Medtner, Ives, Skryabin, Szymanowski, Messiaen, Boulez, Stockhausen and Finnissy. And lots more who are great in various ways. But if I'm going to limit it to two, Fauré and Debussy.

[Jo498]

Sorry, this was an embarrassing typo: I hardly KNOW (non cognosco) Faurés piano music having bought a box and shelved it some time ago (when, to complicate things I was frequently travelling between two apartments in different cities) and then (almost) forgot about it.

And although I am somewhat undecided about the music, Prokofieff also deserves to be one of the great piano composers of the early 20th century. I do not listen to Bolero voluntarily but I at least "kind of like" most other Ravel.

I have heard the Flower duet, but certainly not an entire larger piece by Delibes.

[Monsieur Croche]

Keep at it. You will be rewarded in the end and, hopefully not literally, when the [Mahler's] 9th will suddenly make sense to you. 

As if a piece 'suddenly making sense' to a listener is going to be like a gestalt revelation that leads to the listener's ecstatic conversion because they have seen the light and the only right way, lol. Once it 'makes complete sense to the listener,' it is still possible for the listener to find the music in question as uninteresting as they first thought it.

''Getting it,'' though, makes for that very nice angle of regard where a listener is at least less likely to glibly dismiss a composer, piece or entire era as 'bad music,' or 'crap,' and instead better realize some very fine and great music just might not be their cuppa, i.e. subjective personal taste better-defined and acknowledged goes a long way when it comes to discussing music with others 

[Monsieur Croche]

I do gotta say I think Ravel and Ligeti kinda deserve to be in there as the 'great composers of piano music after Chopin' as well as Debussy and Faure.

Faure sits astride a late [and markedly Germanic style] romanticism fused with a deep classicism, some of that distinctly classical and pre-classical Gallic. He did write some more challenging keyboard works, while I would say none of it dwells in that virtuoso territory of Ravel or Debussy.

Ravel's pianistic technical demands are more from a line of direct descent from Liszt, his Miroirs pretty much cementing that, and tossing in Gaspard de la nuit to further that point.

Debussy, so many of his piano pieces, and especially with his Etudes. is more similar in disposition to Chopin, i.e. radically new approach of virtuoso technique combined with a radically expanded harmonic language; Debussy is considered the real giant from the four you mention.

I am still ambiguous in 'rating' Ligeti's piano catalogue as a similar type as those others. The Ligeti are often enough really challenging, and they are more current, talked about and widely praised, while that is not without what might be some genuinely enthusiastic hyperbole wanting them to be as important and on a par with the Chopin or Debussy Etudes. What number of them I have heard seem to overtly work with and reference the musical past through his very contemporary lens; that being the case and the fact he was not really a virtuoso pianist I think somewhat alters their 'category' to something perhaps more dissimilar than alike to Liszt, Chopin, Ravel and Debussy... i.e. I think the 'verdict' is not yet in on the Ligeti, and the perspective of more time ahead will better tell.

...There is also the here unmentioned perhaps side-path of Messiaen's solo piano ouevre, including a number of monumental cycles 

[Madiel]

Faure's piano music rarely sounds virtuosic, but that sure doesn't mean that it's easy. The notes for my set (Kathryn Stott, Hyperion) speculate that this has actually discouraged pianists from performing it.

There's some truly wonderful stuff in there, though, the peak perhaps being the 6th and 7th nocturnes.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Faure's piano music rarely sounds virtuosic, but that sure doesn't mean that it's easy. The notes for my set (Kathryn Stott, Hyperion) speculate that this has actually discouraged pianists from performing it.

There's some truly wonderful stuff in there, though, the peak perhaps being the 6th and 7th nocturnes.

You mean that pianists are so up themselves that if a piece is difficult but not virtuosic then it doesn't allow the average listener to hear how much hard work they're putting into it?

[Madiel]

You mean that pianists are so up themselves that if a piece is difficult but not virtuosic then it doesn't allow the average listener to hear how much hard work they're putting into it?

That was essentially the suggestion, yes.

Faure's music is rarely 'spectacular'. It is, however, utterly beautiful IMHO.

[North Star]

Faure's music is rarely 'spectacular'. It is, however, utterly beautiful IMHO.

Truer words haven't bean written. Beauty is often found where there is no spectacle.   (And I do like Messiaen.)

[Jay F]

I am now about to listen to Faure's Nocturnes. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBCB5B8A612621EFC

[Mirror Image]

Mahler usually bores me to death mainly because he's all over the place all the time. Very exhausting to listen to for longer periods of time. I've found that a little Mahler goes a long way.

[Jay F]

Mahler usually bores me to death mainly because he's all over the place all the time. Very exhausting to listen to for longer periods of time. I've found that a little Mahler goes a long way.

Well surprise, surprise, surprise.

[Jo498]

I now rarely find the leisure and mental attitude to listen to a full Mahler symphony but of all the "lengthy" symphonies (say Bruckner, Mahler, Elgar, Shostakovitch, maybe a few more) I usually find Mahler the least long-winded and most diverse. Admittedly, the sheer length of some movements (3,i, 2,v, 6,iv and 9,i (although this is one of the greatest symphonic movements I know)) can be tiring.

[71 dB]

Faure's music is rarely 'spectacular'. It is, however, utterly beautiful IMHO.

Some of Faure's chamber music is spectacular imo.  0:)

[Monsieur Croche]

I am now about to listen to Faure's Nocturnes. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBCB5B8A612621EFC

a very interesting take, nos one through five only [Eric Heidsieck, piano]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMVO1MLcOYQ

And, what the hey, why not toss in Poulenc's also highly pianistic and elegant Nocturnes, too...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfQoNDuutTs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJBC3M8B39I


Best regards.

[Monsieur Croche]

You mean that pianists are so up themselves that if a piece is difficult but not virtuosic then it doesn't allow the average listener to hear how much hard work they're putting into it?

Younger performers, even those who would want to program or record the more subtle pieces of the repertoire which do require the more quiet kind of virtuosity vs. the more overt 'display' type, are often up against their managers, concert programmers and the taste of the greater part of the general public. The expectation and demand is of something more overt, flashy and spectacular.

It takes quite a while, and a well-established reputation, before they 'are allowed' or can afford to take a chance on presenting the more quiet and subtle fare. [Pianist -- Rachmaninov and Prokofiev or other ''big and splashy'' romantic fare now; Mozart later... it pretty much goes like that ]

There is a kind of solo performer, sadly enough, who will not consider performing a work unless the piece will more dramatically show the performers' virtuosity.

You asked in humor, but those factors are very much present... I imagine the dynamic is relatively the same for the composers who are just establishing careers, too. It is not just in America, or pop culture in general, where subtlety does not sell, lol.

[Jay F]

a very interesting take, nos one through five only
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMVO1MLcOYQ

And, what the hey, why not toss in Poulenc's also highly pianistic and elegant Nocturnes, too...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfQoNDuutTs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJBC3M8B39I


Best regards.

I liked Eric Heidsieck more than the one I listened to first. Poulenc next. Thanks.

[kishnevi]

Younger performers, even those who would want to program or record the more subtle pieces of the repertoire which do require the more quiet kind of virtuosity vs. the more overt 'display' type, are often up against their managers, concert programmers and the taste of the greater part of the general public. The expectation and demand is of something more overt, flashy and spectacular.

It takes quite a while, and a well-established reputation, before they 'are allowed' or can afford to take a chance on presenting the more quiet and subtle fare. [Pianist -- Rachmaninov and Prokofiev or other ''big and splashy'' romantic fare now; Mozart later... it pretty much goes like that ]

There is a kind of solo performer, sadly enough, who will not consider performing a work unless the piece will more dramatically show the performers' virtuosity.

You asked in humor, but those factors are very much present... I imagine the dynamic is relatively the same for the composers who are just establishing careers, too. It is not just in America, or pop culture in general, where subtlety does not sell, lol.

Years ago, on a non music forum, a thread developed for videos of concertos in performance.  I posted a video of a piano concerto by Hummel, and was immediately confronted by a complaint: the complainer thought the piano's entrance was delayed too long.  The mere idea that a soloist might not make a quick and flashy entrance was, for that person, sufficient to condemn the concerto to his audio wastebin.