your favorite 10 composers for solo keyboard

[Cato]

Good day, Rafael! I was using the GMG definition of '10'.  0:)

AMEN!!!  0:)   Dude, you are in the club!

Scriabin - because of the sonatas, occult gateways to another dimension !
Beethoven -    "          "    "     "       , spiritual gateways to the soul  0:) !
Bach - because of everything, but especially everything for organ!
Vierne - because of the six organ symphonies!
Liszt - because of everything, but especially Years of Pilgrimage.
Rameau - because it is so much fun to hear his keyboard works!
Schubert - because of everything, but especially the last sonata!
Ravel - because of everything, but especially Gaspard de la Nuit
Schumann - because of everything, but especially Kinderszenen!
Prokofiev - because of everything, but especially the Toccata Opus 11.
Schoenberg - because of everything, but especially the Fuenf Stuecke, Opus 23!
Rachmaninov - because of everything, but especially the Sonatas and the Etudes Tableaux!

[Spineur]

I cant believe that only Cato and North Star kept Prokofiev

Prokofiev - because of everything, but especially the Toccata Opus 11.

for his Sonatas, Visions fugitives, Sarcasms, Tale of an old Grandmother, pensées, music for children....

[Jo498]

Edit: I'm the only one who has mentioned Mozart and Haydn? 

I had Haydn in my list and replaced him with Domenico Scarlatti before posting. He might have taken the place of another of the last four on my list or the 11th...
tbh I don't care all that much about Mozart's piano solo, except the last sonata and the one in a minor. The others are very good music but not as important or great as a lot of other stuff (by Mozart or others).

[North Star]

I had Haydn in my list and replaced him with Domenico Scarlatti before posting. He might have taken the place of another of the last four on my list or the 11th...
tbh I don't care all that much about Mozart's piano solo, except the last sonata and the one in a minor. The others are very good music but not as important or great as a lot of other stuff (by Mozart or others).

There are some others too like the Rondo in A minor, K. 511, and especially the Adagio in B minor, K. 540 - but overall, Mozart's solo piano works tend to be shadowed by the concertos, chamber music & operas as far as I'm concerned.
I like the dozen Haydn piano sonatas I've heard but not quite enough, I suppose. If there's much more of similar quality as on Dupoy's C. P. E. Bach clavichord disc, he might get on the list..

[Gurn Blanston]

Semi-chronological...

Scarlatti
Haydn
Mozart
Beethoven
Clementi
Schubert
Schumann
Brahms
Satie
Debussy

That'll work.

[bhodges]

A tough one -- as usual, for those left behind. Oh well. (And some great lists here!)

Debussy
Feldman
Michael Finnissy
Jonathan Harvey
Medtner
Messiaen
Rachmaninoff
Ravel
Rzewski
Scriabin

--Bruce

[Parsifal]

Bach
Beethoven
Brahms
Chopin
Debussy
Faure
Ravel
Scriabin
Schubert
Schumann

[Florestan]

Leaving aside the obvious big names (of which I am quite surprised nobody has yet mentioned CPE Bach, Bartok, Martinu and Villa-Lobos)

Galuppi
Blasco de Nebra
Clementi
Cimarosa
Thalberg
Tellefsen
Henri Herz
Gottschalk
Grieg
Offenbach
Bizet
Chabrier
Bortkiewicz
Rebikov
Deodat de Severac
John Ireland
York Bowen
Enescu
Ernesto Nazareth

[milk]

Leaving aside the obvious big names (of which I am quite surprised nobody has yet mentioned CPE Bach, Bartok, Martinu and Villa-Lobos)

Galuppi
Blasco de Nebra
Clementi
Cimarosa
Thalberg
Tellefsen
Henri Herz
Gottschalk
Grieg
Offenbach
Bizet
Chabrier
Bortkiewicz
Rebikov
Deodat de Severac
John Ireland
York Bowen
Enescu
Ernesto Nazareth

You inspired me to listen to Villa-lobos today. Lots of stuff here I don't know about...

[amw]

Michael Finnissy

Knew I was forgetting somebody important!

[André]

I like the lists by Sarge and Gurn. All my favourites are there!


Bach
Bach (CPE)
Scarlatti
Soler
Haydn
Mozart
Clementi
Beethoven
Schubert
CHOPIN
Schumann
Liszt
Ravel
Cage

I wouldn't put him up there with the immortals, but Leo Ornstein was no slouch either.

[Earthed]

Quite a timely thread (in terms of some of my recent listening habits) - my choices:

Chopin
Bach
Debussy
Ravel
Beethoven
Schumann
Rachmaninov
Messiaen
Satie
Shostakovich

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Damn I forgot Michael Finnissy, Salvatore Sciarrino, Chris Dench, Rebecca Saunders and Brian Ferneyhough

[mc ukrneal]

I love that you have listed this composer!  His music is delightful and needs to be advocated more.  IN fact, you reminded of a composer that I will include on my list: Scott Joplin.

Gottschalk IS a delight, but I love that he has many facets and a mixture of ideas. I, on the other hand, love Joplin! I played a lot of his works - transposed for saxophone. Some of my best memories of playing are at a summer music camp. When you get a group that can execute just right, well let's just say, my soul wells up when I hear his works. Naturally, the Sting is one of my absolute favorite movies!

[James]

Thinking of individual pieces, consistency, the level of creativity, the artist's voice/imprint .. as I'm doing this. There is some great work that I'm overlooking to come up with composers who wrote great music which happened to utilize a keyboard (percussive) instrument .. be it a piano, harpsichord, organ, (even synthesizer) consistently.

JS Bach (untouchable great to this day, highest level, mind boggling amount of pure music, all of it amazing and gets better and better with age)

After that .. Faure/Debussy/Ravel (A LOT of beauty here, love this whole French school lineage, like a lot of favorite things, when it's 'on' it speaks to me in a big way)

20th century .. Bartok/Stravinsky/2nd Viennese School (some monumental music here, rhythmic/harmonic wonders, often overlooked, powerful creative voices distilled to their essence)

For more modern personal faves .. I'd have to go with Boulez (Sonatas), Stockhausen (Klavierstucke), Ligeti (Etudes), Donatoni (Francoise Variations, just amazing!) .. some mind bending, ear stretching, and challenging music here, some powerfully abstract ... overall well thought out and executed by great talents.

[Florestan]

Gottschalk IS a delight, but I love that he has many facets and a mixture of ideas.

+ 1

Looks like I must investigate Joplin asap.

[Florestan]

I knew I forgot a few names: CM von Weber, John Field, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Granados, Albert Roussel, Reynaldo Hahn. 

[vandermolen]

Debussy
Ravel
Bloch
Koechlin
Novak
Szymanowski

[mc ukrneal]

+ 1

Looks like I must investigate Joplin asap.

He's know for ragtime. If you haven't seen The Sting, do check it out. Not only is the music excellent, but it's really a great movie.

[Cato]

Honorable mentions to the radicals of the early decades of the 1900's Leo Ornstein and Sergei Protopopov.


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