Your Top 5 Favorite 20th Century Solo Piano Works

Started by Mirror Image, February 13, 2018, 07:15:02 PM

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Mirror Image

February 13, 2018, 07:15:02 PM Last Edit: February 13, 2018, 07:58:33 PM by Mirror Image
I'm going to sit this one out until I can put down a list with some confidence. Until then, I'd love to see all of your lists.

ComposerOfAvantGarde

#3
February 13, 2018, 08:36:43 PM
Quote from: Mirror Image on February 13, 2018, 08:15:03 PM
Sorry to do this to you, Jessop, but I shortened the list to five works only...because, you know, I've got to make it tough on you guys. ;) ;D

Is ten not tough enough? :laugh:

Here is a ridiculously short list of piano works. I was very unhappy to delete HALF of them! :P

Quote from: jessop on February 13, 2018, 08:13:33 PM
Keeping my list one piece per composer otherwise it would go on far too long

Boulez: Sonata no. 2
Ligeti: Etudes
Ferneyhough: Lemma-Icon-Epigram
Xenakis: Mists
Stockhausen: Klavierstück X

Mirror Image

#4
February 13, 2018, 08:42:12 PM Last Edit: February 13, 2018, 08:44:12 PM by Mirror Image
Quote from: jessop on February 13, 2018, 08:36:43 PM
Is ten not tough enough? :laugh:

Here is a ridiculously short list of piano works. I was very unhappy to delete HALF of them! :P

Yeah, 10 is hard to do, but I wanted to make it a bit more difficult. :P Interesting list, especially since it ignores three of my favorite piano masters: Ravel, Debussy, and Janáček. ;) But I understand that this is your list and not mine of course.

Ken B

#5
February 13, 2018, 08:46:55 PM
Solo single piano

Shostakovich WTC Book III
Debussy whichever preludes and etudes fall in the 20th century
Prokofiev Fugitive Visions op 22, and several sonatas
Bartok Mikrokosmos
Glass Metamorphoses
Messiaen Vingt Regards

If we're talking multiple pianos then a lot of ten Holt.

GioCar

#6
February 13, 2018, 09:08:21 PM
In chronological order, one piece per composer:

Debussy: Préludes - both Books, but if I have to choose then Book I
Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jésus
Boulez: Sonata No.2
Nono:...sofferte onde serene... (ok, it's for piano & tape but...who cares?  :P)
Feldman: Triadic Memories

Runners-up:
Albeniz: Iberia
Busoni: Sonatina seconda
Ives: Concord Sonata
Bartók; Piano Sonata
Kurtág: Játékok

ComposerOfAvantGarde

#7
February 13, 2018, 09:09:02 PM
Quote from: Mirror Image on February 13, 2018, 08:42:12 PM
Yeah, 10 is hard to do, but I wanted to make it a bit more difficult. :P Interesting list, especially since it ignores three of my favorite piano masters: Ravel, Debussy, and Janáček. ;) But I understand that this is your list and not mine of course.

If you let me have more (like maybe 10 to 15), I would include Debussy and Ravel without hesitation

kyjo

#8
February 13, 2018, 09:49:26 PM
Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit
Janáček: On an Overgrown Path
Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, op. 87
Godowsky: Passacaglia in B minor (after Schubert's Unfinished Symphony)
Bridge: Piano Sonata, H. 160
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

Mirror Image

#10
February 14, 2018, 07:43:15 AM
I'll attempt to make a list even though I'm still getting familiar with the solo piano music of my favorite composers:

(In no particular order)

Ravel: Miroirs
Debussy: Estampes
Janáček: In the Mists
Bartók: Out of Doors
Ives: Concord Sonata

Brian

#11
February 14, 2018, 07:53:05 AM
Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin
Janacek: 1.X.1905
Messiaen: Le baiser de l'Enfant Jesus (a.k.a. Regard No. 15)
Rachmaninov: Preludes Op 32
Albeniz: Iberia

I could agonize for a few more hours over this but probably couldn't do much better.

ritter

#12
February 14, 2018, 08:18:12 AM
Let's see...only five?  ::) Well then:

Albéniz: Iberia
Boulez: Deuxième sonate
Debussy: Douze études (tough to choose among Debussy's output, I must confess)
Enescu: Sonata No. 3
Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin

bwv 1080

#13
February 14, 2018, 08:26:01 AM
Hard picking which Carter piece - Night Fantasies, 90+ or 2 Thoughts About the Piano
Ligeti Etudes
Messiaen - Catalog d'oiseaux
Debussy - Images set 1
Bartok - Out of Doors

Mahlerian

#14
February 14, 2018, 08:34:47 AM Last Edit: February 14, 2018, 08:38:33 AM by Mahlerian
"l do not consider my music as atonal, but rather as non-tonal. I feel the unity of all keys. Atonal music by modern composers admits of no key at all, no feeling of any definite center." - Arnold Schoenberg

bhodges

#15
February 14, 2018, 08:43:38 AM
Scriabin: Sonata No. 5
Finnissy: Etched Bright with Sunlight
Ives: Sonata No. 2
Ligeti: Etude No. 6, Automne à Varsovie or No. 13, L'escalier du diable. Or just all of them.  8)
Medtner: Forgotten Melodies

--Bruce

Archaic Torso of Apollo

#16
February 14, 2018, 08:47:16 AM
Ligeti: Etudes, Book 1
Carter: Night Fantasies
Schoenberg: Suite, Op. 25
Berg: Sonata, Op. 1
Ives: Concord Sonata
formerly VELIMIR (before that, Spitvalve)

"Who knows not strict counterpoint, lives and dies an ignoramus" - CPE Bach

vandermolen

#17
February 14, 2018, 08:59:02 AM Last Edit: February 14, 2018, 09:00:40 AM by vandermolen
Koechlin: Persian Hours (obviously the piano version!)
Novak: Pan
Bloch: Visions and Prophecies
Vaughan Williams: The Lake in the Mountains
Bax: Piano Sonata in E flat ( part of which became Symphony 1)

I think that all of these became orchestral works at some point, which I guess shows the trajectory of my musical interests.

Not sure if these are all 20th Century.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Karl Henning

#18
February 14, 2018, 09:28:46 AM
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Turner

#19
February 14, 2018, 09:29:33 AM
Favourites tend to vary according to what I´m currently listening to, but some of the consistent ones are here:

- Scriabin - the Sonata cycle
- Feinberg - the Sonata cycle
- Debussy - the Preludes cycle
- Ligeti - the Etudes cycle
- Rachmaninov - the Etudes cycle

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