Extremely Long Piano Compositions - What's Their Point?

[Luke]

Short pieces are more difficult to compose. The compilers of long opuses simply do not know how to present their idea clearly, and even more so, how to conclude to effect what they have started.

Not true in my experience, this. You can hold a smaller piece in your head easily, you can 'see' the whole thing in one go. It's much easier to make the whole thing gel together. And re the second sentence, what, all such composers don't know what they're doing? That's quite a sweeping statement.

[AnotherSpin]

Not true in my experience, this. You can hold a smaller piece in your head easily, you can 'see' the whole thing in one go. It's much easier to make the whole thing gel together. And re the second sentence, what, all such composers don't know what they're doing? That's quite a sweeping statement.

There is the difference between do and conclude.

[Luke]

I was combining both of your claims: that they don't know what they're doing, and that they cannot conclude.

Stevenson's Passacaglia, for one, suggests otherwise to me.

[springrite]

For discussion: Ronald Stevenson's Passacaglia on DSCH 😎

How did you know I was just listening to this? Twice in a row as well!!!

[AnotherSpin]

I was combining both of your claims: that they don't know what they're doing, and that they cannot conclude.

Stevenson's Passacaglia, for one, suggests otherwise to me.

I have nothing against you taking words out of my posts and combining them however you like. Enjoy

[Luke]

I'm rather unsure what you're saying: seems to me you made two claims, 1) that the composers of long piano pieces don't know what they're doing, and 2) that they don't know how to conclude. It seems to me that 2) is a subset of 1) so I summarised your opinion as 1), for brevity's sake. Then clarified later when you said that was a difference between doing and concluding. Either way, personally I don't think you can simply write off all these pieces so simply.

[AnotherSpin]

I might suggest looking up the meaning of the word "irony" in the dictionary.

[Luke]

I'm not sure it means what you think it does. There's no irony here.

[Florestan]

I think that what AS meant was that it might be more difficult to craft a short piece because of the mind's natural tendency to wander from one idea to another; staying focused on just two or three and blending them together in a satisfactory whole might prove more difficult than writing a long piece, in which ideas accrete as they come (one often leading into another) and one doesn't always know when it's time to finish the whole thing; adding one or a few more things might seem like a more alluring idea than concluding the piece.

Music history shows that actually few composers, and only among the greatest ones, were equally adept at writing both short and long quality works; more often than not it is the case that, even with great composers, those particularly good at writing short works were not so good at long ones and viceversa.

[Maestro267]

Chopin, for example. Yes he wrote two concertos but they're hardly seen as shining examples in the genre. He's best known and regarded for his collections of miniatures for solo piano.

[Karl Henning]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I inferred from your thread that you usually compose with an eye to the practicability of music; when composing, you usually have in your mind a here-and-now ensemble, choir or venue which might be interested in performing your music, and tailor the instrumentation and duration accordingly. You don't write drawer music meant for future generations but music which you feel, and hope, that can be enjoyed by a contemporary audience.

That's all true, although it may turn out that the ballet I've written may only be heard by future generations, if by them. Also, I've written three unaccompanied clarinet pieces which in their small way are sufficiently challenging that, as yet, I am the only clarinetist to essay them. I'm not sure that the "future generations" tack really obtains in Sorabji's case, as he was a pianist himself. I think of him as a kind of exaggerated Liszt.

[Karl Henning]

The typical ivory tower artist, then. They write music because they can and they must, not because they have something to say about human life and experience that they want to share with their audience.

Is that your final answer?

This is a 21-minute section: Tempo di valzer con molto fantasia

[Luke]

Is that your final answer?

This is a 21-minute section: Tempo di valzer con molto fantasia

Or this...

[Cato]

Or this...

Okay...since I am holding 5 aces      , I will raise you!   

(Yes, I know, this is not solo piano music...but...)


Hi Luke! Check your messages!   

[Karl Henning]

Or this...

Sweet!

[San Antone]

Yes, but this very fact more often than not precludes performance and recording, so actually your music will be heard by pretty much nobody. I should have thought a composer's purpose was to have his music performed in order that people can listen to it and presumably enjoy it. What purpose does writing a 9-hour-long piano piece that nobody will ever perform, let alone listen to, serves?

The thing is there is always a performer or group of performers who do take on these works.  Erik Satie's Vexations requires the same one page of music to be repeated something like 842 times.  This work was staged involving a group of pianists to take on a period of time over the course of I think 30 hours to complete the work. John Cage's ORGAN2/ASLSP "As Slow As Possible" began being realized on an organ in St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt in 2001 with a performance that is due to end in 2640. The next note will be played on February 5, 2024. Something possibly to attend; mark your calendars.

When John Cage was writing the Freeman Etudes for Paul Zukofsky, he was asked to notate exactly the music as it would be performed instead of incorporating chance elements.   However the result was deemd unplayable by Zukovsky and Cage abandoned the work.  Later  Irvine Arditti expressed an interest in the work and, by summer 1988, was able to perform Books I and II at a much faster tempo than anyone else, thus proving that the music was, in fact playable.

There are countless examples to be found on YouTube of works which call for bizarre techniques, and/or length, which almost dare a performer to see if they can pull it off - and many are ready to meet the challenge.

I would venture to say the more extreme the demands are for a work, the more likely an avant-garde group or performer will attempt to perform it.

[AnotherSpin]

I think that what AS meant was that it might be more difficult to craft a short piece because of the mind's natural tendency to wander from one idea to another; staying focused on just two or three and blending them together in a satisfactory whole might prove more difficult than writing a long piece, in which ideas accrete as they come (one often leading into another) and one doesn't always know when it's time to finish the whole thing; adding one or a few more things might seem like a more alluring idea than concluding the piece.

Music history shows that actually few composers, and only among the greatest ones, were equally adept at writing both short and long quality works; more often than not it is the case that, even with great composers, those particularly good at writing short works were not so good at long ones and viceversa.

Exactly. It may take more time and skill to compose short and well.

[Florestan]

The thing is there is always a performer or group of performers who do take on these works.  Erik Satie's Vexations requires the same one page of music to be repeated something like 842 times.  This work was staged involving a group of pianists to take on a period of time over the course of I think 30 hours to complete the work. John Cage's ORGAN2/ASLSP "As Slow As Possible" began being realized on an organ in St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt in 2001 with a performance that is due to end in 2640. The next note will be played on February 5, 2024. Something possibly to attend; mark your calendars.

When John Cage was writing the Freeman Etudes for Paul Zukofsky, he was asked to notate exactly the music as it would be performed instead of incorporating chance elements.   However the result was deemd unplayable by Zukovsky and Cage abandoned the work.  Later  Irvine Arditti expressed an interest in the work and, by summer 1988, was able to perform Books I and II at a much faster tempo than anyone else, thus proving that the music was, in fact playable.

There are countless examples to be found on YouTube of works which call for bizarre techniques, and/or length, which almost dare a performer to see if they can pull it off - and many are ready to meet the challenge.

I would venture to say the more extreme the demands are for a work, the more likely an avant-garde group or performer will attempt to perform it.

"It can be done" and "it's worth doing it" are two very different things. All that seems to me more like circus  than music as was known and practiced from, say, Perotin to Penderecki.

[San Antone]

"It can be done" and "it's worth doing it" are two very different things. All that seems to me more like circus  than music as was known and practiced from, say, Perotin to Penderecki.

It ought to be obvious that these musicians think it is worth doing.  And virtuosity has always been a part of the classical tradition.

If I were to make a suggestion, and more importantly if you were open to receiving a suggestion, I'd say don't be so judgmental about this kind of stuff. 

[Florestan]

these musicians think it is worth doing.

No doubt. Question is, for whom? For them, certainly. What I doubt is the worth for anybody else.

Take that Cage ASLAP thing. Do you really believe that it has any artistic value whatsoever, or indeed any value at all?

And virtuosity has always been a part of the classical tradition.

Indeed, but not even Paganini or Liszt played for nine hours, and beside their virtuosity was public, deployed to impress, charm and move their audiences, not just a coterie of initiates.

If I were to make a suggestion, and more importantly if you were open to receiving a suggestion, I'd say don't be so judgmental about this kind of stuff. 

Judgmental? I just express my thoughts. You, or anyone else, may agree or disagree. And talking about judgmental, I've been on the receiving end of insinuations and insults since page one of this thread.