Difficult piano music

[mikkeljs]

For a while I have been looking for really hard piano music that brings the same skills out as Stockhausens Klavierstuck 11 (and by same lenght), but nothing really beats him. I got a pianist, who are specialized in that repertoire, to look for a piece for me. But the pieces she found were not as extremely difficult as Stockhausens Klavierstuck 11.

I would also like to explore a totally unknown composer, who writes like this. Can anyone suggest someone. Perhabs Stockhausen had some pupils that took over his "style". ?

Please if you could help me find something in a hurry, since I have been looking for a longer while. 

[bhodges]

How about Brian Ferneyhough's Lemma-Icon-Epigram (1981)?  It must be one of the most difficult piano works I've ever heard.  (Not being a pianist, I haven't tried to play it.)

Here is the page on Edition Peters's website, and it's only $18.95.  And Sheet Music Plus has it for even less, $15.16, here.  A sample page [gulp] is below.

--Bruce

[mikkeljs]

thanks a lot! That looks great. I have never heard anything of him, so I have to check it out.

[bhodges]

It's about ten minutes long, and I've only heard one person play it: Stephen Gosling here in NYC.  But there is a recording by Ian Pace, on a CD called Tracts, below.

--Bruce

[not edward]

Talking about very difficult pieces, specifically in the context of Richard Barrett's Tract:

As for the greatest challenge, beyond any doubt that is provided by Tract. It's one of the hardest piano pieces ever written, in a way I would describe as 'transcendental' - meaning a difficulty that lies on the very fringes of possibility. There are a number of such 'transcendental' pieces that come to mind: Xenakis Evryali, and some of the piano parts in works such as Eonta, Synaphai and Keqrops, several works of Michael Finnissy such as English Country Tunes, all.fall.down, some of the Verdi Transcriptions and the Piano Concerto No. 4, Clarence Barlow's Çogluotobüsisletmesi, Walter Zimmermann's Wüstenwanderung (which I have recorded for Metier). A few other pieces skirt the border of this category: the beginning of Stockhausen's Klavierstück X, Bussotti's Pour Clavier. All the other pieces pose great pianistic challenges, but not in that league of difficulty.

[(poco) Sforzando]

thanks a lot! That looks great. I have never heard anything of him, so I have to check it out.

But he's very well-known. The problem is, if you want a totally unknown composer, no one here is likely to be able to give you any assistance, because such a composer would be (duh) totally unknown. Of course, I have no idea how skilled a pianist you are, but if you found something transcendentally difficult by a totally unknown composer, no one would ever know if you played any wrong notes.

[lukeottevanger]

Bruce is right, Pace is the man to listen to re. difficult piano repertoire, as he is probably the foremost pianist in this stuff. IOW, he is, in a certain respect, the greatest pianist out there! Having played  [OK, attempted to play] quite a few of these sort of pieces I'd say that my opinion chimes with Pace's - I'd add Finnissy's Song 9 to the mix too, and possibly some other pieces of his. In comparison to these, Ferneyhough's Lemma-Icon-Epigram - whose score was the first piece of complexity music I ever saw (I bought it instantly for its curiosity value, but it became an area of real interest for me) - is relatively straightforward, though still, of course, hideously hard. It doesn't have the complexity of his flute piece Unity Capsule, for instance, which is very likely the single most complex piece of music about (ergo, better than Beethoven 

But there are different sorts of difficulty, of course, and complexity doesn't have it all its own way. To simplify outrageously, one of the themes of complexity music is that it pushes at the borders of the unplayable, especially in terms of rhythmic accuracy. Therefore, no one expects a perfect performance, least of all the composer. In this sense if no other, one could say, then, that there are harder pieces out there - pieces which are more as less as technically difficult but which require 100% accuracy from the performer. I'm thinking particularly of Ligeti's Etudes, which need absolute metronomic precision and perfect dynamic and digital clarity, and which for my money are therefore hardest stuff around. But there are also things like the Boulez Sonatas, pieces by Xenakis and Stockhausen etc.

Then - a different level again - there are mammoth pieces such as those by Sorabji - Opus Clavicembalisticum being only the most famous. Sorabji is horendously hard anyway - the length of his pieces and the endurance required is a factor which makes performance almost superhuman. Other biggies (though somewhat less technically demanding) include Stevenson's Passacaglia on DSCH and the giant pieces of John White - a common root for all of these is Busoni, above all the Fantasia Contrappuntistica. There's also the Rzewski shown in The Road (above all)

At another level are non-contemporary pieces which fall into more listeners' taste brackets - the Godowsky Chopin Etudes, Ravel's Gaspard, Stravinsky's Petrouchka pieces. Alkan's Etudes, like Ligeti's, fall into the category 'everything must be played correctly but with no metronomic mercy' (the 'Concerto' above all - wow!). Finally, the composer-pianist Jonathan Powell is a specialist in complexity music, Russian Futurist music and Sorabji (one of the few to perform OC, for instance, and with a clutch of awesome recordings to his credit); he taught me a little at university and I remember once, after a recital in which he included Ferneyhough's Lemma-Icon-Epigram and Finissy's Verdi Transcriptions, he told me that he was in the process of learning the Scriabin sonatas, and that they were the hardest music he'd ever played. This surprised me, but I suppose the difficulty is of a different sort - not so much to do with speed and complexity (though they're hardly simple) as texture, harmony and form.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Bruce is right, Pace is the man to listen to re. difficult piano repertoire, as he is probably the foremost pianist in this stuff. IOW, he is, in a certain respect, the greatest pianist out there! Having played  [OK, attempted to play] quite a few of these sort of pieces I'd say that my opinion chimes with Pace's - I'd add Finnissy's Song 9 to the mix too, and possibly some other pieces of his. In comparison to these, Ferneyhough's Lemma-Icon-Epigram - whose score was the first piece of complexity music I ever saw (I bought it instantly for its curiosity value, but it became an area of real interest for me) - is relatively straightforward, though still, of course, hideously hard. It doesn't have the complexity of his flute piece Unity Capsule, for instance, which is very likely the single most complex piece of music about (ergo, better than Beethoven 

But by "better," do you mean you like it more, or that it's "better"?

I think our Danish friend was referring specifically to technical complexity, and certainly Ian is your man if you want that. He contributes - or at least used to - quite volubly to rec.music.classical.recordings, so Mikkeljs could try to talk to him directly there and ask for advice. But other nearly comparable pianists would include Nonken (Marilyn, who teaches at New York University) and Hodges (not Bruce aka bhodges, but Nicolas, who - curiously enough, also was very active at rmcr for a while, but I think he's given up on the place for some time now).

[lukeottevanger]

But by "better," do you mean you like it more, or that it's "better"?

I mean that is almost Elgarian in its complexity, if you get my drift...

I think our Danish friend was referring specifically to technical complexity, and certainly Ian is your man if you want that. He contributes - or at least used to - quite volubly to rec.music.classical.recordings, so Mikkeljs could try to talk to him directly there and ask for advice. But other nearly comparable pianists would include Nonken (Marilyn, who teaches at New York University) and Hodges (not Bruce aka bhodges, but Nicolas, who - curiously enough, also was very active at rmcr for a while, but I think he's given up on the place for some time now).

As I say, also Jonathan Powell, Finnissy himself, Roger Woodwards and many others.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I mean that is almost Elgarian in its complexity, if you get my drift....

I sea your drift.

[lukeottevanger]

I think you Sea the Picture, actually. Delian complexity is something else altogether...

[mikkeljs]

But there are different sorts of difficulty, of course, and complexity doesn't have it all its own way.

The kind of difficulty I was looking for was something like Stockhausens Klavierstuck 11, extremely complex rythm, many different requests (fx different kinds of dynamical or rhytmical signs combined into a big mess), a lot of appogiatures, many things happening at once.

But wow - I have to go check all theise pieces out.  I´m not a good pianist, but I find it cool to play things like Ligety and Stockhausen, when most other piano students, I know, doesn´t play that stuff. And they would not know what to do, if their teacher gave them such a score. So I feel I can produce more, if I specialize in modern.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I think you Sea the Picture, actually. Delian complexity is something else altogether...

If I need to sea a picture, I'm more likely to go to an exhibition; four grimier sea interludes I'm more likely to go to Britain, four Pete's sake.

[not edward]

If I need to sea a picture, I'm more likely to go to an exhibition; four grimier sea interludes I'm more likely to go to Britain, four Pete's sake.

This thread a pears to be degenerating rapidly.

[lukeottevanger]

The kind of difficulty I was looking for was something like Stockhausens Klavierstuck 11, extremely complex rythm, many different requests (fx different kinds of dynamical or rhytmical signs combined into a big mess), a lot of appogiatures, many things happening at once.

Sure, I understand - the Finnissy etc. recommendations are the way to go, then. PM me if you want a few links....

[mikkeljs]

Sure, I understand - the Finnissy etc. recommendations are the way to go, then. PM me if you want a few links....

thanks a lot! 

[StephenC]

For a while I have been looking for really hard piano music that brings the same skills out as Stockhausens Klavierstuck 11 (and by same lenght), but nothing really beats him. I got a pianist, who are specialized in that repertoire, to look for a piece for me. But the pieces she found were not as extremely difficult as Stockhausens Klavierstuck 11.

I would also like to explore a totally unknown composer, who writes like this. Can anyone suggest someone. Perhabs Stockhausen had some pupils that took over his "style". ?

Please if you could help me find something in a hurry, since I have been looking for a longer while. 

Bump. I know this is an old thread but just want to reply an interesting answer. How bout Gaspard de la nuit by Maurice Ravel? I haven't tried playing it but just by hearing it, it sure is difficult. Or how bout Second Sonata by Pierre Boulez? Difficult to play piano pieces but awesome piano music.

[snyprrr]

Babbitt?

[71 dB]

Taneyev's Fugue from Prelude and Fugue in G sharp minor, Op. 29 sounds difficult.

[ibanezmonster]

Mikkel is already familiar with the most difficult piano music- Sorabji's works.
Ferneyhough might be more complex in general, but they're shorter.