In Item #34, dbratman writes: "I would much rather 
listen to Murray Perahia or the late Claudio Arrau 
play Schumann than almost anybody playing almost 
anything by Chopin."  Good topic to continue.

Who are the great composers of solo piano music?  Who 
are your favorites?  Least favorites?  Who is overrated?
Unfairly neglected?  What are your favorite solo piano
compositions, and which recorded performances of them
do you like best?

10 responses total.

Well, I *like* Chopin, though I don't think I've heard much Schumann solo
piano music. The only thing that faintly annoys me sometimes is when it seems
that ornamentation is tacked on to the theme in a way that obscures more 
than it beautifies. (It also strikes me as strange sometimes that modern-day
performers seem to feel obligated to perform an "authoritative" edition of
the score with the ornaments exactly as written, as Chopin himself is said
to have varied his own interpretations of his music considerably from one
performance to the next)
I like Glenn Gould's performances of Bach keyboard music--he seems to  place
more importance on his own interpretation of the music than many others. Or
perhaps it's just that his interpretations are more idiosyncratic than other
people's. ;) Other than that I suppose I haven't listened to enough different
recordings of the same music to be able to form opinions about the performers.

Chopin's melodies are certainly more memorable
(hummable?) than Schumann's, for the most part.
Chopin uses symmetry, inversions, and lots of
other tricks that make his tunes stick in your
mind.

I love Schumann's Kreisleriana and especially 
Carnaval.  The Waldszenen is an old childhood
favorite.  Mitsuko Uchida has released a Schumann
disk that competes with anything previously
recorded, imho.

<smacks self upside the head> Of *course* I know some of Schumann's piano
music--my piano teacher's last recital was an all-Schumann concert, and I
played three pieces from Carnaval. Which three? I can't quite remember the
titles -- one was the piece representing Clara Wieck, and the other two were
the pieces that represent the two sides of his character, Eusebius and
Florestan (Eusebius is the passionate, exuberant one; Florestan the
reflective, quieter personality, IIRC) They are lovely pieces, come to think
of it, and also in some ways more "avant-garde" (for the time) than Chopin,
as some are written in odd time signatures or rhythmic groupings, or don't
resolve on the last chord in the conventional fashion.

Also I love Rachmaninov's piano music (although recently I have been listening
more to a disc of two-piano suites by Argerich & Rabinovitch more than I have
to the solo music). I've played some Rachmaninov preludes too, including the
famous c#(?) minor. The thing which everybody notices about Rachmaninov is
the huge, often rather dissonant chords, but (as I realized while practicing
one of the preludes) there's always a beautiful melody buried in them.
(Rachmaninov once said something along the lines of, "The greatest duty of
a composer is to create beautiful melodies." For which he was roundly rebuked
by Schoenberg et al.)

(Which just adds to my dislike of Schoenberg et al.)

I've been on another Stravinsky kick lately, listening to a lot of the
two-piano pieces he wrote.  Apparently he wrote most of his orchestral music
in arrangements for two pianos before he orchestrated it, and he also wrote
a few pieces expressly for two pianos.  My favorite part of the Rite of Spring
is the creative orchestration, but it's to his credit that it sounds almost
as good unorchestrated.
Apparently he's also got a piece called _Les Noces_ for _four_ pianos,
percussion, and voces, which I'm thinking I'm gonna have to track down one
of these days.

I think the only composer whose piano music I actively dislike is Mozart. 
The sort of writing that sounds gorgeous and virtuosic in his operas just
strikes me as hopelessly goofy and frilly in his piano music.  

A while ago, I ran across a recording of Keith Jarret playing Shostakovich's
preludes and fugues for piano.  Gorgeous stuff - Bach's forms updated with
modern harmonies and rhythms - and a lot better-suited for the piano than
Bach, IMO - which only makes sense, since Bach was writing for an entirely
different set of instruments.  

Mozart's piano music is a delight to play, at least for us nonprofessionals.
People used to play music, not just listen to it.

I love Debussy's piano music, and Ravel's
even more.  Ravel is a classy keyboard guy.

Barber fanatic that I am, I love Sam Barber's
piano msic, even the salon parodies.  His piano
sonata is wonderful, especially that fugue in
the last movement.

resp:4 That's interesting that Stravinsky wrote things out originally for
two pianos before orchestrating it, becuase I *think* (though I could be wrong)
that the final piece on the Rachmaninov cd was first written out for orchestra,
and then arranged for two pianos.  Actually, come to think of it I only know
that the orchestral version was premiered before the piano duet, but don't know
in which order they were written.

Were the preludes & fugues of Bach's WTC written only for harpsichord and
similar small keyboards, or did performers also play them on organ?
(For that matter, were they performed in public at all, or were they written
solely as mental exercises for Bach and technical exercises for his students?)
I like Bach's keyboard music, myself, and I think it actually sounds better on 
the piano, but that's just because I don't like the sound of the harpsichord
very much. Glenn Gould sometimes performed (& recorded?) Bach on a
"tack-piano," an  instrument with small thumbtacks driven into the hammers,
giving a somewhat harpsichord-like sound but with the greater dynamic range of
the piano.

re#5: Oh, I love playing Mozart too.  Just keep your scales in decent shape
and you feel like you're going nine million miles an hour.  I'd just rather
not listen to them is all :)

"Clavier" literally means "thing with keys," so I guess an organ counts, but
I've only ever heard the word applied to harpsichords and clavichords and
instruments of that sort.  Also, organs are much harder to retune than
harpsichords etc., and fewer of them are made, so I wouldn't be surprised to
hear that there weren't all that many organs in well-temperment at the time.
(I don't know much about historical tuning, though, so I may well be wrong).

Re #4:
I have a recording of "Les Noces" by Stravinsky.  It's probably the most
dissonent piece out of anything by Stravinsky that I've every heard.  I'm
really not quite sure whether I like it or not.  If you can't find a recording
and still want to hear it, I can loan mine to you.

Mention uptopic of Chopin's tunes.  He certainly wrote some beautiful 
ones, but they're not what stands out for me in his music, and they 
stand out a lot more in arrangements, like "Les Sylphides" (for 
orchestra), where different instruments take the different lines and the 
tunes aren't drowned in a mass of identical tone color.  This is one 
reason I like Schumann, who uses the piano in a massive single way 
without the heaviness of Brahms, and Beethoven, whose tunes (when he has 
them) stand out.  But I don't dislike Chopin: what I dislike is the 
heavily inflected playing he usually gets from pianists determined to 
give him the full Romantic treatment.  It may be less authentic to play 
the notes as written, but I sure like it more.

Barber, also mentioned uptopic, is one of my favorite 20th century piano 
composers, as is Prokofiev, whose complete sonatas I've just gotten.

Mozart's piano music is fine by me, especially the "Turkish" Sonata (I 
forget its K. number), and his concertos are good too.  The composer I 
otherwise like whose piano music leaves me baffled is Schubert.

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