Whose solo piano music floats your boat?

[Beef Oven!]

I seem to recall that both performer and most of the admittedly limited audience made it through without such recourse at the one (private) performance I attended and recorded back in 2010.

Sequentia Cyclica super Dies Iræ?

(we’re not getting any younger)

[Bryn]

Sequentia Cyclica super Dies Iræ?

(we’re not getting any younger)

That very work indeed. Significant quantities of very fine, barely defrosted vodka provided by the performer, followed the performance.

[Pulcinella]

If we are allowed to include keyboard works played on the piano, then undoubtedly JSB tops my list.
That said, the first CD I played to check out my new set up last week was Debussy's Reflets dans l'eau, played by Zoltan Kocsis.
So after JSB I would have to include Debussy, Ravel, DSCH, Barber, and Tippett.
And probably Messiaen (though I have to be in the right mood to want to listen).

At the risk of being expelled from the forum for unspeakable crimes of lack of taste, or somesuch trumped-up offence, I must confess to being happy to live without the piano works of almost all the great composers: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, Chopin, Rachmaninov. With just a few noteable exceptions, almost all the CDs I have of piano works by these composers are BBC MM ones.
And life is just too short for Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas (though these like the JSB works might be ruled hors de combat (or hors concours) for this thread anyway).
Sorry, but at least I'm honest.

[vinteuil]

.

Bach : Art of Fugue - Zoltan Kocsis; Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Bach : 48 - Friedrich Gulda
Handel - Sv: Richter
Scarlatti - Christian Zacharias; Marcelle Meyer
Haydn - Marc-André Hamelin
Clementi - Andreas Staier
Hummel - Malcolm Binns
Moscheles - Tom Beghin
Schubert - Malcolm Bilson; Sv: Richter
Rossini - Paolo Giacometti
Brahms: op 116, 117, 118, 119 - Stefan Vladar

Beethoven and Chopin - too many favourite performers to mention....

o yes, and Ravel, Fauré , de Bussy ...



.

[mahlerei]

In no particular order (and subject to change, depending on the day of the week):

Scriabin, Griffes, Rzewski, Joplin, Messiaen, Pann, Sibelius, Beach and Gottschalk.

[pastoralguy]

I once spent a very enjoyable summer listening to all the Scarlatti sonatas on the famous Scott Ross set. I kept a list of the ones I enjoyed the most and made a compilation cd. A very worthwhile experience, imho.

[Pulcinella]

I once spent a very enjoyable summer listening to all the Scarlatti sonatas on the famous Scott Ross set. I kept a list of the ones I enjoyed the most and made a compilation cd. A very worthwhile experience, imho.

I'm sure it was.
My comment was a little tongue in cheek.


I've got the Hyperion set of Byrd's keyboard music to tackle first!
(That should be a confession on the 'big boxes unplayed' thread!)

[vinteuil]

I once spent a very enjoyable summer listening to all the Scarlatti sonatas on the famous Scott Ross set. I kept a list of the ones I enjoyed the most and made a compilation cd. A very worthwhile experience, imho.

... indeed so

Scott Ross is the person I wd most often go back to for Scarlatti - altho' of course Staier, Hantaï, and others are wonderful too.

If this thread had required us to list the solo harpsichord music which 'floated our boat' [weird locution] - then my list would have been much, much longer...

[Richard Barrett]

I don't listen to very much piano music compared with other things, but names that spring to mind among composers with a significant amount of piano music in their oeuvre, in chronological order, are: Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy, Messiaen, Cage, Stockhausen, Cecil Taylor, Finnissy, Skempton.

I forgot Ravel and Janáček. And Fred van Hove https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgCQWEO2tKk (one to interest BeefO perhaps) and Morton Feldman.

[pastoralguy]

I'm sure it was.
My comment was a little tongue in cheek.


I've got the Hyperion set of Byrd's keyboard music to tackle first!
(That should be a confession on the 'big boxes unplayed' thread!)

If I'm really honest, I would LOVE to hear a set recorded on piano since I found the early Scott Ross/Scarlatti discs a bit 'clanky' although the sound quality did improve as the set went on.

Since this is a 'fantasy' thread, I would love to have a pianist record all the sonatas as a project. Oh, and I once asked Sophie Yates if she would be interested in recording the cycle. She replied that she would jump at the chance and would use different harpsichords throughout the project.

So, after I win the Euromillions and Sir Simon has recorded the George Lloyd cycle with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Scarlatti is next!

[Ferretfancy]

I would certainly go for Schubert and Debussy, but find it odd that nobody so far has mentioned Schumann, surely one of the great poets of the keyboard. Richter's mono DG of Fantasiestucke and Waldscenen is a desert island disc for me.

[Beef Oven!]

I forgot Ravel and Janáček. And Fred van Hove https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgCQWEO2tKk (one to interest BeefO perhaps) and Morton Feldman.

Yes, I like Fred Van Hove - this is fabulous ....

[vinteuil]

I ... find it odd that nobody so far has mentioned Schumann, surely one of the great poets of the keyboard..

... I find that Schumann disagrees with me, sorry.

[Beresford]

... names that spring to mind among composers with a significant amount of piano music in their oeuvre, in chronological order, are: Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy, Messiaen, Cage, Stockhausen, Cecil Taylor, Finnissy, Skempton. I forgot Ravel and Janáček. And Fred van Hove https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgCQWEO2tKk (one to interest BeefO perhaps) and Morton Feldman.

As I do not know some of these, I would be very interested to know your favourite piece & performer for each of these (bearing in mind it can change daily, depends on your mood, what you have just heard, etc).

[Richard Barrett]

Schumann, surely one of the great poets of the keyboard.

The problem for me with Schumann's piano writing is that it stays in the middle of the keyboard so much of the time and thus doesn't explore very much of the textural range of the instrument. It's almost as if the music is only "incidentally" for piano, as opposed for example to Chopin which is conceived fundamentally in pianistic terms. I accept of course that texture and colour weren't among Schumann's primary concerns, whether he was writing for piano or orchestra or anything else, but this is a feature of his work I personally always find disappointing.