Whose solo piano music floats your boat?

[Richard Barrett]

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).

That's true. Leaving aside the most familiar composers:
Cage - Music of Changes by David Tudor or Sonatas and Interludes by John Tilbury
Stockhausen - Klavierstück X by Aloys Kontarsky (or Maurizio Pollini though I only have this as a French TV broadcast)
Cecil Taylor - Garden or Erzulie Maketh Scent
Michael Finnissy - English Country-Tunes by the composer, or Verdi Transcriptions by Ian Pace
Howard Skempton - all the short pieces on the album "Well well Cornelius" by John Tilbury
Fred van Hove - Flux (which contains the track linked in my previous post)
Feldman - perhaps Triadic Memories by Aki Takahashi

[Stanfordian]

Floating my boat are Brahms, Schumann and also Debussy and some Scriabin. I came rather late to Chopin that I now love with a passion. With English music I admire Bridge and Bax.

[zola]

I've attended the Chetham's summer piano school the last couple of years and a totally unscientific survey ( "what pieces are you playing ?" asked at meal times ) showed an awful lot of Brahms and Debussy. For me currently I would say Prokofiev, Bartok and Ravel but after adding my name to those with reservations about Schumann, I can't think of any of the established names that disappoint.

[ahinton]

after I win the Euromillions and Sir Simon has recorded the George Lloyd cycle with the Berliner Philharmoniker

There's probably a better chance of the former than the latter, methinks...

[ahinton]

Michael Finnissy - English Country-Tunes by the composer, or Verdi Transcriptions by Ian Pace

No disrespect intended, but Jonathan Powell in the latter at the very least...

[ahinton]

Floating my boat are Brahms, Schumann and also Debussy and some Scriabin. With English music I admire Bridge and Bax.

Mon Dieu, I forgot to include Scriabin in my list! Brahms also ought to have had a look in.

Schumann? - well, reams of piano music, to be sure, but my reservations are broadly similar to those of Richard B. Schumann famously declared Chopin a genius, yet Chopin remained cool towards and puzzled about Schumann's piano music and the only piece that he dedicated to him (albeit an important one - the second Ballade) was very formally inscribed to Monsieur Robert Schumann...

[Pulcinella]

There's probably a better chance of the former than the latter, methinks...

But isn't pg going to use his winnings to fund the recordings?

[Lat-Literal]

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.

That's an interesting list - the Americans especially.

[ahinton]

But isn't pg going to use his winnings to fund the recordings?

Ah, I'd not thought of these two events as being in natural succession, the one giving rise to the other! Thanks for that!

Mind you, wouldn't a fair bit depend upon whether Sir Simon actually wanted to do it?...

[Pianorak]

Albeniz - Iberia; Granados Goyescas A de Larrocha (Decca 1987)
Sofronitsky and Pletnev in Scriabin Preludes op. 11
Scriabin Sonatas - Ashkenazy, Sofronitsky, Pletnev, G. Sokolov
Debussy Études, Brahms Intermezzi op.116-119; Schubert late Sonatas
Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Medtner, Szymanowski, Prokofiev, Poulenc
S. Richter - JS Bach "The 48".
Arrau (1959)/S. Richter - Schumann Fantasy op.17
Kovacevich - Beethoven Sonatas Op.2 Nos.1-3 plus Waldstein
F Rzewski - The People United Will Never be Defeated (Oppens; Hamelin)
Pletnev - Scarlatti Sonatas; Tchaikovsky Grand Sonata
In no particular order; plus plenty more.

[Serial_Apologist]

In the jazz world, for all the greats who preceded him and have come after, Art Tatum still manages to do it for me every time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Cs_zb4q14

[Jonathan]

Liszt, Alkan, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann mostly but also Moszkowski, Godowsky and Balakirev, plus loads of others too!

[mahlerei]

That's an interesting list - the Americans especially.

Lat

Some very original music here, available in fine recordings. Ohlsson in Scriabin and Griffes (Hyperion), Grasbeck on Sibelius's own piano at Ainola (BIS), Hamelin in Rzewski (Hyperion), Hastings in Pann (Naxos), Osborne in Messiaen (Hyperion), Loeb in Joplin (Naxos) and, best of all, Philip Martin's complete Gottschalk (Hyperion). BTW Hamelin's own Etudes are mighty impressive, too (Hyperion).

[pastoralguy]

Mind you, wouldn't a fair bit depend upon whether Sir Simon actually wanted to do it?...

Easy. Just offer enough money...

[Richard Barrett]

I have to add to my list Scriabin and Sciarrino, and, most embarrassingly, Xenakis, I can't imagine what made me omit his name previously, although he didn't write very much for solo piano, although actually neither did Janáček and if I include him I should also include Berio (Sonata and Sequenza IV), Stravinsky (principally for his Concerto for two pianos), Barraqué (Sonata), La Monte Young (Well-Tuned Piano), Kagel (An Tasten), I expect others will occur to me...

On the other hand my omission of Boulez, Webern, Schoenberg, Berg, Ligeti and Bartók isn't accidental - I just don't get much out of their piano music in comparison with other elements of their output. As for Liszt, I have a lot of time for his arrangements of other people's music, but when he's using his own material it seems to me to fall short of his inventiveness with the instrument (like Schumann in reverse one could say).