Whose solo piano music floats your boat?

[BBMmk2]

Messiaen on harpsichord? Well, if people will insist on citing Bach as a composer of "solo piano Music" ...

I know Ferney! Infuriates me too but for pianists who do play JSB's keyboard music on piano, I cite Murray Perhahia and Andras Schiff, also Angel Hewitt and Pierre Laurentt Aimaird.

[gradus]

I know Ferney! Infuriates me too but for pianists who do play JSB's keyboard music on piano, I cite Murray Perhahia and Andras Schiff, also Angel Hewitt and Pierre Laurentt Aimaird.

Anderszewski too.
Enthusiasm here for Schumann as well.

[Bryn]

Messiaen on harpsichord? Well, if people will insist on citing Bach as a composer of "solo piano Music" ...

Must admit I have a sort of hankering to hear Feldman's Triadic Memories played on a late 18th Century Walter. Mind you, the resonances would likely be lost somewhat.

[richardfinegold]

For me it's the core Germanic repertoire, from Bach to Brahms, with Chopin as the main non German interloper. I also like other Baroque music on the Piano, such the Couperins, Rameau, Handel, Scarlatti, et.al

[ahinton]

I know Ferney! Infuriates me too but for pianists who do play JSB's keyboard music on piano, I cite Murray Perhahia and Andras Schiff, also Angel Hewitt and Pierre Laurentt Aimaird.

Also Argerich, Ashkenazy and Barenboim, who have recorded some of his work and, perhaps above all, Yonty Solomon, who sadly didn't...

Angel Hewitt

I'm sure that she'd appreciate that!

[Richard Barrett]

On a slightly different subject, how many here are aware of the newly redesigned straight strung grand pianos now being made by the Belgian piano maker Chris Maene (well known among HIPP aficionados for his fortepianos) in collaboration with Steinway. From Maene's website:

"Daniel Barenboim & Chris Maene unveiled a ground-breaking new piano, the Barenboim-Maene Concert Grand - based on Steinway & Sons, at a special event at London’s Royal Festival Hall (26 May, 2015).

Barenboim was inspired to create a new piano after playing Franz Liszt’s restored grand piano during a trip to Siena in September 2011. Struck by the vital differences in sound of an instrument constructed with straight, parallel strings rather than the diagonal crossed ones of a contemporary instrument, he set out to create a brand new instrument that combines the best of the old and the new and offers a real alternative for pianists and music-lovers in the 21stcentury.

The new Barenboim-Maene piano combines the touch, stability, and power of a modern piano with the transparent sound quality and distinguishable colour registers of more historic instruments and, while it does not differ significantly in looks from a modern concert grand, most of its components – including the braces, the Chris Maene patented soundboard, the cast-iron frame, the bass strings, the keyboard and action – have been specially-designed and tailor made and the positioning of others, such as the hammers and strings is radically different.

Maestro Daniel Barenboim said “I’ve fallen in love with my new piano, and want to spend as much time with it as possible.”

There are only two Barenboim-Maene straightstrung concert grands in the world."

(That would be partly because the price is in six figures.)

[ahinton]

Well I'm very used to being treated as a nobody round here, of course.... (see #8....)...

!!!

There ought to be a law! "Thou shalt not post till thou hast read th'entire thread".... or summat. Might be tough with some of the Bruckner ones thou, I mean, though.

I'll recommend it to my MP.

Anyway as one who blows hot, cold and very subjectively picky about piano music, Schumann is indeed the indispensable, mercurial poet of the keyboard for me. All those mentioned - Kreisleriana, Symphonic Studies, OP.12 Fantasiestucke, Carnaval, and one I left out - the sublime Op.17 Fantasy. (One of the-symphonic masterpieces for pianoforte, as much a great sonata as "Overture, Scherzo & Finale" are an almost-great-symphony).... I'd play them every week if days were 36 hours long. Which planet was that again?

The other one that you breath the air of, perhaps!

I cannot entirely share your enthusiasm for Schumann's piano music, although the best of it is indeed remarkable - Études Symphoniques (the uncut version, please!) and a number of other works but the fabulous Fantaisie above all, despite that utterly scary coda to the March which is an absolute killer for pianists, of whom most would not dare to try what I heard Yonty Solomon do once, namely to play it at breakneck pace but without even a dab of pedal until near the end. He knew that he was taking a real risk and told me afterwards that he only decided to do this just before he arrived at that passage - and he added that he might never do it again because he'd played all the correct notes and believed this to be nothing more than mere serendipity! Yonty was a wonderful Schumann player whose performance of his music converted many a doubter over the years.

Michelangeli could do it for me too - especially in that Op. Post. D75 Sonata of Schubert, but above all the Brahms Op.10: with any of his performances of those, I'm...somewhere else, I am nothing and I want for nothing....
I hear someone else do it... it doesn't work.
The live Aura disc of Schubert d75 and Brahms Op.10 is...... the silence that music bestows upon our chattering minds... ... ... ...

How beautifully put! Michelangeli was truly extraordinary; it's sad for his listeners that he only ever performed a tiny proportion of his repertoire in public, but in what he did play he almost invariably excelled, not only in the playing itself but in captivating audiences and securing their concentration. I only ever heard him live twice - once 40-odd years ago in a mostly Chopin and Debussy programme during which you could have heard a pin while it was dropping, so palpable was the attention given to him and once shortly before his death in a programme of Beethoven and Chopin which he really ought to have cancelled as he was in no fit state to give it (especially in front of so many pianists - I almost felt like an interloper!).

[ahinton]

On a slightly different subject, how many here are aware of the newly redesigned straight strung grand pianos now being made by the Belgian piano maker Chris Maene (well known among HIPP aficionados for his fortepianos) in collaboration with Steinway. From Maene's website:

"Daniel Barenboim & Chris Maene unveiled a ground-breaking new piano, the Barenboim-Maene Concert Grand - based on Steinway & Sons, at a special event at London’s Royal Festival Hall (26 May, 2015).

Barenboim was inspired to create a new piano after playing Franz Liszt’s restored grand piano during a trip to Siena in September 2011. Struck by the vital differences in sound of an instrument constructed with straight, parallel strings rather than the diagonal crossed ones of a contemporary instrument, he set out to create a brand new instrument that combines the best of the old and the new and offers a real alternative for pianists and music-lovers in the 21stcentury.

The new Barenboim-Maene piano combines the touch, stability, and power of a modern piano with the transparent sound quality and distinguishable colour registers of more historic instruments and, while it does not differ significantly in looks from a modern concert grand, most of its components – including the braces, the Chris Maene patented soundboard, the cast-iron frame, the bass strings, the keyboard and action – have been specially-designed and tailor made and the positioning of others, such as the hammers and strings is radically different.

Maestro Daniel Barenboim said “I’ve fallen in love with my new piano, and want to spend as much time with it as possible.”

There are only two Barenboim-Maene straightstrung concert grands in the world."

(That would be partly because the price is in six figures.)

I did know about it although I have yet to hear it. As to the price, six-figure tags on "top end" new grand pianos are far from uncommon; Bösendorfer, Fazioli, Steinway, &c. often fall into that price bracket. Then there was the enormous beast from Rubenstein pianos, of which likewise only two have ever been made and, as the website's inaccessible, it would not surprise me if that manufacturer's closed its doors; it was just over 3.7m in length and had 97 keys like the Bösendorfer 290. Some information may be found at http://www.pianobuyer.com/archive/h07.html .

Anyway, thanks for drawing attention to the Barenboim-Maene of which details can be found at http://www.chrismaene.be/nl/straight...concert-grand/ ; I note that this instrument has 90 keys - in other words the standard concert grand register + two extra notes at the bottom.

[Serial_Apologist]

I did know about it although I have yet to hear it. As to the price, six-figure tags on "top end" new grand pianos are far from uncommon; Bösendorfer, Fazioli, Steinway, &c. often fall into that price bracket. Then there was the enormous beast from Rubenstein pianos, of which likewise only two have ever been made and, as the website's inaccessible, it would not surprise me if that manufacturer's closed its doors; it was just over 3.7m in length and had 97 keys like the Bösendorfer 290. Some information may be found at http://www.pianobuyer.com/archive/h07.html .

Anyway, thanks for drawing attention to the Barenboim-Maene of which details can be found at http://www.chrismaene.be/nl/straight...concert-grand/ ; I note that this instrument has 90 keys - in other words the standard concert grand register + two extra notes at the bottom.

I remember Howard Riley once performing a set of his own pieces, mostly, on Sounds of Jazz, I think it was, quite possibly at the Maida Vale Studios, and Charles Fox mentioning two extra keys at the bottom of the register being put to good use. The keys were under a cover which had to be lifted in order to be played, and I've often wondered if that cover was kept padlocked, with only special persons being admitted to their use!

[Richard Barrett]

The keys were under a cover which had to be lifted in order to be played, and I've often wondered if that cover was kept padlocked, with only special persons being admitted to their use!

I once played a broadcast concert of improvisations at the Austrian Radio in Vienna and, although I don't play piano and had brought along my usual stuff, a Bösendorfer Imperial was placed at my disposal, so I only played the nine (not two) extra keys under the cover. (This is the type of piano insisted upon by Cecil Taylor by the way. Probably Howard Riley doesn't get to insist on such things, more's the pity.)

[vinteuil]

... a Bösendorfer Imperial was placed at my disposal, so I only played the nine (not two) extra keys under the cover. .)

... aesthetically I prefer those extended pianos which have the extra bass notes, not under a cover, but with reversed plumage: the 'white' keys in black, the 'black' keys in white...

[Richard Barrett]

... aesthetically I prefer those extended pianos which have the extra bass notes, not under a cover, but with reversed plumage: the 'white' keys in black, the 'black' keys in white...

Now you mention it I don't remember which of the two it was - older models have the cover, which was supposed to prevent people from hitting the extra keys by accident, although I would say if you're playing such a piano you really ought to know what you're doing! (unless you're me)

[ahinton]

I remember Howard Riley once performing a set of his own pieces, mostly, on Sounds of Jazz, I think it was, quite possibly at the Maida Vale Studios, and Charles Fox mentioning two extra keys at the bottom of the register being put to good use. The keys were under a cover which had to be lifted in order to be played, and I've often wondered if that cover was kept padlocked, with only special persons being admitted to their use!

I've never encountered a piano with just the two extra keys at the bass end before the Barenboim-Maene one to which Richard drew attention, so, give that what you write about was quite some years ago, I do wonder if the piano concerned might have been a Bösendorfer that has four extra keys going down to F (unlike the 290 that goes down to C), as some of the Australian Stuart ones do today (and their top of the range instruments likewise command six figure sums).

[ahinton]

Now you mention it I don't remember which of the two it was - older models have the cover, which was supposed to prevent people from hitting the extra keys by accident, although I would say if you're playing such a piano you really ought to know what you're doing! (unless you're me)

!!! I don't think that the Bösendorfer ones that go down to F had covers just for those four extra notes (although as it's so long since I've clapped eyes on one I could be wrong about that); the hinged covers were certainly on the Bösendorfer 290, though. I have to say that I've never encountered a piano lovelier in all respects than a well maintained 290; I recall occasionally tinkering around on some when I was on recording sessions with John Ogdon, Charles Hopkins, Jonathan Powell et al and being surprised that they almost made me sound as though I could be a pianist (some chance!). If one wants to play Bach, for example, on a modern piano, an instrument like this would be hard to beat.

[Beef Oven!]