Opinions on the Hardest piano piece ever written

[iratehamster]

I'm not exposed to a lot of classical music (I don't recognize any of the classical composers or titles in this thread), but I would humbly suggest that a transcription of a cutting contest performance by one of the great Harlem stride piano masters might belong to the category of the most difficult piano pieces.  And I think no other genre reconciles difficulty with accessibility (toe-tapping, shouting-out-loud happy) better than stride does.

[stevie]

before you are laughed at, can you provide some sheets or samples to give us an idea of the piano writing involved?

and then maybe we can educate you with some of this classical stuff, maybe a bit of the OC for starters

[iratehamster]

Finger Breaker by Jelly Roll Morton:
http://members.aol.com/doremidi/stride/fbreak.mid

Finger Buster by Willie "The Lion" Smith:
http://members.aol.com/doremidi/stride/fbust.mid

A Handful of Keys by Thomas "Fats" Waller:
http://members.aol.com/isschwartz/cutcont/handkeys.mid

No thanks to the condescending offer to "educate" me.

[stevie]

i didnt mean for it to sound that way, but really, these pieces arent in the same leage of difficulty as others mentioned previously in this thread.

i love the music though, i remember the finger breaker piece from the movie 'legend of 1900'

[frederic]

That MP3 of Finnissy.... how's anyone meant to tell if he's actually playing the written notes or just banging his hands on the keyboard like a two year old?

Sounded pretty accurate to me.

[frederic]

presto, actually,

Most pianists seem to agree that avante-garde poses the most difficult technical and mental challenges.


Why do you think Hamelin is such a monster?  His Rach 3 tour was probably a walk in the park.  Why was Ogden the same?

They both played insane modern music.

Of course, who cares.... romantic rules.

Absolutely true. Once you are so used to reading hairy music like this, something like the rach3 would indeed be a stroll in the park.

[Etude]

That MP3 of Finnissy.... how's anyone meant to tell if he's actually playing the written notes or just banging his hands on the keyboard like a two year old?

Sounded pretty accurate to me.

Well, I learned the notes of the RH part of the very first system from that snippet from ECT (a little bit slower than his speed...  [])  And I can say safely that it sounds nothing like his RH in that. 

[shadow88]

okay .. i did not read the whole topic.
I don't know what i should think of Finnissy's Piece. I think it's just a "approximatley writing down of trying to f*** up the piano with 2 hands, not with an axe"
Sorry for that!
The most difficult, but playable and musically great peaces i know is the Scarbo by Ravel and the Reminiscences de Don Juan by Liszt.
What about the 3rd Version of Paganini Etude Nr. 4 Arpeggio? Is it playable? I don't think so 

Well I think playing the piano is not about speed and trying to break every finger in one minute. Just enjoy it.
Although you can be technically perfect like Lang Lang or Hamelin, you should enjoy playing the piano and play some "normal" pieces without any mistake.

Greetings

[lostinidlewonder]

I think the concept of Hard piano music is relative.

Only a few people can accurately listen, understand and appreciate the seemingly random pounding sounds of some difficult piano pieces out there. To most people it simply sounds like garbled noise. It would really be no different if someone went up there and played anything, so to these ears the music might not actually sound hard at all because they cannot understand it. So to them something from Liszt might be the most difficult piano piece in the world for them!

As a matter of the most difficult piano piece to play it is again relative. But if comparing the difficulty between playing one piece which only 1% of pianists could play or playing a piece which only 2% of pianists could play, what is the point? The discussion only will involve a handful of people here since the rest simply find both impossible. Maybe you can make one bar more than the other but what is the real difference?? Its negligible and unintelligent to measure. 

[gerryjay]

 this kind of thread makes me think... 
 
 if we can't agree about the relative difficulty of two similar works (let's say two sonatas by beethoven) how could we expect to find the most difficult piece of all repertory?
 furthermore, you only know how difficult is a work after a time actually playing it. how many times a piece that sounds hard initially turns into a piece of cake?

 then it seems impossible to me to compare works of different styles if not only superficially. the requests are so distinct don't you agree? just compare a piece of one of the three great bees:
 - bach's goldberg;
 - beethoven's opus 106;
 - brahms' second concerto;
 what is the more difficult and why? more specific: how many perfect recordings/performances of it do you know? shall we get an agreement about those works? if not, please let it be.

 just some thoughts. if you disagree don't get mad with me. 

[gerryjay]

if you guys find the hardest piece ever written please don't forget to tell what is its grade ABRSM.

[pies]

a

[thalbergmad]

The hardest piece is probably harder to listen to than play.

Thal

[pies]

a

[thalbergmad]

What pleases your ears, is not guaranteed to please others.

Please note i used the word "probably"

Thal

[ahinton]

What pleases your ears, is not guaranteed to please others.

Thal

No need either for the comma or even the statement of the obvious that contains it, if you'll pardon my saying so; what surely matters most here, however, is that the very idea of the "hardest piano piece" is fatuous, useless and pointless, despite it having been the subject of goodness knows how many threads on this and other fora.

(yawn...)

Best,

Alistair

[pianochick93]

No need either for the comma or even the statement of the obvious that contains it, if you'll pardon my saying so; what surely matters most here, however, is that the very idea of the "hardest piano piece" is fatuous, useless and pointless, despite it having been the subject of goodness knows how many threads on this and other fora.

(yawn...)

Best,

Alistair

Who really cares about the fine points of his grammar? He certainly got the message of what he wanted to say across accurately. I like the comma there, it adds a pause for breath, there is nothing wrong with saying things like that with a small pause in the middle. I'm sure there is gramatically, but in the real world, no-one really cares.

Also there are many threads on 'the hardest piano piece' but there are some which start arguments, even when the question is asked 'What is the hardest piano piece in your opinion'
I know this one isn't such, but it is still a good place for people to state their opinions, and discuss with others why that opinion is or isn't true.

[thalbergmad]

Who really cares about the fine points of his grammar? He certainly got the message of what he wanted to say across accurately. I like the comma there, it adds a pause for breath, there is nothing wrong with saying things like that with a small pause in the middle. I'm sure there is gramatically, but in the real world, no-one really cares.

Thank you chicky.

I will send you some arrows.

Thal

[ahinton]

Who really cares about the fine points of his grammar? He certainly got the message of what he wanted to say across accurately. I like the comma there, it adds a pause for breath, there is nothing wrong with saying things like that with a small pause in the middle. I'm sure there is gramatically, but in the real world, no-one really cares.

Well, I'm sure that this is true and my reference to it was purely in jest, as I would have hoped was reasonably obvious, but the real point that I was making was/is that the "hardest piece" is whatever it may be and for whatever reason to any individual player and, as such, it's a subject that's been flogged to death and beyond on this and other fora without any useful conclusion or possibility thereof.

Also there are many threads on 'the hardest piano piece' but there are some which start arguments, even when the question is asked 'What is the hardest piano piece in your opinion'
I know this one isn't such, but it is still a good place for people to state their opinions, and discuss with others why that opinion is or isn't true.

Indeed, as I have mentioned already, which is pretty much why it is that the subject simply doesn't have the inherent  to go anywhere useful, as has from time to time been amply and tiresomely demonstrated by its all-too-many previous manifestations on this and other fora.

Best,

Alistair

[pies]

a

[mjin1]

What do all of you guys think about the fifth transcendental etude, feux follets?

I know it's not the 'hardest' piece ever written, but how would you say it's difficulty stacks up with other stuff in this thread? musically and technically, apparently there's some rapid double note switch that is really really hard to play in pianissimo.

I only bring ^that up because i eventually would like to learn it in a few years, maybe.

if anything is anybody's music, there's really no limit to what the most difficult piece ever written is..

I listened to that english country tunes thing. That was buckwild. There was a nifty rhythm going on, but it's still pretty.. bangy. i don't know.
 

[gerryjay]

there's really no limit to what the most difficult piece ever written is..

i hope so! new possibilities will ever arise, and together new difficulties.
 
 btw, good luck with the liszt project!  disregarding if it's not the hardest piece, it is hard enough!

[mjin1]

i hope so! new possibilities will ever arise, and together new difficulties.
 
 btw, good luck with the liszt project!  disregarding if it's not the hardest piece, it is hard enough!

Yeah thanks.. I'm gonna need it. I'm gonna give myself about a year or two before I start it. Though I'll probably go ahead and pick out the strange double note changes and practice them by themselves until I start the rest of the song..

[dnephi]

I proffer Schumann's Sonata which directs one to go as fast as possible, faster, and still faster.

Literally impossible, no?

[point of grace]

where did you get it from'' lol

for me the gaspard de la nuit, rach´s 3er piano concerto and i maybe the hammerklavier by beethover

[synapse]

All these retards saying that Finnissy-style crap is music.

It does not evoke emotions except irritation with the piece.
However, as a musician, you strive to find meaning in such sh*t, as has already been referred to people do the same with art, literature.

What emotions does Finnissy evoke in you?
These people describing it as a storm? A storm is powerful, mixed between booming and calm. Finnissy's music more reminds me of a shard of glass going into my eye.

Let's face it, he probably isn't serious with his pieces. If he is, he is either attention seeking by deliberately trying to sell such noise as music, or he is mentally disturbed and trying to express his psychotic issues through the piano.

'Silence' is not a moving piece of music. Loud clatterings on a piano is not a moving piece of music.

Furthermore, it is not the most difficult piece of music, but one of the easiest. I'm sure most people with or without piano expertise can create a similar type of sound. I'm sure most dogs can.

In conclusion, I drew you all a piece of art. It expresses emotions of bittersweet love and happiness. Yeah, really. And noone else can recreate it. It is, probably, the most difficult-to-make piece of art in the world.

[thalbergmad]

What emotions does Finnissy evoke in you?

Laughter generally.

However, it serves a purpose as it allows some on here to write some extremely long and impressive posts in support of its worth. I also expect that a few geeks wander around music schools with a couple of scores under their arm as it looks impressive.

However, it is compost and it always will be.

Thal

[queenrock]

All these retards saying that Finnissy-style crap is music.

It does not evoke emotions except irritation with the piece.
However, as a musician, you strive to find meaning in such sh*t, as has already been referred to people do the same with art, literature.

What emotions does Finnissy evoke in you?
These people describing it as a storm? A storm is powerful, mixed between booming and calm. Finnissy's music more reminds me of a shard of glass going into my eye.

Let's face it, he probably isn't serious with his pieces. If he is, he is either attention seeking by deliberately trying to sell such noise as music, or he is mentally disturbed and trying to express his psychotic issues through the piano.

'Silence' is not a moving piece of music. Loud clatterings on a piano is not a moving piece of music.

Furthermore, it is not the most difficult piece of music, but one of the easiest. I'm sure most people with or without piano expertise can create a similar type of sound. I'm sure most dogs can.

In conclusion, I drew you all a piece of art. It expresses emotions of bittersweet love and happiness. Yeah, really. And noone else can recreate it. It is, probably, the most difficult-to-make piece of art in the world.

LOL
Best first post ever .
Oh and BTW that piece of 'art' looks like the kind of sh*t you would find in the tate modern art gallery in London, you should try selling it.

[slobone]

Judge 4 urself!  Here is Henck's recording of Cogluotobusisletmesi (replace hxxp with http).
hxxp://web.mac.com/andrs1/Site/Clarence_Barlow_files/01%20Cogluotobusisletmesi.mp3

That's not a particularly hard piece for 1 piano, 4 hands.

[ctrastevere]

All these retards saying that Finnissy-style crap is music.

It does not evoke emotions except irritation with the piece.
However, as a musician, you strive to find meaning in such sh*t, as has already been referred to people do the same with art, literature.

What emotions does Finnissy evoke in you?
These people describing it as a storm? A storm is powerful, mixed between booming and calm. Finnissy's music more reminds me of a shard of glass going into my eye.

Let's face it, he probably isn't serious with his pieces. If he is, he is either attention seeking by deliberately trying to sell such noise as music, or he is mentally disturbed and trying to express his psychotic issues through the piano.

'Silence' is not a moving piece of music. Loud clatterings on a piano is not a moving piece of music.

Furthermore, it is not the most difficult piece of music, but one of the easiest. I'm sure most people with or without piano expertise can create a similar type of sound. I'm sure most dogs can.

In conclusion, I drew you all a piece of art. It expresses emotions of bittersweet love and happiness. Yeah, really. And noone else can recreate it. It is, probably, the most difficult-to-make piece of art in the world.

Hahaha! You're so clever and witty! How do you come up with this stuff?

[ahinton]

Doubtless Nils will very soon move this thread to the place where all these "hardest" things go; it never ceases to amaze me (or maybe it has now ceased to amaze me after all) how and why people still persist in plugging this idea to death and beyond for what it never was worth in the first place.

Anyway, so as not to depart from the subject entirely, I'll offer one opinion; whatever this piece may be (or be thought to be), it's not one that I've actually written myself...

Best,

Alistair

[Etude]

Really good way to use a first post:  bump a 6 month old thread in order to pregnant dog about Michael Finnissy.

[lostinidlewonder]

Talking about hardest this or that just rubs up peoples delusions of grandeur that perhaps, if I know what the hardest piece in the world is,  I will... I WILL BE GOD! I will gain transcendental knowledge that will transform me into amazing!!!! That the knowledge of the most difficult is how you will judge people from now on, if they can't play near that standard they are sub standard and you know more than them because of that!

People like to have secret, strange associations, they like to be different, it makes them feel like they stand out in life, they are set apart from people. Hardest, most difficult, etc this type of talk just makes us all fantasize that because we are talking about something really hard and difficult we are talking about something really intelligent and very valuable for us to learn from. Even though it clearly is not

Some people like garbled noise in piano music. Just bash the heck out of the thing and put as many notes as possible, play with all your body parts, torture the inside of the piano changing it all sorts of ways etc etc. To me all this kind of stuff never has had much musical value, in terms of pattern, sound or emotion evoked from the sound. To me it just is evidence of people who need to stand out, they have a desire to be different, to be nothing like the normal and they don't care if people like it or not, in fact they are privately amused when people hate their music because it makes them feel more different and separated  just want they want.

There are many artists who aim to confuse, the more they confuse the more interesting they become and people who are so confused say, Oh they must be good because this is hard to understand! Music should at least effect us in some way, make us feel a certain mood. I guess if you like the feeling of constipation, of feeling sick, of feeling disorientated, in a daze, spaced out of your mind musically, then you will like the strange sounding music. Often I just feel angry. That talented musicians waste their time learning trash that just makes us feel more angry when we listen to it!

[general disarray]

There are many artists who aim to confuse, the more they confuse the more interesting they become and people who are so confused say, Oh they must be good because this is hard to understand! Music should at least effect us in some way, make us feel a certain mood. I guess if you like the feeling of constipation, of feeling sick, of feeling disorientated, in a daze, spaced out of your mind musically, then you will like the strange sounding music. Often I just feel angry. That talented musicians waste their time learning trash that just makes us feel more angry when we listen to it!

Who are any of us to say what's "trash"? 

What we CAN say is that this or that doesn't appeal or may even actually irritate.  That doesn't make the object "trash".

In any art form, there are extremely gifted artists who felt they had exhausted the resources of the current or historic expressive vocabulary.  Baroque to Classical, Classical to Romantic, Romantic to Impressionistic, Impressionistic to atonality and beyond.  Artists tend to move on for their own expressive and aesthetic reasons.  The older "languages" for them are exhausted.

Fine art shows the same trajectory.  Representational gives way to abstraction, abstraction to conceptual.  Do abstract or conceptual works resonate with me?  Some.  Do atonal compositions resonate with me?  Some.  The ones that don't aren't "trash".

You have to live with "the new" for some time to understand it. 

Rudolf de Crignis, the late Swiss painter, produced paintings in oil that, at first viewing, appear to be only flat expanses of monochromatic color.  But when you set aside your preconceived notions about what a painting should be and just LOOK for a couple of minutes, the complex and infinitely subtle brush strokes beneath the monochrome field yield patterns and images almost magically.  The paintings actually seem alive and composing themselves before your very eyes.

But, you have to live with them.  Give them a chance.  Postpone deciding they are just "trash."

De Crignis wasn't trying to confound us.  He was passionately exploring what it means to SEE.  I think all composers, no matter how difficult their works can be, are only exploring what it means to HEAR.

How can that be "trash"?     

[synapse]

Finnissy is trash. You are trash.
Rudolf de Crignis is not an artist.
Attaching 30 squares to a wall isn't art. It's construction, and you can get anyone to do it for £30p/day labour charges, plus the cost of plaster.

The musical library wasn't exhausted, we still have artists right now writing new-sounding and original songs.
Some artists just can't write nice music.
So they write bad stuff.
And people like you make it successful, because you dig into it and find all these 'repressed' meanings that the composer must have intended in the piece.
Some people *can* say what is trash, because we know what is musically-well-written and what is not.
Just because you have no idea what is and isn't trash doesn't mean that the rest of us don't.

[Etude]

You're not making a good first impression.  So wait, did you sign up JUST to make provocative and just ever so slightly closed-minded posts about what constitutes music?

[general disarray]

Finnissy is trash. You are trash.
Rudolf de Crignis is not an artist.
Attaching 30 squares to a wall isn't art. It's construction, and you can get anyone to do it for £30p/day labour charges, plus the cost of plaster.

Just because you have no idea what is and isn't trash doesn't mean that the rest of us don't.

Wow, you're a real charmer!

I actually knew de Crignis during his last years in NYC when I lived there with my family.  His studio was in our building.  Terrific guy.  Strong sense of self, but not narcissistic, like many great artists.  He'd let me watch him paint some days.  He spent WEEKS laboring over his canvasses.

He died over a year ago, suddenly.  And one of his greatest agonies was hearing people like you describing his work as "trash."  Obviously, you've either never really looked at his work, or, of course, you may just be blind.

In that case, you have my apologies.  It must be very hard for you.

[ed palamar]

This is my first post - and I've only read the first two pages on this topic.  When I was a boy, this time, (what I mean by this time, c.1966ADP [year of Our Lord's Second Coming], not back in c.30AD [c.10AD actually] when I baptized Jesus),  both my hands were chopped off at the wrists - surgery and healing was like pins and needles.  Yet, in less than ten years after that I managed to play the 1st movement of Grieg's Piano Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra as a Student Audition winner.

There has been thusfar (thru the 2nd page of this topic) no mention of the fact that the hardest piano piece ever written is different for everybody, and there are times when it is humanly impossible for each and everyone of us.  But I will finish reading the posts and many thanks to those who have contributed data about the lesser and more well known difficult writings.

[synapse]

He spent WEEKS laboring over his canvasses.

I rest my *** case. You're just pathetic for backing up such a lowlife.

[Petter]

This is my first post - and I've only read the first two pages on this topic.  When I was a boy, this time, (what I mean by this time, c.1966ADP [year of Our Lord's Second Coming], not back in c.30AD [c.10AD actually] when I baptized Jesus),  both my hands were chopped off at the wrists - surgery and healing was like pins and needles.  Yet, in less than ten years after that I managed to play the 1st movement of Grieg's Piano Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra as a Student Audition winner.

 

[general disarray]

I rest my *** case. You're just pathetic for backing up such a lowlife.

Your case isn't "rested."  Hurling your little-boy insults and ad hominem attacks are the only evidence you're presenting. 

De Criginis' paintings are well-known to be virtually UN-photographable.  The camera can't catch the play of lines, light and images beneath what YOU THINK you are seeing -- just flat, monochrome squares.  Of course they look absurd reproduced.  What they achieve can't be detected by the camera -- only the human eye and viewed in person.  Obviously, you haven't seen them in person, displayed in natural light where the images buried in the brush strokes emerge and evolve through the monochromatic color.  Even the the color shifts as you are looking at them.  They're regarded as magical, vibrant works by anyone who has seen them in person.

Oh, what the hell am I doing discussing this with the likes of you?  Well, actually, I'm not.  I'm defending Rudi's works against your dumbass misrepresentation of them and your fascist contempt for anything you can't fit in a well-known, reactionary box.

Buzz off, bozo.

[pies]

I am a Finnissy-loving elitist 

[synapse]

Your case isn't "rested."  Hurling your little-boy insults and ad hominem attacks are the only evidence you're presenting. 

De Criginis' paintings are well-known to be virtually UN-photographable.  The camera can't catch the play of lines, light and images beneath what YOU THINK you are seeing -- just flat, monochrome squares.  Of course they look absurd reproduced.  What they achieve can't be detected by the camera -- only the human eye and viewed in person.  Obviously, you haven't seen them in person, displayed in natural light where the images buried in the brush strokes emerge and evolve through the monochromatic color.  Even the the color shifts as you are looking at them.  They're regarded as magical, vibrant works by anyone who has seen them in person.

Oh, what the hell am I doing discussing this with the likes of you?  Well, actually, I'm not.  I'm defending Rudi's works against your dumbass misrepresentation of them and your fascist contempt for anything you can't fit in a well-known, reactionary box.

Buzz off, bozo.

You're so *** retarded, don't you see? He just painted some blue squares. That's all they are, it's not because the camera can't make them come alive, it's because they are...
blue.
squares.
Stop seeing sh*t that isn't there to fulfil your own need to see art in every-***-thing. There's nothing there, do you hear me?! BLUE SQUARES!

God I HATE you type of people, it's not that I'm culturally deficient, or that anyone who finds Finnissy's music BAD is some sort of lowlife unintellectual thug. It's just plain BAD, and you're just in denial of the fact that someone can try to create art and FAIL, not to make something different or 'unphotographable', but the fact that they actually failed to create a piece of art...somehow you can't accept that.

I urge you to stop being close-minded, "everyone who has set ideas on art is wrong, everyone who finds blue squares unattractive is an idiot", because you're being thoroughly hypocritical. Not everything is art, I think when you realise this you too will be disgusted by such sh*t.

[Petter]

General D, full throttle! Fire torpedos at will. 

[general disarray]

General D, full throttle! Fire torpedos at will. 

Frankly, Petter, I think we need one of your remote-control penises launched his way.   

 . . . and, ultlimately, we must be charitable and forgive him for not being able to see what can't be seen in that photo.  He just won't admit that these works are different when viewed in person, for the simple fact that he has never viewed them in person.

[synapse]

ART LOL

[Etude]

Can you *** off now, please.  Even I can see more in the photographs than just plain blue.  This couldn't be anymore off-topic.  You have made 5 posts, and every single one of them has been you pissing and moaning about not liking modern music/art.

[synapse]

And I suppose not liking modern art makes me uncultured, some sort of uncivilised barbarian? Gtfo you pretentious prick.

[tds]

And I suppose not liking modern art makes me uncultured, some sort of uncivilised barbarian? Gtfo you pretentious prick.

interesting

[thalbergmad]

And I suppose not liking modern art makes me uncultured, some sort of uncivilised barbarian?

No, but your posts do.

And that comes from someone who agrees with you.

Thal