Repertoire Searching...(eg Hamelin)

[cziffra]

we all know that hamelin specialises in unkown repertoire- what i want to know is, HOW does he do this?

how do you find out alkan wrote a symphony for solo piano?  how do you discern that szymanowski's mazurkas are worth playing, let alone know who the hell szymanowski is?  it costs enough money to buy the known repertoire, and often it's only available to you if you know of it beforehand and can look for it specifically.  so if you don't know the works, i.e, if you've never heard anyone else play them, how do find them and how do you decide if it's worth playing?

[steinwaymodeld]

i am curious too!

how could hamelin did it?(even though it was told that he could sight-read almost 99% of the stuff, and play them almost perfectly the first time)

and he said, 'the piano literature, and i am not exaggerating, is thousands times more vast than people usually think'

i wonder how could he discover those pieces..

[schnabels_grandson]

His father introduced him to many obscure composers when he was young.  I also heard some story about a teacher or friend of his who died and left him a massive collection of scores.  I may be confused, that story might be about another pianist.  Anyway, he probably learned that the mainstream isn't the only stream and decided to focus more on the lesser known composers.  Plus, learning from people who were around when certain composers' music was more popular probably effected his repertoire.  In other words, he was probably exposed to a wider range of composers than the average piano student.

[thracozaag]

we all know that hamelin specialises in unkown repertoire- what i want to know is, HOW does he do this?

how do you find out alkan wrote a symphony for solo piano?  how do you discern that szymanowski's mazurkas are worth playing, let alone know who the hell szymanowski is?  it costs enough money to buy the known repertoire, and often it's only available to you if you know of it beforehand and can look for it specifically.  so if you don't know the works, i.e, if you've never heard anyone else play them, how do find them and how do you decide if it's worth playing?

 Pianists are the most guilty offenders of not realizing how vast and immense the rep. is.  Take a stroll in any decent music library and you'll discover this.  Sadly, the concert world is made up of pianists playing the same 50 or so hackeyned pieces.

[comme_le_vent]

https://www.giamanagement.com/interviews.asp?MusicianID=2

most of the information you desire will be there.
he obviously has a huge library at home, partly inhereted, and part - i would imagine - would be helped by his many pianophile friends, and af course his own incredible curiosity.
the fact that he actually plays them at all - not to mention brilliantly - is simply down to the fact that he is just an incredibly talented human being.

[cziffra]

thanks for the post