Please recommend a piece I can play

[amateurpianist]

I know I know, there are millions of pieces of music in the world, so how do you start, but please hear me out...

I'm in my late 20's and recently had to go back to stay with my parents for a while because I got suddenly rushed into hospital, and now I have to spend several weeks here recovering from a major operation.  I haven't had piano lessons since I was at school, but I occasionally have a tinker around.  My mum saw how bored I was so she arranged for a piano tuner to come over the other day - it hadn't been tuned for literally ten years, so it's suddenly like a breath of fresh air!  I think I passed either grade 4 or 5 when I was at school, and the only piano music I can find in the house is "Classics to Moderns" book 3, a book of Scott Joplin Rags, and "Fantasia in D Minor" by Mozart.

The thing is, I'm usually a recorder player and over the past couple of years I've fallen in with an early music crowd, so I've only really been playing Telemann, early Bach and Corelli and obscure medieval stuff for the sake of it.  Being a recorder player you tend to miss out on most of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  So, as a contrast to my usual style, I long to play a big, sweeping romantic piano piece full of beautiful romantic chords and key changes and things.

Can anyone recommend me a piece that I could attempt on my own, seeing as I might only be here for a few weeks and I'm not exactly up to Rachmaninoff standard? One thing I would say about the piano is that the upper register can get fairly weak, but it does have really rich, grand bass notes.

[chopianist123]

Hm...a big, sweeping romantic piano piece full of beautiful romantic chords and key changes...

How about Chopin's Ballade No.4 in F minor?  It might be a bit challenging though.

[the_duck]

Hm...a big, sweeping romantic piano piece full of beautiful romantic chords and key changes...

How about Chopin's Ballade No.4 in F minor?  It might be a bit challenging though.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[chopianist123]

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Funny ?

[counterpoint]

How about a simplified Version of Brahms 2nd Symphony?

Brahms wrote in a letter to Elisabeth von Herzogenberg (Wien 22.Nov. 1877)

Verehrteste Frau!

Die neue ist aber wirklich keine Symphonie, sondern bloß eine Sinfonie, und ich brauche sie Ihnen auch nicht vorher vorzuspielen. Sie brauchen sich nur hinzusetzen, abwechselnd die Füßchen auf den beiden Pedalen, und den f-moll Akkord eine gute Zeitlang anzuschlagen, abwechselnd unten und oben, ff und pp, dann kriegen Sie allmählich das deutliche Bild von der "neuen".



Dear Madam!

The new one is really not a Symphony, but only a Sinfonie, and I don't have to play it for you in advance. Just sit down at the piano, alternate the two little feet on the pedals, press the F minor chord for a certain length of time, alternatively low and high, ff and pp, then you will get the clear image of the "new one".

[amelialw]

go look up the music sheets here, you can download 2 for free every 24 hrs. www.sheetmusicarchive.net

For something not too long but short and delightful I would reccomend Sonata K545 in C major by Mozart, you also could try Haydn's Sonata in G major from book 3.

Perhaps for a romantic piece you could try one of the harder pieces from Schumann's Album for the Young and a few of the easier pieces from Mendelssohn Spinning songs.

[G.W.K]

I suggest Clair de Lune...a lovely tune and not too difficult...since I have been playing it since I was 15.



G.W.K

[burstroman]

Chopin: a prelude (D-flat major)
             a waltz, B minor, A minor
Debussy: Arabesque #1 or 2
Prokofiev: some of the "Visions Fugitives" aren't difficult.

[richard weaver]

I would suggest the c major invention by Bach or perhaps some of the earlier Haydn sonatas. Otherwise, for inspiration,  I can recommend listening to a nice piece I found on iTunes called Blackadder Variations and Fugue - the Fugue combines the Blackadder theme with Mozarts Don Giovanni theme- absolutely ingenious. The piece sounds difficult however- the composer is called Christopher Swede. 

[daniloperusina]

So many suggestions that are absolutely not 'big sweeping romantic piece'.
Chopin's funeral march from sonata nr2 (it's not that difficult)
Chopin Raindrop Prelude
Brahms Ballade nr 1 (a bit more tricky)
Schumann 3nd movement from Fantasie in C
Schumann 2nd mvt from Sonata op11

I don't think these pieces will break anyone's hands, they are fairly easy to read for a decent sight-reader, and they have a bit of 'big sweeping romantic chords'.

[spaciiey]

Einsame Blumen is a fair easy piece by Schumann... I remember playing it when I was twelve lol. It isnt really that big, but its romantic and its pretty too, and with chords.