Piano Forum

Excellent question and the prevailing common wisdom seems to be that Mozart, indeed, is the ultimate test for a pianist. 

But, I'm not so sure that this is so. 

When I was in my early years of study, I read through as much literature as I could.  Not polishing it, but plowing through it and sharpening my sight-reading skills and, of course, learning what was out there in the pianist's vast repertoire.  Along with Haydn and Beethoven, the early and late Romantics and some early 20th-century composers, I plowed through tons of Mozart -- the sonatas and many of the concerti.  In a superficial reading, they were easier to pull off than Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, etc.  There were less notes, obviously, simpler textures, for the most part, and chords of classical simplicity.

When I matured, all I ever heard from pianists and teachers was that Mozart's writing was so exposed and therefore required much more attention to articulation, touch, phrasing, etc.  I quickly realized that, yes, that was true, but not true for Mozart alone.

For example, in Chopin, you can find the same exposed writing, the same need to voice chords perfectly, the same need to phrase with delicacy.  In fact, the notion that somehow the thicker textures of later composers require less diligence than one needs for Mozart, strikes me as absurd.  Thicker textures require MORE diligence to offer up a clarified, polished performance.  To play a Chopin "Prelude" with taste and finesse is no less difficult than it is to play Mozart.  Thicker textures indicate greater combinations of "simplicity," i.e. doublings, etc. that require a pianist to have a strong control of counterpoint.

The work of every worthy composer demands the same attention one gives to Mozart.  It's my very personal feeling that Mozart's keyboard works have been deified and set up as paragons of perfection.  I suppose this is the result of his stock having been devalued during the rise of Romanticism.  Sort of a Mozartian counter-revolution.  Perhaps not.  But because of this rather inflated reverence for his work, I think pianists assume that to approach him is more intimidating than approaching Chopin or Brahms.  I disagree with this assumption.

That issue aside, I still don't regard his keyboard challenges, overall, as being any greater than any other composer's. 

Bach, of course, is outside of this discussion.  It's a given, I think, that his work is indeed the ultimate test because of the extreme intellectual demands  -- beyond digital -- that his work demands.