The easier of the medtner pieces

[aslanov]

I've been developing somewhat of an obsession with medtner's music, but alas i cannot play most of what i listen to (yet) and was wondering which of his peaces are considered to be on the easier side (as easy as medtner gets anyway). Hopefully one of these days i can play the Sonata Romantica.

[ramseytheii]

You might want to look at op.26 no.1, or op.39 no.4.  There are not a lot of "easy" pieces because he had a very individual technique, and even in smaller-scale pieces, you need a lot of skills - the harmony is complex and not always easily discernible, every bar is filled with detailed counterpoint, and the physical approach is not always obvious because of the difficulty in balancing voices.  But good luck!

Walter Ramsey

[ahinton]

I agree with Walter Ramsey's remarks here - and Sonata Romantica, whilst one of the peaks of Medtner's achievements, is a fearsomely difficult piece to bring off as it should be played. When Medtner himself premièred it in Glasgow, Scotland in the early 1930s he did so with a confident assumption that people would fail to grasp - or even possibly resent - what they'd take to be the work's complexities and he shared these thoughts in advance with his wife - so in all probability it came as quite a shock to him that the Scottish audience greeted the work and his performance of it as warmly as it did!

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Perhaps the Glasgow audience of the 1930's had already heard a far more complex work, so the Medtner was most palatable.

Thal

[ramseytheii]

From the perspective of an amateur listener who doesn't know the massive technique that went into composing Medtner's music, I think there is a lot to like!  There are rhapsodic, long melodies, and sometimes exciting, easily graspable rhythms.  But on the other hand, the music is loaded with details.  in some ways, I reluctantly feel, overloaded.

Oftentimes the voices are so plentiful and crowded in with each other, that I can't imagine an audience really appreciating all of them, and have rarely if ever heard a pianist who was able to bring them all out - not even Medtner.  In his recording of op.39 no.5 Sonata tragica, when he gets to the "Canzona matinata" theme in g minor, you cannot hear the syncopated voices hidden in the left hand harmony, which he so carefully notated.  I didn't hear them in recordings of Wild or Berezovsky either.  I wonder if he notated them in the way he did, for the sake of the pianist, but was not worried about them as a melody in the performance?

Medtner had a lot of subtle tricks like that, using motives in the most unexpected ways.  Take op.20 no.2 for instance.  When the right hand thumb starts the main theme, it is a long melody - in fact, it's divisible into 2 parts.  When he repeats it an octave higher, he compresses it, and hides the second part of the melody in the second thirty-second note of every eighth note beat.  Can an audience really hear that?  Can a pianist really adequately bring it out (he did put accents on it)?

These are stumbling blocks to a real enjoyment of his music.  From what I have gathered of reading about him, his personality sounds unpleasant.  He was hermetic, and had a bit of superiority complex towards what he believed was the only true and valid way of composing.  He is often described as being a friend of Rachmaninoff, but the fact is he said about his friend that he "prostituted himself."  That is just not something I would say about a friend, even if I disagreed with what he was doing.  

Perhaps this unpleasantness manifested itself in the music as thorns on a rose.  At the core there is a stunning, perfectly proportional beauty, and yet to try and grab it all at once is to suffer the sting of the thorn.

By the way, another piece you might want to look at as not being that difficult is op.51 no.2.

Just some thoughts.

Walter Ramsey

[aslanov]

He is often described as being a friend of Rachmaninoff, but the fact is he said about his friend that he "prostituted himself."  That is just not something I would say about a friend, even if I disagreed with what he was doing.

that was probably translated from russian, where the phrase has a somewhat joking connotation.
it would be like you call a male friend of yours a slut because he was flirting with some girl.

indeed, they were friends. Medtner dedicated his second concerto to rachmaninoff, and rachmaninoff dedicated his 4th to medtner (i think).

[lontano]

that was probably translated from russian, where the phrase has a somewhat joking connotation.
it would be like you call a male friend of yours a slut because he was flirting with some girl.

indeed, they were friends. Medtner dedicated his second concerto to rachmaninoff, and rachmaninoff dedicated his 4th to medtner (i think).

An indeed, in the mid 1920's Rachy told Medtner he believed he (Medtner) was the greatest composer of the times.

But back to the Original post please. I believe the question was about the "easier pieces" rather than the easier sonatas of Medtner. I, too, am just getting to know the music of this little-known man. I recently acquired a 4CD set of Geoffrey Tozer (and Milne's 7CD set is on its way) and have many of the scores that are available at IMSLP, and I'm just getting to hear many of these works for the first time, and they're amazing, but WAY out of my league to even attempt a minimal sight-reading. However he wrote quite a few other shorter works, and it's here that I'm also wondering if there some easier works. Anyone familiar with the shorter works?

L.

[lontano]

After spending many hours over the past week reading through a variety of Medtner scores with recordings by Geoffrey Tozer I now realize that Medtner did not write ANYTHING remotely "easy", nor much that I can quickly identify as "intermediate" level. This is very seriously difficult music, written without accommodation for the performer. I just received the 7-CD Hamlish Milne set and will be exploring the Skazka works over the weekend. It's great stuff - it's truly marvelous, and a great discovery in a time I was beginning to think there wasn't a whole lot left to marvel at from pre-1930 composers.

L.

[kay3087]

Op. 5 is not too difficult. I sight-read the exposition once, slowly of course. If you're audacious enough to consider yourself "intermediate", then I would try that piece at least. I think it is his best, unfortunately none of the recordings do it justice.

[lontano]

From the perspective of an amateur listener who doesn't know the massive technique that went into composing Medtner's music, I think there is a lot to like!  There are rhapsodic, long melodies, and sometimes exciting, easily graspable rhythms.  But on the other hand, the music is loaded with details.  in some ways, I reluctantly feel, overloaded.

Oftentimes the voices are so plentiful and crowded in with each other, that I can't imagine an audience really appreciating all of them, and have rarely if ever heard a pianist who was able to bring them all out - not even Medtner.  In his recording of op.39 no.5 Sonata tragica, when he gets to the "Canzona matinata" theme in g minor, you cannot hear the syncopated voices hidden in the left hand harmony, which he so carefully notated.  I didn't hear them in recordings of Wild or Berezovsky either.  I wonder if he notated them in the way he did, for the sake of the pianist, but was not worried about them as a melody in the performance?

Medtner had a lot of subtle tricks like that, using motives in the most unexpected ways.  Take op.20 no.2 for instance.  When the right hand thumb starts the main theme, it is a long melody - in fact, it's divisible into 2 parts.  When he repeats it an octave higher, he compresses it, and hides the second part of the melody in the second thirty-second note of every eighth note beat.  Can an audience really hear that?  Can a pianist really adequately bring it out (he did put accents on it)?

These are stumbling blocks to a real enjoyment of his music.  From what I have gathered of reading about him, his personality sounds unpleasant.  He was hermetic, and had a bit of superiority complex towards what he believed was the only true and valid way of composing.  He is often described as being a friend of Rachmaninoff, but the fact is he said about his friend that he "prostituted himself."  That is just not something I would say about a friend, even if I disagreed with what he was doing.  

Perhaps this unpleasantness manifested itself in the music as thorns on a rose.  At the core there is a stunning, perfectly proportional beauty, and yet to try and grab it all at once is to suffer the sting of the thorn.

By the way, another piece you might want to look at as not being that difficult is op.51 no.2.

Just some thoughts.

Walter Ramsey

I really want to thank you Walter (and Alistair) for you insights on Medtner's music. As I am rapidly getting to know his works (listening w/scores) many things that seem just slightly beyond my comprehension are becoming clearer with this new light.

Medtner is an entire new world of late romantic Russian music from Rachmaninoff, and no doubt the reason his popularity has been unfortunately been overlooked for so long.

L.

[lontano]

Op. 5 is not too difficult. I sight-read the exposition once, slowly of course. If you're audacious enough to consider yourself "intermediate", then I would try that piece at least. I think it is his best, unfortunately none of the recordings do it justice.

For reasons I can only attribute to my own prejudice/ignorance, I overlooked the Op.5 Medtner sonata until tonight, possibly thinking it to be an immature work, but I set up the score and read it as H. Milne performed it, and it was anything but an "immature work". It's an early work, but it seems that his concepts of style and idea were already well worked out by the time he wrote his first sonata. I wasn't bored for a moment.

As I believe I'm near the end of my initial discovery of all Medtner's sonatas (even the embedded ones), I'll soon enter my comparative performances sessions. I've the complete sonatas by both Tozer and Milne, and a couple by Hamelin. I think your judgment that "none of the recordings do justice" is unfair, a bit arrogant, and possibly ignorant (and I mean these criticisms in purely objective ways). How many, and whose recordings have you compared to your own expectations upon one sight-reading the exposition?

How does Milne disappoint you? Or Tozer, or Hamelin?

I do appreciate you're recommendation of listening to the Op.5 Sonata, but really...can you do better?

L.

[thetamman]

Having been a Medtner lover for a long time, I have to admit that I'm equivocal about the recordings by Tozer and Milne; By far the best are the recordings by Nikolai Demidenko, for - although he has not, unfortunately recorded all of them - they are by far the best musically. I also enjoyed Hamelin's interpretation of a lot of his sonatas, esp. the Sonata Romantica, which is, I can tell you from personal experience, quite difficult to play. However, Hamelin, typically sometimes plays too fast - Medtner's works often need repose - i.e. more time, due to their complexity - so the listener can comprehend the music properly, and I feel this is what Hamelin sometimes does less well than Demidenko. As for works - I quite like Medtner's Op. 5  Sonata, due to its relative polyphonic clarity, and quite a lot more than a lot of his later works, which unfortunately seem to be complex for complexity's sake, rather than adding to the musical effect. His Op. 20 Fairy Tales are probably his most - IMHO - accessible pieces, with the second piece in the set one of my favourite works - although I admit its fatalistic pessimism is not to everyone's taste. His piano concertos are amazing - again though, you need to have Demidenko playing it - Tozer is solid, but not spectacular, and less musically adroit. Happy listening! The sad thing about his music is that it often requires repeated listenings to fully comprehend - something that doesn't sit well with the typical audience these days, most of who scarcely have the patience to wait for an internet page to load on their iphone... but the more you listen, the more you realise what he a genius he really was.

Regards,
thetamman

[lontano]

I agree with all you say (except for the remarks about Nikolai Demidenko, as I've never heard of him before).

And the most unfortunate problem with Medtner's popularity (or lack thereof) I experienced first hand when I casually listened to Hamelin's recording of the Sonata-Triad, Op.11 for the first time. I found the music "unremarkable" and didn't even consider it again for a year or 2. But this year has been a busy one for me in regards to discovering (un/little)-known composers, including Feinberg, Busoni, Medtner, several other Russians, and particularly the great Scottsman Erik Chisholm, whose sheet music is very hard to obtain, and very expensive when you can.

But back to Medtner. A friend of mine knows Marc-Andre Hamelin personally (as well as Fredrik Ullen, Carlos Grante, Sorabji (near the end of his life) and many other influential composers and performers), so when he suggests I try listening to an unfamiliar composer/work, I pay attention. And when he told me that, when asked by Hamelin what one piece of music he'd take to the moon/desert island, my friend said Medtner's Op.25/2 "The Night Wind" sonata (which Hamelin had just released). So that inspired me to find out what was in this music that I never heard before. And with repeat auditions it all began to make wonderful sense, and now I have no problem accessing a new Medtner work, because I've learned how to crack the shell of complexity that keeps the true beauty of the music hidden from most casual listeners. This really, unfortunately, seems to be music for pianists far more than general audiences. Despite the high degree of perfectionism in every work ("every piece is absolutely perfect" as my friend emphasized), the elements that make music memorable, and ultimately popular, such as lyricism, powerful harmonies and rhythms, etc. are generally tightly confined in Medtner's works. And until one grasps this concept, the music will remain heard, yet "undiscovered". And when you realize that one of Medtner's closest musical rivals at the time was Rachmaninoff, who's music rarely lacks all the aforementioned elements, it's no wonder which one was more popular. Like it or not, Rachy's melodies and harmonies are right there in your face (ears  ). So who's music is the public going to remember, discuss, share (through performance, as the recording era was just getting started)? I doubt even now, as in the 1920's, no one attending a Medtner recital would remember any particularly beautiful tune or heart-tugging harmony once they went home. They may recall the music being difficult, sometimes quite technically brilliant, etc. but they would hardly have discovered what they had been listening to, and for many, never would. And as you observe, in these days of urgently needing to text someone, or follow the insipid masses on Twitter, or decide which of the 1000 TV channels to watch tonight, who but a serious pianist or devoted music lover is going to take that extra bit of time to crack the shell that hides the wonders within?

Celebrating lamentations, I remain 
Lontano

PS: I have a friend with a 17-year old son, who recently reported that he had made 7,000 text messages in one fairly average month. Fortunately his dad pays for a plan that has no limits for texting. He has a 20-something daughter who has a friend in Canada (we're in the US) who has to pay long-distance charges for all her text messages to a foreign country. Hey! I may be getting older, but not stupider (I hope). What the hell is going on these days? The collective cell phone designers and service providers have created, in a very short time, something that has suddenly become a critically urgent need for millions of people, who just a very few years ago never had, nor really needed; today, despite the great recession, paying for texting on your cell phone seems to be the last thing most younger people would choose to give up.

Brilliant!!!

[sorcerer88]

i think medtner's difficulty and (non-)accessability has been overexaggerated in this thread and i as an average amateur find a lot of Medtner's pieces immediately captivating and stunning! and many of these are playable starting from an intermediate skill level, as my recordings show

some pieces i find unforgettable, accessible and playable:
Tale (Skazki) Op. 20 No 1 - incredibly powerful
Tale Op. 26 No 1 - Very melodious, probably not too difficult once you're comfortable with the hands playing different "speeds" (what's the term for that?) against each other

and especially nearly all of the Forgotten Melodies "collections" Op. 38, 39, 40, like:
Forgotten Melodies Op. 38 No 6 - Canzona Serenata - beautiful, simple melodies, my YT recording

[slow_concert_pianist]

Confucious say Medtner easy same oil water.

However as with any other composer, if you can zone into his "idiosyncrasies" it will give you a headstart on the "given" difficultly. The 1st movement of his Sonata Romantica (Op 53 no 1) for me is very "doable" as it is no harder than any mid range Beethoven Sonata.

[horowitzian]

From the perspective of an amateur listener who doesn't know the massive technique that went into composing Medtner's music, I think there is a lot to like!  There are rhapsodic, long melodies, and sometimes exciting, easily graspable rhythms.  But on the other hand, the music is loaded with details.  in some ways, I reluctantly feel, overloaded.

Oftentimes the voices are so plentiful and crowded in with each other, that I can't imagine an audience really appreciating all of them, and have rarely if ever heard a pianist who was able to bring them all out - not even Medtner.  In his recording of op.39 no.5 Sonata tragica, when he gets to the "Canzona matinata" theme in g minor, you cannot hear the syncopated voices hidden in the left hand harmony, which he so carefully notated.  I didn't hear them in recordings of Wild or Berezovsky either.  I wonder if he notated them in the way he did, for the sake of the pianist, but was not worried about them as a melody in the performance?

Medtner had a lot of subtle tricks like that, using motives in the most unexpected ways.  Take op.20 no.2 for instance.  When the right hand thumb starts the main theme, it is a long melody - in fact, it's divisible into 2 parts.  When he repeats it an octave higher, he compresses it, and hides the second part of the melody in the second thirty-second note of every eighth note beat.  Can an audience really hear that?  Can a pianist really adequately bring it out (he did put accents on it)?

These are stumbling blocks to a real enjoyment of his music.  From what I have gathered of reading about him, his personality sounds unpleasant.  He was hermetic, and had a bit of superiority complex towards what he believed was the only true and valid way of composing.  He is often described as being a friend of Rachmaninoff, but the fact is he said about his friend that he "prostituted himself."  That is just not something I would say about a friend, even if I disagreed with what he was doing.  

Perhaps this unpleasantness manifested itself in the music as thorns on a rose.  At the core there is a stunning, perfectly proportional beauty, and yet to try and grab it all at once is to suffer the sting of the thorn.

By the way, another piece you might want to look at as not being that difficult is op.51 no.2.

Just some thoughts.

Walter Ramsey

A lot of good points here. It really is a shame that Horowitz did not record more Medtner. He knew virtually all of his music, yet only recorded Op. 51 No. 3. If there ever was a pianist suited to the complexity of Medtner, it has to be Horowitz.

[gorman]

You might want to look at op.26 no.1

I cut my teeth with Fairy Tale Op. 26 no. 3 - definitely playable (about grade 7 level) and easier on the ear than his others.

=4m

[diomedes]

Medtner is a closed door for anyone that isn't both intrepid and very disciplined.

I played a part of the sonata Ballade, sonata tragica and the a minor tragedy fragment. Only the latter one I recorded.

His music fits beautifully to the hands even with such density of material, but the density is the problem still. You need a mature musicians mind and the ability to control such a wealth of music to play it in stride.

I'd suggest the a minor tragedy fragment, it's so beautifully written and despite it being frankly advanced it's more approachable than most of his music.

I'd say medtner is even more a closed door to amateurs than even Rachmaninov and Scriabin. It's sad to say but very true and one reason why he hasn't achieved even marginal popularity. Which is a shame since he was one of the greatest.

Oh and I belong to the category of listeners that promote the Medtner recordings of Geoffrey Tozer. His work was much more fiercely dedicated than that of both Hamelin and Milne.

[nw746]

I'm roughly grade 8 in repertoire and grade 5 in scales/arpeggios, but I've been putting some time into the Danza fiorata op. 40 no. 3 and find it helps a lot with some of the things I'm trying to work on (left hand mostly). A lot of the shorter pieces seem to be of a similar level of difficulty and would be accessible to me if I put the effort in—I chose it mostly because the Op. 40 set is so rarely played.

The sonata-ballade & sonata minacciosa are both on my bucket list to learn once my technique is better.

[toughbo]

Agreed on Tozer, Diomedes 

[visitor]

Medtner is a closed door for anyone that isn't both intrepid and very disciplined.

I played a part of the sonata Ballade, sonata tragica and the a minor tragedy fragment. Only the latter one I recorded.

His music fits beautifully to the hands even with such density of material, but the density is the problem still. You need a mature musicians mind and the ability to control such a wealth of music to play it in stride.

I'd suggest the a minor tragedy fragment, it's so beautifully written and despite it being frankly advanced it's more approachable than most of his music.

I'd say medtner is even more a closed door to amateurs than even Rachmaninov and Scriabin. It's sad to say but very true and one reason why he hasn't achieved even marginal popularity. Which is a shame since he was one of the greatest.

Oh and I belong to the category of listeners that promote the Medtner recordings of Geoffrey Tozer. His work was much more fiercely dedicated than that of both Hamelin and Milne.

agreed on all your points!
Medtner is incredibly deep, you can spend months on a piece and one day in practice, new hidden melodies, counter melodies, retrograde inversions, you name it, they'll pop out even though you never knew they were there, and you would miss them if you didn't spend enough time on the work.

i was assigned a piece and almost finished it before a bit of a lessons break, i'm sure i'll find stuff i missed the first time around when i go back to re learn and finish it off.

more Medtner discussions and threads always welcome :-0

[david_w]

I am an "old" member of pianostreet.com - and just renewed my membership for the sake of this discussion and others on Medtner.   I fell in love with the op. 5 sonata upon watching Lucas Debargue perform it in the Tchaikovsky competition in June of 2015.  Here is the link if I can make it work

https://tch15.medici.tv/en/performance/round-round-2-piano-2015-06-21-2130000300-great-ha

It was extraordinary.   If you've not heard it, it's worth a listen.  The same performance is also on Youtube.   So with Mr. Debargue's grand introduction to the world of Medtner I went on a journey of listening to a couple of his Sonatas.   My favorites are op. 5 and the Night Wind -op 25 no. 2.   I've not been practicing regularly for several years, but started to learn op. 5 a while back (about a year ago), taking it slow and being patient with the process.  It is stacked full of complexities for sure (and reminds me of the Prokofiev 6th in many ways -which i performed on my Sr. recital on college-back in the 80s) and some of things you would think would be easy are not at all.   The Third movement is unbelievably difficult and I still am just working out the harmonies/notes.   And the legato line in the second movement left hand is cause for more finger switches than I've ever known in such a short piece - but it works and is doable.  I'm going back to my coach of many years ago to see if I can move forward with the piece in a more consistent pace.   I've played/performed many large works before, but because of work schedule and life generally, sometimes it takes a while.   

After spending so much time working on the op. 5 I feel compelled to finish it.   At the same time, part of me wants to switch to the Night Wind - which I'm also in love with.  It's not as accessible for the listener and I had to listen to it several times before I fully appreciated its genius - but I believe it would be fun to learn. 

[beethovenfan01]

Well as I am a huge fan of late-romantic Russian music, after reading this thread I decided to go and listen to Medtner's Sonata Romantica. I enjoy it about as much as I do any of Scriabin's sonatas, or Rachmaninoff's 2nd Sonata.

But they are insanely complex--and just from listening to it, I can guess that the sheet music is incredibly dense and the technique required insane. I can certainly say that I have several more years before I will be able to play Medtner's music with any kind of artistry and justice.

That said, my list of pieces that I want to learn has just grown quite a bit ...

[pianoworthy]

Medtner writes for the ergonomics of the hand rather well. I have never played another composer that fit with the hands better than Medtner. There's absolutely no awkwardness with the hands whatsoever, it's almost uncanny. His music is fully orchestral, complex and wonderful, but everything lies right in the hands.

[ca88313]

.

[jeffkonkol]

Of the skazi I've played opus 26 no 4 and 20 no 1.  Of the two, 26 no 4 was much easier, but certainly not easy by any stretch.

I find the writing incredibly dense.  The rhythms are quite complicated and the voicing is more involved, at least from my perspective, than Scriabin.

To me, working on Medtner felt a lot like working on a fugue.  I needed to approach each line as having multiple themes and really concentrate on clear entries of those themes.

[ca88313]

.

[pianoworthy]

Listening to Medtner in Midi format brings out some surprisingly jazzy elements to the chord structure!

[visitor]

Listening to Medtner in Midi format brings out some surprisingly jazzy elements to the chord structure!

Medtner's idiom crosses over into Jazzy
did some work on this over the summer and had to set down when life got hectic but working through it again now, cannot wait to have this down, the piece is a blast, it's not 'easier' by any means, but oh soooooooooooo good.
Has a "Georgian" folk music like feel along w splices of Jazzy-ish panache here and there

[ca88313]

.