How much music does a professional need to know?

[Bob]

Just wondering.  All of a composer's works?  Or familiarity with all of them, an opinion on them all?

[richard black]

Well..... what do you mean by 'professional', and what do you mean by 'know'? A solo concert pianist needs as a minimum a few recital programmes and a handful of concerti, but even there it depends what sort of work you do. A concert pianist friend of mine is about to go on a cruise as the resident pianist and has to take 6 (or was it even 8?) concert programmes, each of 45 minutes, memorised. That's quite a lot of music.

I'm a jobbing accompanist and repetiteur, so I naturally know a lot of music. But it's not so much what I 'need to know' to do the job - I'm a good sight-reader and quick learner (otherwise I wouldn't have ended up in this line of work) so I tend to learn what I'm asked to learn. Of course it helps that I now have a repertoire list as long as my arm (actually quite a lot longer), but on one hand some of the pieces on it I would now practically have to re-learn from scratch, and on the other hand if someone were to phone me right now and ask me to accompany, say, a violin concerto, or some songs, or an opera - something I haven't played before - tomorrow I would say yes (unless it was a prestigious public concert or similar) because I know I'll busk it OK.

Of course in any line of work you really can't know too much stuff!

[Bob]

Yeah, right after I posted I was thinking this question was pretty vague.

There would be a repertoire and the ability to learn music quickly.

I'm not exactly what I'm wondering.... It's something about the amount of repertoire and how fast you need to be able to learn it.  If you've got five pieces... The audience hears them... I would think it would be "so what?" after awhile.  But maybe five major pieces a year?  That would add up.

[richard black]

If it helps, a friend who's a pianist with a pretty good international solo career has at least 50 concertos in his repertoire (we counted them up one evening in a restaurant to compensate for the exceptionally slow service). I've never asked him about recital repertoire but I know for sure he's got at least a dozen complete recitals pretty much ready to go, and he's done a fair bit of chamber music to my certain knowledge. He's in his early 40s so not stopped adding to the list yet.

[minor9th]

If you are Martha Agerich, just three or four pieces...total! *Dodges various projectiles  

[rachfan]

I would think that if a young professional were starting in his/her career, probably six recital programs and four concertos would suffice as a beginning.  To appeal to the widest audiences, the recital programs should probably encompass the major periods--Baroque, Viennese Classical, Romantic, Impressionsitic, Late Romantic, and Contemporary.  More repertoire could then be added to that foundation over time. 

[invictious]

Just need a few pieces you can work up to performing standard really quickly on some notice.

For me?

None. Can't play much when put on the spot without preparation.

I'm not a professional pianist 

[richard black]

If you are Martha Agerich, just three or four pieces...total! *Dodges various projectiles  

Since she's famously one of the quickest learners on the planet, her repertoire is actually vast. The fact that she _chooses_ to play a relatively small list of pieces these days doesn't detract from that. But point made - at that level, you don't need a vast repertoire.

[m2r]

You could consider "profesionals" such as Glenn Gould who more specifically performed Bach or even Rubinstien who played Chopin.  It's completely dependant on the performers preferences.

[gyzzzmo]

the worse your talent, the more you have to learn about other music.