Mendelssohn's first piano concerto or the second?

[inespere]

Which do you prefer, which one do you think is more technically different (for what reasons) and which do you think is more difficult musically?

[lorditachijr]

I personally prefer the 2nd. I think the 1st is played more often, but in my opinion it is not as beautiful as the 2nd; the 2nd has a darker feel to it. I think that the 2nd is technically more difficult than the 1st because it requires a wider variety of technique, but they are fairly close in difficulty and I think that if you could handle one you could handle the other. I couldn't really talk about the musical difficulties of the 1st because I've never played it. The 2nd is musically difficult in the fact that everything has to be planned out. You have to be sensitive to every single phrase, and they all have to work cohesively to make musical sense. I would think that the 1st would share these same difficulties. They are both great concertos in my opinion, but the 2nd one just holds something special for me.

John

[lorditachijr]

Sorry to comment again on this thread, but recently I've had to learn the 1st for a Concerto Competition (with an extremely small list of accepted repertoire  ). Musically, I again say that the 2nd is more difficult. The phrasing in the 1st is fairly straight-forward. I think the challenge is to create an original interpretation. As long as you're octaves are okay and you can handle fast finger-work, you should be able to handle either of these concertos. They really aren't that difficult.