Advice on contemporary piano music

[franz_]

Hi guys,

I need to play 30 minutes of contemporary music on my piano exam. As I'm not a huge fan of contemporary piano music I'm not so familiar with the repertoire.
Honnestly said, I want some music that isn't too hard to learn, and preferably with at least some nice effect and forte's here and there. I can use scores on the exam.
I know and like composers as Kapustin, but that doesn't count as contemporary music for the exam....

Thanks!

[sordel]

Take a look here for some suggestions of the repertoire 1945-2000: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=42120.0

Which level of exam are you sitting? If you're advanced, then "The Housewife's Lament" (12 mins) by Rzewski is a work worth looking at: it's a very scaled-back theme & variations work so it lets you show off quite a lot of technique in a small bundle. I don't think it's anywhere near as difficult as his most famous works, although it gets a bit gnarly at the end.

I guess you will know already whether you want to do Messiaen, but I'd normally suggest some for a pianist who wants to perform some contemporary piano music that is obviously valuable.

[pianoman53]

You could also play (from) Rzewski 4 pieces.
They are not really my cup of tea, but they aren't strange as some other contemporary might seem to be.

Or John Adams - Phrygain Gates. 25 minutes

[sordel]

You could also play (from) Rzewski 4 pieces. [...} Or John Adams - Phrygain Gates. 25 minutes

If you mean North American Ballads, it's longer than thirty minutes and tougher overall than The Housewife's Lament. I think that Phrygian Gates would be a bad choice because it takes up nearly the full half hour with a piece that examiners may not feel meets enough performance criteria. "China Gates" is a lot shorter (five minutes) and, if you like it, would do the same job for examination purposes.

[pianoman53]

Nope, I mean Four pieces. But maybe it's a bad choise, since then couldn't play all of them? I don't know, cause I've seen some performances of contemporary music where the performer says something like "I only play half the piece, but it works just as fine...". But maybe their just bad examples? Anyway, as I said, contemporary music isn't my forte, so I just namedrop whatever I come up with...

[retrouvailles]

There have been TONS of threads created on this subject. Just go through the Repertoire forum and have a look.

[ahinton]

There have been TONS of threads created on this subject. Just go through the Repertoire forum and have a look.

Indeed there have - and some of them call into question what is supposedly meant by the term "contemporary music". It's a valid point and it is important for each person wanting to prepare some contemporary music to know first what that term means to them, i.e. does it mean music by living composers only or does it mean music composed since whatever date each person might choose as a start date for that definition. It's worth noting why such considerations are important; two reasons are (a) a piece of music might have been written only recently by a composer who has died since and (b) another piece might have been written many years ago by a composer who is still alive (such as Elliott Carter's piano sonata, completed some 65 years ago).

Best,

Alistair

[prok_2]

You should maybe have a look at some of Rautavaara's piano works - I played his second piano sonata which is quite difficult but there are easier works such as the icons and these works are not that obscure so I'm sure you'll enjoy playing them

Hope that helps...