Hamelin and Howard on the most difficult piano piece they have played.

[presto agitato]

When I met Marc Andre Hamelin (he has recorded the most difficult woks of Alkan, Albeniz, and Godowsky) I asked him about the most difficult piece he had played. His answer was convincing: “It’s a tie between Reger’s variations on a theme by Bach and Scriabin’s late sonatas” he said.

When I talked to Leslie Howard (he has recorded the complete works of Liszt) I asked him about the most difficult piece he had played. His answer was convincing: “Beethoven’s Hammerklavier by far” he said.

Opinions??

[sevencircles]

When I met Marc Andre Hamelin (he has recorded the most difficult woks of Alkan, Albeniz, and Godowsky) I asked him about the most difficult piece he had played. His answer was convincing: “It’s a tie between Reger’s variations on a theme by Bach and Scriabin’s late sonatas” he said.

When I talked to Leslie Howard (he has recorded the complete works of Liszt) I asked him about the most difficult piece he had played. His answer was convincing: “Beethoven’s Hammerklavier by far” he said.

Opinions??

I think many people would find Hamelin´s own etude´s tougher and some of the Godowsky pieces harder to play uptempo then the Reger and Scriabin pieces but I understand his opinions.

I am bit surprised that Howard said that Hammerklavier was the toughest. His repertoire is incredible. only Ian Pace can be compared to him when it comes to a vast and demanding repertoire.

[nyiregyhazi]

only Ian Pace can be compared to him when it comes to a vast and demanding repertoire.

How can you seriously compare someone who plays virtually nothing but modern repertoire? Firstly, it's anyone's guess how accurately such music is performed. You can't judge it unless you know it intimately. Even then, they can get away with a hell of a lot more than somebody who plays a large repertoire of tonal music. Secondly, there are absolutely loads of specialists who play reams of modern repertoire. I'm not saying he necessarily isn't uniquely talented, but I don't know of any real evidence that would make him stand out from all the others- including Jonathan Powell.

[ahinton]

How can you seriously compare someone who plays virtually nothing but modern repertoire? Firstly, it's anyone's guess how accurately such music is performed. You can't judge it unless you know it intimately. Even then, they can get away with a hell of a lot more than somebody who plays a large repertoire of tonal music. Secondly, there are absolutely loads of specialists who play reams of modern repertoire. I'm not saying he necessarily isn't uniquely talented, but I don't know of any real evidence that would make him stand out from all the others- including Jonathan Powell.

A good point but one that needs a little expansion, I think. Mr Pace does indeed play works other than those that could be categorised as "modern" repertoire and, indeed, I have heard him do so; I accept, however, that it is for the performance of quite a wide variety of contemporary repertoire that he is best known. I do not entirely accept your contention that you "can't judge it unless you know it intimately" because, if you can read music and follow Mr Pace's (or indeed anyone else's) performance with a score (not that you'd necessarily have to do this), you could at least get some idea of the textual accuracy of his (or anyone else's) performances. People who play some of the more challenging of contemporary repertoire (and not just pianists, of course) might indeed "get away with" all manner of things provided that they're not performing in front of people who can read scores; the English soprano Jane Manning, who has been respected internationally for her performances of contemporary vocal repertoire for some half century, would agree with you - she told me many years ago that some of the less talented singers who try to make a career for themselves out of specialising in contemporary music performance would be shown up for what they are if they have to sing Mozart and Handel (she added that if you can't sing those two composers you can't be guaranteed to be able to sing well anything  that's worth singing).

Personally, I am very impressed with Mr Pace's facility in terms of general digital dexterity, hand/eye/brain co-ordination and signth-performing ability but sadly far less so with him as a performer in other departments; for example, I once heard him play Turandots Frauengemach from the Busoni Elegien and I found it quite alarmingly empty and unengaging. Jonathan Powell, on the other hand, seems to have performed a good deal more non-contemporary repertoire in public and, having heard him in Chopin (albeit only some of the composer's late works), Alkan, Rakhmaninov, Skryabin, Granados, Albeniz and others, there is ample evidence that he can hold his won in this repertoire and his attitude towards the most obviously demanding music that he's performed - some of Sorabji's works (indeed far more of them than any pianist in history) - that it's simply a matter of quantity rathe than difficulty per se - has held him in very good stead when presenting it.

Sorabji's Concerto per suonare de me solo, whilst by no means one of the composer's larger works, is an absolute killer in terms of physical and mental stamina, co-ordination and demands on the reflexes, yet Jonathan Powell plays it as though it's the kind of repertoire that pianists play because it's there and it's important like Chopin, Liszt, Alkan et al.

Best,

Alistair

[nyiregyhazi]

"A good point but one that needs a little expansion, I think. Mr Pace does indeed play works other than those that could be categorised as "modern" repertoire and, indeed, I have heard him do so; I accept, however, that it is for the performance of quite a wide variety of contemporary repertoire that he is best known."

Sure, I'm not implying that he plays nothing else. I just found it a bit odd to select someone who clearly specialises primarily in modern repertoire.


"I do not entirely accept your contention that you "can't judge it unless you know it intimately" because, if you can read music and follow Mr Pace's (or indeed anyone else's) performance with a score (not that you'd necessarily have to do this), you could at least get some idea of the textual accuracy of his (or anyone else's) performances."

Well, for somebody with a fantastic inner ear and extremely good reading skills it's possible to get some idea. But even then, how easy is it to keep up with fine details? I know Messiaen is said to have been able to hear a wrong note in the densest passages, but plenty of extremely capable musicians would have a hard time picking out fistfuls of them. I'm not suggesting Pace is therefore anything less than precise- but it's a lot easier to be certain that somebody really knows a work inside out when they play a Beethoven Sonata. I'd never feel comfortable equating someone with a large twentieth century repertoire with someone who has a huge repertoire of tonal music.

[sordel]

The only recording by Pace that I own is the Finnissy Verdi Transcriptions etc. and I must confess that I find it a poor basis for a comparison with Leslie Howard. That said, although Howard's repertoire in Liszt is (obviously) phenomenal, I have not really read a lot of people praising his performances. It's more usual to read of their being insufficiently exciting. While, therefore, he is a very eminent performer, he's not the first pianist I would go to for an authoritative comment on difficulty.

Hamelin, on the other hand, is clearly the person to ask, since his entire career seems to be based on performing demanding repertoire. The only problem is: he may have deliberately given unusual answers to the question of which pieces he found to be the most difficult. I would have been very surprised had he simply said, for example, "Islamey". The Reger is recherche and the Scriabin rarely mentioned in this context ... so there's a chance that he was aiming for the interesting answer to a question that he must have been asked many, many times.

[sevencircles]

The only recording by Pace that I own is the Finnissy Verdi Transcriptions etc. and I must confess that I find it a poor basis for a comparison with Leslie Howard. That said, although Howard's repertoire in Liszt is (obviously) phenomenal, I have not really read a lot of people praising his performances. It's more usual to read of their being insufficiently exciting.

Both Pace and Howard are 2 pianists I would like to hear more from. I have heard that they are  greatest quicklearners currently active, Howard is a superimproviser and that Pace can play Comme Le Vente at the tempo Alkan suggested and play it it clean etc.

I don´t know if it´s true but I am somehow doubtful about the repertoire Pace has on his page. I can imagine that he can play all these pieces at a slow tempo but hardly all of them uptempo.