Which composer's works comes easier to you?

[cadenza14224]

Thought it would be fun to discuss: Which composer's works come easier to you and why?

For me, it was difficult to discern. I'm a typical hardcore Romantic-Era fan, so I was exposed to a to a ton of Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Liszt (my three faves). I've played repertoire by each of them, and have enjoyed them all very much. However I always seemed to pick up Rachmaninoff much more easier than the other two.

I used to think Chopin came to me easy; I played through a few of the moderately difficult Preludes, a TON of the waltzes (my first Chopin piece ever was Op. 69 no. 2), gave etude op. 25 no. 1 a shot. But listening to pro-recordings would dishearten me a ton...it's like a heinous crime to play Chopin for me if you can't bring out the voices correctly; I felt really guilty learning his pieces, but making them sound like mush...so I gave him a break.

I tried Liszt, though I'm not exactly technically proficient. Obviously did some "easier" pieces like the Consolation no. 3 and Transcendental Etude No. 3 (before you judge me for calling it "easier", I practiced my ass off 3 months to complete this piece). But Liszt was always kind of hard to like "musically"...and like I mentioned above...I would only pick up his music VERY SLOWLY.

I happened to pass over the op. 23 preludes by Rachmaninoff one day on youtube, and fell in love with No. 4 (D Major). Before this I hadn't came close to touching his music, because I was scared of all the hooplah around his works and how they're so difficult both technically and musically, and basically you have to be a piano god to play anything by him. Watching a kid play op. 23 no. 5 back in high school added to that fear as well.

But I loved no. 4 way too much not to give it a run for a money so I did. Alas, a month later, an hour of practice a day, and a few modifications to accommodate my medium sized fingers, it came to me, and at a pretty good performance level. So out of curiosity of how far I could go, I looked at his other works: finished Op. 3 no. 2 within a couple weeks sounding really good (IMO), finished Op. 3 no. 1 a couple weeks after that, Jammed out op 23. no 6 sounding okay after a good month, and now it's time to take a shot at op. 23 no 5 finally.   

I'm not exactly sure as to why his music comes to me easier; I think it's more of the emotional connection with the music. I'm a HUGE SAP for those passionate and dramatic melodies, so I guess his music came easier cause I was actually enjoying/connecting the pieces I chose. Plus I think its easier being able to mess around with lush chordal melodies rather than worrying to play long single-noted melodic lines as found in Chopin and Liszt.

But that's my story. Probably not the greatest of analyses, but it's just my theory to why I pick up Rach better than the others. How about you?

[williampiano]

I'd say Prokofiev's music comes easier to me than most other composers. I learned his March and Gavotte from Ten Pieces op. 12 last summer and they came pretty easily to me, without too much work. That's probably because he is one of my favorite composers and I usually play pieces better when I like them a lot.

[ted]

That's easy, everybody's is difficult for me. I've painted myself into an interpretational corner through four decades of improvisation to the point that I have a wrestling match with anything. It all turns out like Ted's improvisation using someone else's notes. Those I can play I probably overcome by inertia because my conception of the music is so bizarrely individual that any intentions of the composer are lost in a sort of twee, plastic, gimcrack mobile of the original; like Shakespeare recited by William McGonagall

I'm pretty happy musically, I'm not complaining. The thread question just shocked me because I suddenly realised that my scrupulously honest answer has to be none at all.

[ajspiano]

The thread question just shocked me because I suddenly realised that my scrupulously honest answer has to be none at all.

Either that or the answer is "my own works" - which would be my answer also.

If we are to exclude that option, I'm personally more at home in anything that is jazz/swing/rock/pop in terms of how easy it is to immediately feel and play, but I don't find classical works difficult.

[49410enrique]

pretty much anything after this is a struggle for me  , nothing seems to ever be easy when i sit down at the piano

[zezhyrule]

Pretty much anything by Liszt.

...oh wait wrong thread


Um... I'll go with what the above post said. There's no one composer for me, since they each have pieces that vary greatly in different ways.

[revanyoda777]

For me Mozart and Chopin are the most difficult to make sound good. Bach just comes naturally if you play the right tempo and dynamics (which is very difficult anyway) but the two mentioned above require an impeccable singing tone, and an oftentimes otherworldly soft touch which is very hard to pull off. I would say Bach and Beethoven come a little bit more easily for me, but like the above poster said, NOTHING at the piano cames easy, it is all hard work and there are no shortcuts.

[Derek]

The only composer whose pieces I've learned that I've ever felt even remotely close to mastering is Beethoven. But even that I think is far below what most contemporary music schools would consider top notch. I don't know why this is; my guess is I heard a lot of his music when I was little.

Come to think of it, the times I remember putting in the most effort learning pieces was Beethoven. The effort I put forth there dwarfs any other composer. So it probably isn't that his music comes easier to me so much as that he's one of the only composer whose music "seduces" me into practicing it a lot. Everyone else feels like a drag by comparison. (speaking exclusively of dead people, here)

But, putting things in perspective, even when I did practice a lot, it still elicited questions from my piano teachers about how much I have been practicing, etc.  In other words, I never really had anything special in terms of physical ability at the piano.

The only other music which "comes easily" to me is: improvisation, boogie woogie, and video game soundtracks.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Scriabin, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and Liszt.

Beethoven and Liszt I are easy for me probably because I do Czerny.  Beethoven taught Czerny, and Czerny taught Liszt.

I don't know why Rachmaninoff and Scriabin are my affinities though.

[j_menz]

I find that composers are "easier" when they make more musical sense to me. That is to say, the better the idea I have of what a piece ought to sound like, the more comfortable I am playing it.  I find it rather disconcerting to be sitting there banging  away at the keys not having a clue what is going on and what I am supposed to be achieving.  For an individual composer, that may mean that their comfort level changes over time, either because I come to some understanding of them, or because I find that my understanding was inadequate and I become more uncertain about them.

[6joel53]

Chopin and Debussy for me.

[teccomin]

Ravel and Liszt are very comfortable on the fingers. Its surprising because they are also known to write the hardest music.
Chopin and Debussy are very complex, but extremely rewarding to play because of the depth of their music.
Beethoven and Prokofiev are awkward to play, and makes your fingers tire. Prokofiev writes some very awkward runs which conventional fingering technique doesn't work.
Schumann is extremely awkward to play..

[music_doctor]

Clementi or Kuhla.
Their pieces have easy, fun runs espescially in their sonatinas.

[thorn]

I have a particular affinity for Takemitsu.

Probably a result of my love of Debussy/Ravel/Messiaen paired with my great interest in Japanese culture/traditional music. It's hard to describe... there's a very particular concept of space in Takemitsu that speaks to me?

I would kind of switch what teccomin said around. For me, Chopin and Debussy are very comfortable on the fingers because they wrote "for" the piano. Liszt and Ravel, again in my opinion, never allowed the piano to be a piano, they wanted it to be an entire orchestra. I think that's why it's more "difficult" to find "depth" in their piano music.

[natalyaturetskii]

For me, I'd probably say that it was Rachmaninov and Ravel. I suppose its because I listen to their works a lot and that makes it easier for me to understand their music.

Natalya

[sophie117]

In terms of learning the notes - Liszt! the straightforward brainless writing makes it easy. Schumann is perhaps the easiest to understand but the awkward writing is absolute torture.

[deni1311]

I think Liszt's... It's really easy to memorize (at least the few things I play). Then perhaps Chopin too... the hand feels very comfortable 

[steviesteps]

Haydn, Bach and Scarlatti all feel natural to me but I presume that's to their credit not mine.  I know Beethoven's writing is supposed to be pianistic but I find almost all of it awkward and hard to make music of, more so than Mozart and Schubert, but that's probably my fault.  Brahms is great to play and so is Debussy but any of the more florid moments in Chopin, why oh why!

[pianist1976]

Burgmüller

[p2u_]

Which composer's works come easier to you and why?

Liszt's. Always easy and very logical hand positions, as could be expected from such a piano virtuoso.

Paul