World's hardest piece?

[JCarey]

My cat does wonderful atonal stuff.

What the hell does this have to do with the topic?

Only a slight digression.  A pianist named Daan Vandewalle lists both the Opus Clavicembalisticum and the Cogluotobusisletmesi in his repetoire.
His rep is listed at:
https://www.daanvandewalle.com/repertoire.html

Has anyone heard him perform, and care to comment?

I've heard good things about him, but unfortunately, I haven't heard him myself. Has he released any recordings?

[sevencircles]

Actually I have a serious question on Finnissy and the New Complexity school as a whole. A lot has been said about the complexity of the work and I realize I am very ignorant and unknowledgeable about its exact nature. How do Finnissy and similar composers manufacture these pieces? How do they choose exactly what each note will be, and how much would be lost by changing notes around? The music of a lot of these composers just seems kind of randomly plotted to my ignorant mind and I am curious about this.

some works seems random at first but after you listen to them a few times you understand them.

An example is Boulez 2.

Personally I find Boulez second piano sonata significantly harder to learn then Ravelīs Gaspard or Rachīs Mendelson scherzo, or anything by Liszt!

[andyd]

Interesting thread, I've read through it a couple of times during the last year or so. 

Do you chaps find Mozart/Chopin/Liszt harder or easier than an Art Tatum transcription?

Andy

[anodibu]

What the hell does this have to do with the topic?

I've heard good things about him, but unfortunately, I haven't heard him myself. Has he released any recordings?

Yes, two apparently, one disc with Ives' Concord sonata and some studies and the other (a 4 disc set) with Alvin Curran's Inner Cities. See https://www.daanvandewalle.com/press.html for some press quotes about them.

[panic]

some works seems random at first but after you listen to them a few times you understand them.

An example is Boulez 2.

Well what I'm wondering is, are there actually concrete patterns behind the seemingly randomly arranged outbursts in English Country Tunes (not specifically those pieces, just as an example), or in all the meter changes and placement of notes all over the keyboard in Stockhausen, or works of similar compositional styles?

[sevencircles]

Well what I'm wondering is, are there actually concrete patterns behind the seemingly randomly arranged outbursts in English Country Tunes

I havenīt found any pattern but then again I havenīt listened very closely.

I doubt that they can be compared to  Boulez or Webern though.

[narsil26]

Hmm....How about Liszt's Transcendental Etudes?

[lostinidlewonder]

There is order in all music, even bizzare sounding ones like Finnissy's English Country Tunes have pattern, and if you listen to it more enough you learn to anticipate particular sounds. After listening to it maybe for a few months you will realise different parts of the music, larger chunks of the score become one body of sound instead of confused mess to our ears. We are very impatient creatures, we all want to understand things straight away, have everything quick and accessible. But with music that explores the boundaries outside of "traditional" writing we must listen to it with much more attention and time. Most people don't care for this and simply dismiss "difficult" to listen to music, and I don't blame them. It sounds like noise to the untrained ear, we have to learn how to listen to unusual music and change what we listen for to fully appreciate it, most people don't have that time to give.

I still don't think the worlds hardest piano piece has been composed. I could imagine at the keyboard we have worked out the hardest things to possibly do but I think it would be really interesting if some actual technique was developed for plucking strings of the piano with the fingers. I could imagine how insane it would be to see someone play something like Sorabji and pluck strings to create another sound at the same time. That would be something totally bizzare. Or if a piece was written which required extra body parts to play... that gets the mind going.

[JCarey]

Or if a piece was written which required extra body parts to play... that gets the mind going.

What if someone were to play Sorabji on what would be Sorabji's ideal piano? That would be interesting, to say the least!

[panic]

Never mind, sorry.

[pianowelsh]

When i refered to Boulez i was thinking of the first two sonatas specifically. also the Concord sonata of Ives which is a mammouth piece (all of these are major works written in times 'close' to our own - not merely in date.  They are imbued with difficulties on all levels, technical, musical, spiritual and of course in terms of nomenclature. They are of course only examples of a whole wave of 'challenging' structures to come to us in  the more reccent past - one has to ask who will write the world's next hardest piece for piano (perhaps there should be a pianoforum competition??)

[perfect_pitch]

Brahm's Paganini Variations

As being the hardest piece??? You have to be joking me... Rach 3 is a hell of a lot harder than anything Brahms wrote....

[musicsdarkangel]

My cat does wonderful atonal stuff.

lol

[sevencircles]

Code: [Select]

Rach 3 is a hell of a lot harder than anything Brahms wrote
Anybody that tried to learn Brahms second piano concerto knows that this isnīt correct.

[musicsdarkangel]

Code: [Select]

Rach 3 is a hell of a lot harder than anything Brahms wrote
Anybody that tried to learn Brahms second piano concerto knows that this isnīt correct.

As difficult as the Brahms is; there's no way that this is true.

and yes, I do know people who have played both and agree.

The piano is almost non-stop during the Rach 3, and is always dense in texture, until the third movement when it sounds like its raining notes.

The only person I know who disagrees is Koji (and i'm not even sure if he's played both)

[panic]

In regards to what has been said about the New Complexity school, well, if you have to search for months to figure out any sort of order or pattern beyond randomness, then in my opinion that's a severe failure of the music, not an attribute that makes it more impressive. I understand the value of having to be patient in finding something in the music, but still. If all the substance that's contained it is some far-flung order which you almost have to convince yourself is there before finding any trace of it, then I'm not prepared to view this music as being anything but extremely difficult, of interest only to types who were already previously interested in it, and hardly worth playing. When you take tonality out of music, which I don't have a problem with, I think you need to replace it with something else on musical lines, not just something mathematical. Otherwise you're turning staff paper into graph paper, and losing sight of the entire point of music as divergent from sciences and other forms of expression.

[ahinton]

What if someone were to play Sorabji on what would be Sorabji's ideal piano? That would be interesting, to say the least!

But who's to say that this hasn't arguably occurred already? In later years, Sorabji greatly favoured the best of Bösendorfer 290s and I think that he would have been even more enthusiastic about the best of their more recent examples (provided that they were consistently well maintained); most of the recordings of Sorabji's piano music on the Altarus label use a Bösendorfer 290 - these include Ogdon's OC, Hopkins's Gulistan and all the Powell recordings.

Best,

Alistair

[bflatminor24]

I am growing sick and tired of this whimsical, hippie response that pervades piano forums. I am speaking of the ambiguous, subjectifying response people seem to employ here. "There is no hardest piece, it's subjective, every pianist has his difficulties, Mozart is the hardest, wah wah wah." Grow up. There are certain standards that determine difficulty in piano technique. Granted certain pianists will disagree on which aspect is most difficult, but none will disagree about the scale to which they are difficult.

For example, one pianist might believe fingering is harder than octave leaps, and another might argue visa versa. But the scale to which a piece demands those techniques is undisputed. In terms of the most difficult piece, I am going to take a stance and argue that composers of the New Complexity school, and also Sorabji wrote the hardest music.

Sorabji's music is not only monstrously difficult to play technically, but the pianist must have exceptional analytical ability to decipher the multi-stave, measureless thick writing of Sorabji, while possessing stamina tantamount to its technical demands. Anyone with a stamina capable of enduring four hours of thick and intense piano playing has wordly talent.

Composers of the New Complexity school have a different style from Sorabjis (not as long and thick) but the technical demands are no less daunting. Michael Finnissy, Richard Barrett, Christopher Fox, and Brian Ferneyhough wrote scores few pianists can play.

Lastly, to convey one iota of sympathy for those who argue for Mozart and Chopin's difficulty, my understanding is that this is motivated by the musical demands of the piece, since the melody is so clear that it is the responsibility of the performer to beautifully sing this melody. Nobody plays Finnissy with the same regard for "bringing out the melody" like they do in Chopin. But this does not mean that Sorabji and Finnissy did not intend for their music to have musical difficulty. Perhaps it is just that so few pianists are capable of coming near this music that the music behind the monstrous technical challenges is obscured.

Please, no more "OMG ISLAMEY IS THE HARDEST" or "Mozart is the most difficult." I've heard eight year old children play this Mozart with clarity and perfection. Let us cut the crap.

-Max

[ahinton]

I am growing sick and tired of this whimsical, hippie response that pervades piano forums. I am speaking of the ambiguous, subjectifying response people seem to employ here. "There is no hardest piece, it's subjective, every pianist has his difficulties, Mozart is the hardest, wah wah wah." Grow up. There are certain standards that determine difficulty in piano technique. Granted certain pianists will disagree on which aspect is most difficult, but none will disagree about the scale to which they are difficult.

This is very true; the sheer subjectivity is king here. No two pianists, however gifted, will entirely share the same attitudes about "difficulties" of learning or performance. That said, it is also worth mentioning that much of the kind of discussion we find here omits any mention of the learning factor as distinct from the performing factor - i.e how certain pieces are very difficult to learn but others are just difficult to present.

For example, one pianist might believe fingering is harder than octave leaps, and another might argue visa versa. But the scale to which a piece demands those techniques is undisputed. In terms of the most difficult piece, I am going to take a stance and argue that composers of the New Complexity school, and also Sorabji wrote the hardest music.

I am less inclined to dispute this per se as I am to worry about the extent of its veracity. Were what you suggest here to be true across the board - i.e for all pianists - why do you suppose it is that some pianists just take to this kind of piano writing as though to the manner born and, whilst even they would generally be unlikely to deny the sheer amount of hard work involved in preparation of this piece or that, they have the facility and attitude that determines that they simply get on with preparing whatever it is and then successfully present it.

Sorabji's music is not only monstrously difficult to play technically, but the pianist must have exceptional analytical ability to decipher the multi-stave, measureless thick writing of Sorabji, while possessing stamina tantamount to its technical demands. Anyone with a stamina capable of enduring four hours of thick and intense piano playing has wordly talent.

I assume you to mean "worldly". Some of what you suggest here is right, yet it shouldm, for the sake of balance, be borne in mind that Sorabji did not just sit there thinking "how difficult can I make this piece?". He wrote as he had to - just like Beethoven, Liszt, Alkan, Godowsky and Busoni and - as with all those composers and others - pianists will inevitably come along who are undaunted by this music yet recognise at the same time that much work is necessary to prepare good performances. Jonathan Powell has said of Sorabji's most challenging piano writing that it's not "difficult" except for the sheer amount of events that go on and the number of things that one has to keep in the air for extended periods of time - in other words, it's a matter of frequency of instance, which in turn presumes great and continuous bursts of concentration from the pianist. I cannot argue with him here - he is talking about largely accepted techincal difficulties but in unprecedented volumes of concentration and sustained for unprecedented amounts of time.

Composers of the New Complexity school have a different style from Sorabjis (not as long and thick) but the technical demands are no less daunting. Michael Finnissy, Richard Barrett, Christopher Fox, and Brian Ferneyhough wrote scores few pianists can play.

This is undeniably true - yet where do you suppose that this leaves Sorabji, who had less than no interest in forming, or being part of, any kind of "school" of piano writing or indeed anything else?

Lastly, to convey one iota of sympathy for those who argue for Mozart and Chopin's difficulty, my understanding is that this is motivated by the musical demands of the piece, since the melody is so clear that it is the responsibility of the performer to beautifully sing this melody. Nobody plays Finnissy with the same regard for "bringing out the melody" like they do in Chopin. But this does not mean that Sorabji and Finnissy did not intend for their music to have musical difficulty. Perhaps it is just that so few pianists are capable of coming near this music that the music behind the monstrous technical challenges is obscured.

It's not for me to make out a case for, or argue about, the question of whether or to what extent Finnissy may be seen as having specifically striven to make any of his piano music "difficult" of execution for the sake of so doing more than he strove to express some particular ideas in pianistic terms in his various piano pieces. I can speak for Sorabji to the extent that we had a discussion of this very subject and he claimed that he had not the slightest interest in either complexity or simplicity of expression or presentation for their own respective sakes, as his prime concern was instead to get the ideas down in the most appropriate manner, however complex or simple the manifestation of that desire may from time to time be. "Bringing out the melody" in Chopin may have more necessary parallels in presenting Sorabji's piano music than it does in presenting Finnissy's; I don't want to be dogmatic about this, but Sorabji always saw the piano above all as a singing entity and he greatly and proudly valued its ability, in the right players' hands, to present lines of thought as though they were generated by some kind of breathing, just as a singer would do to sing a phrase. Sorabji was quite obsessed by this - which is why so many of the reviews from his days as a professional critic centered on the singer's art.

Please, no more "OMG ISLAMEY IS THE HARDEST" or "Mozart is the most difficult." I've heard eight year old children play this Mozart with clarity and perfection. Let us cut the crap.

Oh, indeed, PLEASE let us abandon this kind of puerile rubbish! OK, I expect to be shouted down (and perhaps deservedly) here because I am, of my own admission, not a pianist. I have, however, spent many hundreds of hours in the distant past exploring certain aspects of the composer/pianist's art for the hoped-for purpose of being able to divine something about writing intelligently for the instrument, so I have at least some concept of the whole business of "difficulty", even if it does originate from a rather different perspective than that of the real pianist.

As a final salvo here, I would like to offer up the idea that composer/pianists who wrote studies for the piano did not always do so for the sake of proving that they could present something inherently difficult for the sake of so doing - rather they did so for the purpose of recognising, addressing and overcoming specific potential difficulties with w view to helping other pianists to do the same.

Best,

Alistair

[JCarey]

"There is no hardest piece, it's subjective, every pianist has his difficulties, Mozart is the hardest, wah wah wah." Grow up. ... Please, no more "OMG ISLAMEY IS THE HARDEST" or "Mozart is the most difficult." I've heard eight year old children play this Mozart with clarity and perfection. Let us cut the crap.

Thank you! It's about time somebody said this. I'm sick of responses like "Beethoven's Op. 106 Sonata is the hardest piece" by people who seem to be under the impression that anything written after the 19th century isn't worth mentioning. Often their (somewhat childish) argument is, "well, ANYONE can write a piece that sounds like random notes..." or something along those lines. The point is, whether or not Finnissy, Sorabji, etc. sounds like random notes to them, that still has no relevance to the question at hand, which is, "what is the world's hardest piece?"

Sorabji's music is not only monstrously difficult to play technically, but the pianist must have exceptional analytical ability to decipher the multi-stave, measureless thick writing of Sorabji, while possessing stamina tantamount to its technical demands. Anyone with a stamina capable of enduring four hours of thick and intense piano playing has wordly talent.

Absolutely! Unless, of course, your name is Geoffrey Douglas Madge, and your definition of "stamina" is the amount of effort it takes to pound out random clusters of notes in all registers of the piano for four hours... or 5, if you're Ogdon.

Composers of the New Complexity school have a different style from Sorabjis (not as long and thick) but the technical demands are no less daunting. Michael Finnissy, Richard Barrett, Christopher Fox, and Brian Ferneyhough wrote scores few pianists can play.

Also true, but there is another difference between their styles. Sorabji's music is MUCH more conservative than the likes of Finnissy, etc.. While I can hardly see any coherency in some of the works of the so-called "New Complexity" composers, Sorabji seems to make perfect sense in most situations, and beauty often seems to be purely his focus. I often think of Sorabji as Liszt in the 20th century. There is much "dissonance" and use of techniques that are not usually associated with music from the 19th century, however, I tend to think of him as a late romantic/impressionist composer as opposed to a modernist, whereas I would certainly consider the composers of the New Complexity school modernists.

[franzliszt2]

Bach's very first prelude and fugue in C major, man that piece is so hard!!!

[ahinton]

Sorabji's music is MUCH more conservative than the likes of Finnissy, etc.. While I can hardly see any coherency in some of the works of the so-called "New Complexity" composers, Sorabji seems to make perfect sense in most situations, and beauty often seems to be purely his focus. I often think of Sorabji as Liszt in the 20th century. There is much "dissonance" and use of techniques that are not usually associated with music from the 19th century, however, I tend to think of him as a late romantic/impressionist composer as opposed to a modernist, whereas I would certainly consider the composers of the New Complexity school modernists.

One factor that one might reasonably assume to mark out another difference within the so-called "New Complexity" (though it's hardly new now, is it?!) is that Dench, Barrett, Ferneyhough, etc. are not pianists yet Finnissy is; now whether the average listener to the piano music of all of these composers derives any sense that Finnissy's piano music is the product of a pianist's mind whereas that of the others is not is presumably open to question, although I imagine that you own take on this is that you perceive little tangible or identifiable difference of approach, let alone end result. Your view of Sorabji as a kind of 20th century Liszt (or perhaps even more properly Alkan), whilst it cannot hope to cover every aspect of his work, is far from inappropriate; Sorabji indeed saw himself as part of an ongoing tradition of pianism and his respect and love for Liszt, Alkan, Godowsky, Busoni, Rakhmaninov, Skryabin, Medtner and others is, of course, well known. I have grave reservations about the term "modernist" even when, as here, readers will know what is meant by it in the present context (I hold similar "ists" and "isms" in like disregard for the same reason of contempt for the all too widespread pigeon-holing obsession); as Sorabji himself once said, a work that is oh so modern is apt all too soon to become oh so passé. My citing of this here is not intended as a slight against the so-called "New Complexicists" - it is merely an observation that is of far from recent application.

Another aspect of this question is whether certain of the "New Complexicists" write piano (or indeed other) music deliberately for the sake of being difficult; one may argue about this, but Sorabji certainly had no interest in either complexity or simplicity as any kind of means in itself, believing as he did that, for example, one should never write more or less notes than is absolutely necessary to the expression concerned.

Best,

Alistair

[crippledsymmetry]

One factor that one might reasonably assume to mark out another difference within the so-called "New Complexity" (though it's hardly new now, is it?!) is that Dench, Barrett, Ferneyhough, etc. are not pianists yet Finnissy is

Dench is a pianist (or at least, the piano is 'his instrument' -- Barrett & Ferneyhough played guitar and flute respectively).

Another aspect of this question is whether certain of the "New Complexicists" write piano (or indeed other) music deliberately for the sake of being difficult

This moves toward murky waters. What exactly would a piece that was 'difficult for the sake of it' (or 'complex for the sake of it') actually be like? Certainly a piece like 'Tract' is intended to be very hard to play, but this difficulty firmly takes its place as part of the overall expression and 'point' of the piece. It's "difficult" in several senses, and this is important to its identity, maybe even the most important thing -- it's *supposed* to be challenging on several levels to everyone concerned. I've never seen a piece that was interested only in being tricky and dense, without any thought to what's going on beyond 'there's sure lots of notes there', and it seems to me that invariably this kind of criticism is unfair (can you think of any counterexamples?)

best

[ibbar]

Even Beethoven wrote his sonata op. 106 with the intention of being difficult: "keep pianists busy fifty years hence".

The above comment about Tract is correctt:  it is intended, at least in part, to be a study of the pianist's relationship with his instrument, and how gesture and the physical act of performing can be part of the whole concert experience.  This choreographic aspect of much "new complexity" music is why these pieces are best appreciated in live performance.  Tract is also supposed to be dark, oppressive, dense with noise and texture, and I feel that it achieves this end very well.

In an email, Finnissy told me that part of the atmosphere of his piece all.fall.down. was the sense of struggle.  He used tremendous difficulty as a means for forcing the pianist to convey human extremes, thus forcing the performance to go beyond the limits as it were.  One can't "just play the notes" in perfunctory fashion, one must dive into the piece headfirst, and go to the very limit of human performance.  The creation of this tension is at least part of the aim of such pieces.

[thalbergmad]

case CLOSED

[Kassaa]

case CLOSED

Yes, especially when you have to play the piece with accompaniment solo :O .

[ahinton]

Even Beethoven wrote his sonata op. 106 with the intention of being difficult: "keep pianists busy fifty years hence".

Yes, but then he presumably hadn't reckoned on Liszt very soon afterwards wishing to push outwards the accepted and acceptable boundaries of technical accomplishment to the point at which pianists could play that work without any sense of physical or mental strain while so doing.

The above comment about Tract is correctt:  it is intended, at least in part, to be a study of the pianist's relationship with his instrument, and how gesture and the physical act of performing can be part of the whole concert experience.  This choreographic aspect of much "new complexity" music is why these pieces are best appreciated in live performance.  Tract is also supposed to be dark, oppressive, dense with noise and texture, and I feel that it achieves this end very well.

I would go further and claim that all pieces are best appreciated in live performance.

In an email, Finnissy told me that part of the atmosphere of his piece all.fall.down. was the sense of struggle.  He used tremendous difficulty as a means for forcing the pianist to convey human extremes, thus forcing the performance to go beyond the limits as it were.  One can't "just play the notes" in perfunctory fashion, one must dive into the piece headfirst, and go to the very limit of human performance.  The creation of this tension is at least part of the aim of such pieces.

Yes, but the point is the same as for the Beethoven Op. 106; provided that the pianist is already possessed of more than sufficient resources of stamina, reflexes and mental/physical co-ordination to play either piece, that sense of struggle can still be conveyed - indeed conveyed more successfully - without the pianist actually having to endure it him/herself, provided also, of course, that the said pianist has a full mental grasp of the issues involved.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Dench is a pianist (or at least, the piano is 'his instrument' -- Barrett & Ferneyhough played guitar and flute respectively).

By "pianist" in this particular context I meant a pianist of the order of Michael Finnissy, which, with no disrespect intended towards anyone else, Chris Dench is not, nor had he ever pretended to be; he has not, for example, played his own piano music in public (at least to my knowledge) as Michael Finnissy has.

This moves toward murky waters. What exactly would a piece that was 'difficult for the sake of it' (or 'complex for the sake of it') actually be like? Certainly a piece like 'Tract' is intended to be very hard to play, but this difficulty firmly takes its place as part of the overall expression and 'point' of the piece. It's "difficult" in several senses, and this is important to its identity, maybe even the most important thing -- it's *supposed* to be challenging on several levels to everyone concerned. I've never seen a piece that was interested only in being tricky and dense, without any thought to what's going on beyond 'there's sure lots of notes there', and it seems to me that invariably this kind of criticism is unfair (can you think of any counterexamples?)

I am not convinced that this is necessarily in all cases a "criticism" in the pejorative sense, but when a composer writes for the piano with a playing background such as Sorabji and Finnissy had, the "difficulties" they present to their performers will inevitably have been informed by playing experience and, accordingly, a different set of perspectives on the possible and impossible than could be expected from those who do not have transcendental pianistic techniques. It therefore follows that, whatever the motives may be in each case, the pianist/composer's most technically challenging worls will likely have a greater foundation in an understanding of what is technically possible, even if it hasn't been done before. Some people who have played Sorabji's music (once thought by some to be largely unplayable) have concluded that it is not so much "difficult" in the sense of what one has to do but the sheer quantity of events that occur within short spaces of time but spread over extended periods of time. Likewise, a pianist listening to, say, Tract, all.fall.down or Concerto per suonare da me solo will likely have an immediately clearer idea of the extent of the challenges posed by each of the composers concerned. The only problem might occur when a composer never seems to write anything at all that does not appear to seek to present compendia of chellenging difficulties.

Best,

Alistair

[tds]

My cat does wonderful atonal stuff.

mine, too, and with tremendous ease. interestingly, it sounds better than some finnissy...

[ahinton]

mine, too, and with tremendous ease. interestingly, it sounds better than some finnissy...

My two cats have no obviously identifiable interest in tonality, atonality or any of the other xyz-tonality words that exist to describe what may be perceived to be somewhere in between those two states when they express themselves sonically; even if their sonic expressions might strike some people as closer to Purr-cell than to Finnisseeow, that is not intended (either by them or me) as any kind of slight against Michael Finnissy. The serious point (if indeed there can be one here) is presumably that cats and their sounds are what they are, tonality in its infinite varieties of manifestation is what it is, Finnissy is who he is and so on; in other words, the person who wrote about his cat and atonality appears to have no real point to make, so let us merely accept his/her little joke as what it is - no more and no less - and quietly move on...

Best,

Alistair

[emmdoubleew]

By "pianist" in this particular context I meant a pianist of the order of Michael Finnissy, which, with no disrespect intended towards anyone else, Chris Dench is not, nor had he ever pretended to be; he has not, for example, played his own piano music in public (at least to my knowledge) as Michael Finnissy has.
I am not convinced that this is necessarily in all cases a "criticism" in the pejorative sense, but when a composer writes for the piano with a playing background such as Sorabji and Finnissy had, the "difficulties" they present to their performers will inevitably have been informed by playing experience and, accordingly, a different set of perspectives on the possible and impossible than could be expected from those who do not have transcendental pianistic techniques. It therefore follows that, whatever the motives may be in each case, the pianist/composer's most technically challenging worls will likely have a greater foundation in an understanding of what is technically possible, even if it hasn't been done before. Some people who have played Sorabji's music (once thought by some to be largely unplayable) have concluded that it is not so much "difficult" in the sense of what one has to do but the sheer quantity of events that occur within short spaces of time but spread over extended periods of time. Likewise, a pianist listening to, say, Tract, all.fall.down or Concerto per suonare da me solo will likely have an immediately clearer idea of the extent of the challenges posed by each of the composers concerned. The only problem might occur when a composer never seems to write anything at all that does not appear to seek to present compendia of chellenging difficulties.

Best,

Alistair

https://www.livescience.com/othernews/051031_kiss.html

It's true.
You just sound a little pretentious. And your english doesn't even make sense. People think you're intelligent if you say intelligent things, not if you say things with overly complicated grammar and vocabulary. 

I am not convinced that this is necessarily in all cases a "criticism" in the pejorative sense, but when a composer writes for the piano with a playing background such as Sorabji and Finnissy had, the "difficulties" they present to their performers will inevitably have been informed by playing experience and, accordingly, a different set of perspectives on the possible and impossible than could be expected from those who do not have transcendental pianistic techniques.

Could become: "Composers with exceptional piano technique will write harder pieces."
Then it'll seem like you actually know what you're talking about, rather than muddle your point with tons of unnecessary synomyms and redundancy. Save it for the job interviews.

Best,

MW.

[ahinton]

You just sound a little pretentious.

Only a little, indeed - well, that's a relief, I'm sure. Clearly, from the attachment you cite, the font style is not an issue here...

And your english doesn't even make sense. People think you're intelligent if you say intelligent things, not if you say things with overly complicated grammar and vocabulary.

To whom? You'd need to be more specific in any case if you have a point to make here. In any case, my purpose was to make a point about the subject, not to draw attention to my level of intelligence, as your appear to imply here.

Could become: "Composers with exceptional piano technique will write harder pieces."

"Could" - but not necessarily "would"; my point was that such virtuoso pianists will likely (a) compose piano music from different pianistic perspectives than non-virtuoso pianists in terms both of "difficult" and less "difficult" writing and (b) have a deeper inherent grasp of what may constitute practical "difficulties" for the player.

Save it for the job interviews.

I can't oblige there, I'm afraid; I've never interviewed anyone for a job in my life, nor do I anticipate doing so in the foreseeable future. Sorry!

Best,

Alistair

[tds]

My two cats have no obviously identifiable interest in tonality, atonality or any of the other xyz-tonality words that exist to describe what may be perceived to be somewhere in between those two states when they express themselves sonically; even if their sonic expressions might strike some people as closer to Purr-cell than to Finnisseeow, that is not intended (either by them or me) as any kind of slight against Michael Finnissy. The serious point (if indeed there can be one here) is presumably that cats and their sounds are what they are, tonality in its infinite varieties of manifestation is what it is, Finnissy is who he is and so on; in other words, the person who wrote about his cat and atonality appears to have no real point to make, so let us merely accept his/her little joke as what it is - no more and no less - and quietly move on...

Best,

Alistair

i was fiddling around with a clock when i was little. incidently, when mom saw the clock pointed at 8 o'clock in the evening, she immediately ordered me to go sleep. she didnt know that it was 47 minutes fast. oh and btw, carry on...


best,

tds

[ahinton]

https://www.livescience.com/othernews/051031_kiss.html

It's true.

Your citation of - and evident agreement with the principle enshrined in - this item prompts a related query which I hope will not be found to be unduly off-topic. Given the kind of music that is the subject of this thread, it occurs to me to wonder how, to what extent and indeed even whether you reconcile the apparent facts that it's OK for composers to express themselves in as complex and difficult a manner as they see fit when writing music but better if they adhere strictly to the "kiss" principle when writing words.

I'm sure that others might be interested in your take on this.

Best,

Alistair

[invictus]

Ok, I will start this controversy.

Sorabji - Opus Clavicembalisticum

[thalbergmad]

 

[JCarey]

Ok, I will start this controversy.

Sorabji - Opus Clavicembalisticum

This is a joke, I hope.

[Etude]

Ok, I will start this controversy.

Sorabji - Opus Clavicembalisticum

Or the works that are about twice as long like the Symphonic Variations...

After seeing some of that piece by Barlow I doubt any of Sorabji's music could be the 'world's hardest'.

[thalbergmad]

Surely any of the works by David Diamond must be the hardest

[soliloquy]

Stupid people.  None of you have even mentioned Xenakis yet.

Good job with the Cogluotobusisletmesi.  First response that even comes close to an answer.

Anyways, for anyone who has the money, I suggest buying the score to Xenakis' Piano Concerto, Synaphai.  Now please look at the score to Cogluotobusisletmesi.  Now, think of think of that piece times six.  Because there are two staves there, and Synaphai uses 12, and each of Synaphai's staves can match the complexity of a stave on Cogluotobusisletmesi.

There is also Xenakis' Evryali which is only THEORETICALLY possible to play, and Xenakis' retracted Seiben Klavierstucke which makes Evryali look like chopsticks.


Also, Opus Clavicembalisticum is not Sorabji's most difficult piece.  Symphonic Variations, Solo Tantrik Symphony, Opus Archimagicum and the Dies Irae Variations are all much much much more difficult.  If sheer length of the piece would be considered in deciding the difficulty of the piece, Rzewski's 8 hour piece "The Road" or the transcription of the entire Wagner "Ring" Trilogy would both be pretty strong answers.


But Synaphai is definitely the most difficult piece.

[emmdoubleew]

Your citation of - and evident agreement with the principle enshrined in - this item prompts a related query which I hope will not be found to be unduly off-topic. Given the kind of music that is the subject of this thread, it occurs to me to wonder how, to what extent and indeed even whether you reconcile the apparent facts that it's OK for composers to express themselves in as complex and difficult a manner as they see fit when writing music but better if they adhere strictly to the "kiss" principle when writing words.

I'm sure that others might be interested in your take on this.

Best,

Alistair

Hahah .
You guessed my true intentions.


Still, the way you write is hilarious.

[lostinidlewonder]

But Synaphai is definitely the most difficult piece.

https://homepage1.nifty.com/iberia/score_gallery_xenakis_synaphi.htm   is that it? Looks like randomly poking at notes. What the hell is Liquid legarissimo haha.

[ibbar]

Stupid people.  None of you have even mentioned Xenakis yet.

Good job with the Cogluotobusisletmesi.  First response that even comes close to an answer.

Anyways, for anyone who has the money, I suggest buying the score to Xenakis' Piano Concerto, Synaphai.  Now please look at the score to Cogluotobusisletmesi.  Now, think of think of that piece times six.  Because there are two staves there, and Synaphai uses 12, and each of Synaphai's staves can match the complexity of a stave on Cogluotobusisletmesi.

There is also Xenakis' Evryali which is only THEORETICALLY possible to play, and Xenakis' retracted Seiben Klavierstucke which makes Evryali look like chopsticks.


Also, Opus Clavicembalisticum is not Sorabji's most difficult piece.  Symphonic Variations, Solo Tantrik Symphony, Opus Archimagicum and the Dies Irae Variations are all much much much more difficult.  If sheer length of the piece would be considered in deciding the difficulty of the piece, Rzewski's 8 hour piece "The Road" or the transcription of the entire Wagner "Ring" Trilogy would both be pretty strong answers.


But Synaphai is definitely the most difficult piece.

I am familiar with the score to Synaphai.  It is very difficult, you're right.  Keep in mind, though, that you haven't seen all the Barlow.  There are 42 pages of music, many of which are worse than anything John Carey posted.  Synaphai, however, is not as hard on a staff by staff basis as Cogluotobusisletmesi:  there are points in that score where 6 or 7 or more voices per staff are going simultaneously.  Synaphai is almost entirely notated with only one voice per staff, spread over 10 staves-one voice per finger, so the total number of voices is fairly similar between the two pieces.  In this respect it (Synaphai) is similar to Hoban's piece, "when the panting STARTS".  With respect to Evryali, I communicated via email with a pianist who has played both Cogluotobusisletmesi and Evryali, and he was of the opinion that Cogluotobusisletmesi is definitely harder.

In short, I would say that the following pieces represent the upper tier of difficulty among all those scores that I have encountered, they are all "impossible" to play in a literal sense:

Barlow Cogluotobusisletmesi
Xenakis Synaphai
Finnissy Piano Concerto #4
Hoban when the panting STARTS

[pita bread]

Man, and people think Gaspard is hard.

[ibbar]

Gaspard is hard.  It's very hard, requiring full technical and musical maturity.  World class pianists could spend months getting it up to a true concert level.  Gaspard is harder than probably 99 percent of all piano music out there.

What we're dealing with is the 99.999 etc. percentile.  I'm not sure that it's fair to use pieces such as these as standards of comparison.

[sevencircles]

Symphonic Variations, Solo Tantrik Symphony, Opus Archimagicum and the Dies Irae Variations are all much much much more difficult.

Any recordings?

[soliloquy]

Any recordings?

No recordings of ANY of them.


Anyways, how bout a 2 and a half hour piece, where this is easier than almost all of it?  And remember, it SHOULD be played in 2.5 hours, most passages marked "Presto Posible".  Here's the last measure of the Fox Sonata No. 2 "Brutal".  I had to copy it with pencil (my notation sux and some of it got cut out of the scan) cause the pages are oblong and don't scan.  I think I got it all right o.o






RIGHT CLICK+VIEW IMAGE TO GET A CLOSER LOOK AT MY SHODDY PENMANSHIP!

[ahinton]

Hahah .
You guessed my true intentions.

Did I really? I wouldn't be so sure about that. Not that I was trying to "guess" anything, mind you - which was why I asked you to respond to a sensible question, although instead of so doing, you replied as above. Your prerogative, of course.

Still, the way you write is hilarious.

In that case, one can at least be pleased to have provided you with some degree of amusement, however unwittingly.

Now perhaps we can return to the topic (if indeed we have to).

Best,

Alistair

[soliloquy]

Yes, but the point is the same as for the Beethoven Op. 106; provided that the pianist is already possessed of more than sufficient resources of stamina, reflexes and mental/physical co-ordination to play either piece, that sense of struggle can still be conveyed - indeed conveyed more successfully - without the pianist actually having to endure it him/herself, provided also, of course, that the said pianist has a full mental grasp of the issues involved.

Best,

Alistair

Remember Al, you're talking to Pace, who in no way believes that playing all the notes is necessary, so save your breath, or I suppose more accurately, finger stength =P

[ahinton]

Remember Al, you're talking to Pace, who in no way believes that playing all the notes is necessary, so save your breath, or I suppose more accurately, finger stength =P

I can't "remember" what I never knew in the first place; do I understand you correctly that "ibbar" is in fact Ian Pace the pianist? If so, I was not previously aware of this fact. Professional etiquette and discretion precludes me from commenting on your observation about his belief here, but I would say that saving my finger strength would only help me to hold a pen better while writing, for I am not a pianist!

Best,

Alistair