Music you don't want to learn because someone else did it before you

[rachmaninoff_forever]

So what I mean is, when someone plays it and it's absolutely perfect the way it is.  Like it's exactly the way you would play it.

Mine are:

Rach sonata 2 (Horowitz)
Scriabin etude Op. 42 No. 5 (Horowitz)
Rachmaninoff etude Op. 39 No. 5 (Kissin)
Liszt Totentanz (Valentina Lisitsa)
Rachmaninoff etude Op. 39 No. 6 (Valentina Lisitsa)
Everything by Bach  (Glen Gould)
Liszt Feux Follets (kissin)
Scriabin etude Op. 2 No. 1 (Horowitz)
Tiger rag! (Art Tatum...)
Scriabins Ver la Flamme (Horowitz)
Maybe Scriabin's 9th sonata if those idiots weren't coughing so much (Horowitz)
Shostakovich sonata (Valentina Lisitsa)
Liszt Rondo Fantissiitiiqiriitiitiiqiuitie (Valentina Lisitsa)
Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody 2 (Valentina Lisitsa)
Liszt Transcendental etude 10 (a college student named Cambry)
1st movement of Chopin sonata 3 (some 14 year old kid) 

I probably have more, but that's all I could think of right now

[davidjosepha]

Everything by Bach  (Glen Gould)

Yes, that's the reason you don't play Bach

Hmm, let's see. Mine would probably be...

Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 - Evgeny Kissin
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 - Krystian Zimerman
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 - Earl Wild
Rachmaninoff Vocalise - Emil Gilels
Liszt Sonata - Martha Argerich

Although, for 4 of the 5 I listed, agreeing with their interpretation isn't the biggest reason I haven't played them

[scherzo123]

Prokofiev Piano Concerto No.3-Argerich
Prokofiev Piano Sonata No.7-Sokolov and Gould
Rachmaninoff Moments Musicaux Op.16 No.4-Lugansky
All Chopin-Rubinstein

[scherzo123]

Liszt Transcendental etude 10 (a college student named Cambry)

I saw him on youtube...he's GOOD. 

[drkilroy]

The way to overcome it is to have a different interpretation that the pianist who discouraged you. This is not always possible, but sometimes it works.

Liszt Rondo Fantissiitiiqiriitiitiiqiuitie

Are you sure it is spelled that way?

Best regards, Dr

[zezhyrule]

I'm not going to give up on attempting pieces that I really like just because some crazy awesome concert pianist perfected it before me   Most of the time there is actually something I'd change in the interpretation. As I'm sure it is with most people... right? D:

[elenka]

I think you should try anyway to play those pieces you would performe, and not give a damn if somebody has already played it, who knows maybe you can add to that piece something anybody else before did by playing during a concert maybe execept the big stars of pianist, but considering that we are all human it won't be anyone who can do worse job than someone else...so philosofic this answer but I hope you understood what I mean.

[ruvidoetostinato]

I'm not going to give up on attempting pieces that I really like just because some crazy awesome concert pianist perfected it before me   Most of the time there is actually something I'd change in the interpretation. As I'm sure it is with most people... right? D:

Yup, I agree.  
These types of performances usually encourage me to play the piece, and through the process of learning the music there's usually a substantial number of changes in my learned product compared with the interpretation I thought was perfect.  And some performances I thought were perfect before, ended up not being perfect after a while.  Music is so volatile.

And it's another testament to the saying nothing is perfect!

[rachmaninoff_forever]

I'm not going to give up on attempting pieces that I really like just because some crazy awesome concert pianist perfected it before me   Most of the time there is actually something I'd change in the interpretation. As I'm sure it is with most people... right? D:

Well it's exactly the way I would play it.  It's not like I feel salty or anything, I just don't feel a need to learn it.

*hears a perfect rach 3 the way I would play it*

Me:  well, that's one thing less I don't have to on my bucket list!  *crosses it out*  Time to go put this on my iPod!

But until I hear a Rach 3 that's played exactly the way I would play it, I will aspire to learn it.  I guess that's why I play piano.  You don't play it the way I like it?  Time for me to learn it...

[davidjosepha]

But until I hear a Rach 3 that's played exactly the way I would play it, I will aspire to learn it.  I guess that's why I play piano.  You don't play it the way I like it?  Time for me to learn it...

That's one reason I play piano, but I have many more than that. The main one is just the amount of emotional involvement you can have when playing a piece versus listening. I can't play a piece half as well as most of the professional pianists who have recorded it, yet there's something about being the one in control of the music, guiding it exactly as you see fit. It's not that I like my interpretation better--if you were to record me and play it side by side with the pro, I would prefer the pro's recording--but the fact that I am currently playing it makes it more beautiful.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

That's one reason I play piano, but I have many more than that. The main one is just the amount of emotional involvement you can have when playing a piece versus listening. I can't play a piece half as well as most of the professional pianists who have recorded it, yet there's something about being the one in control of the music, guiding it exactly as you see fit. It's not that I like my interpretation better--if you were to record me and play it side by side with the pro, I would prefer the pro's recording--but the fact that I am currently playing it makes it more beautiful.

Well I guess that's true too...  But the average human life span is like 74 years and that's not enough time for me to learn everything I like!

[j_menz]

No one performance is capable of encapsulating a work. 

You may think that a particular performance would be the way you would play it (if you could), but by the time you can, it won't be.

Incidentally, Gould did two (very different) versions of the Goldberg Variations. Which exactly of those is the one you regard as definitive? 

[lostinidlewonder]

For me at least when I hear something inspirational that I have not played myself it makes me want to learn the piece not avoid it!

[keyboardkat]

With this kind of logic, since we've had pianists like Horowitz, Wild, Litsitsa and other greats around, that probably covers the whole repertoire, so why would any of us ever play anything?
Play the music you love, the music that moves you, and to heck with who else played it.

[nanabush]

Usually if one of my friends from school played it (and played it well), I'll be less inclined to learn it.

These pieces have been performed incessantly at my school:
-Ravel 'Jeux d'Eau'
-Chopin 3rd Ballade (random I know)
-Chopin Barcarolle
-Beethoven Appassionata (slightly upsetting, because I'm doing this one this year)
-Debussy Preludes (thank god I was the one who got to these first before the swarms nabbed them)


...my issue is that a few BRILLIANT students in my studio have played some of these, and I've already heard them more than I was hoping... I'd rather tackle a different part of these composer's rep than go and ask to play Chopin's 3rd Ballade (knowing that literally two students have played it every year for the past 3 years).

-Prok Sonata 3
-Bach Prelude and Fugue in D major bk 1 (shudder; two girls in the same studio played this!!)

I don't know why, but some teachers (or maybe the students) flock towards the same pieces at the same time.  I was hoping to do the Barcarolle last year, but there was a girl in my studio, and another guy, playing this damn piece!  I thought "fine, take it... I'll play a Scherzo instead"

BOOOO!

[zezhyrule]

These pieces have been performed incessantly at my school:
-Debussy Preludes (thank god I was the one who got to these first before the swarms nabbed them)

All 24? :O

[nanabush]

The more popular ones...

Cathedrale Engloutie, Minstrels, Collines d'Anacapri, Feux d'Artifice

I don't hear anyone playing Tierces Alternees, Canope, Voiles... lol

[danhuyle]

All piano concerti.

Beethoven Sonatas - I'll play a few of the popular ones and that's it
Bach - better heard than played

Chopin Etudes - I'll play a few, however I prefer Liszt and Scriabin Etudes. Probably the reason I'm having a hard time completing the entire set, though I have the ability to...

[j_menz]

Bach - better heard than played

 

Surely you jest!

[ajspiano]

Surely you jest!

its one of the more silly comments I've seen in a while. - it has to be a joke.

........

To actually answer the OP question. There is nothing I wouldn't learn simply because someone else has previously played it well. The only reason I choose to learn a piece is because it "speaks to me" in some way and I wish to express something through its performance, which can not be done just listening to it. Listening is me empathising with someone else's expression, not me expressing. And, to learn something from its study, which also can't be done just listening.

[redbaron]

Bach - Keyboard Concerto No 1 (Murray Perahia)
Balakirev - Toccata (Margaret Fingerhut)
Brahms - Scherzo (Martin Jones)
Glass - Metamorphosis Suite (Branka Parlic)
Mendelssohn - Songs Without Words (Daniel Barenboim)
Mussorgsky - Pictures (Lazar Berman)
Rachmaninov - Prelude Op 23, No 5 (Emil Gilels)
Rachmaninov - Etude Op 33, No 4 (Nikolai Lugansky)
Ravel - Jeux d'aeu (Martha Argerich)
Ravel - Gaspard de la nuit (Pascal Roge)
Ravel - Miroirs (Pascal Roge)
Schubert - Sonatas (Alfred Brendel)
Schumann - Piano Cocerto (Martha Argerich)
Sibelius - Sonata (Eero Heinonen)