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Topic: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?  (Read 41232 times)

Offline sv3nno

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Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
on: April 20, 2013, 07:10:54 PM
basically, i'm looking for some pieces that match the criteria given above, to Wow the audience on my concert-recital coming in 3 months.
it doesn't matter if it's classical, avan't-garde (as long as it's not like ornstein's wild men's dance
, lol) or any era, actually. the difficulty is not too important, as long as it stays below the difficulty of pieces like islamey and gaspard de la nuit, and doesn't last more than 5 mins. A possible choice right now is the revolutionary etude, one of my favorite, if not the most favorite, piano pieces - i just love the anger and intensity of the fast left-hand scales and arpeggios. but i'm not sure yet if i'll pick that one.
it can have stuff like playing backwards, hand over hand, lots of glissandos, playing with your elbow,lol.(like jon schmidt did in his "All of me") it should have an especially furious intro and ending.
i hope you get what i mean:)
thanks in advance.
P.S. ignore the pieces i'm working on (below), those don't reflect my actual technical capabilities now, cause they're more than 4 years old.
Live With the Earth, not On it.

Offline perprocrastinate

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #1 on: April 20, 2013, 07:18:18 PM
Chopin Etudes 10/4, 25/11, 25/12
Liszt Transcendental Etudes No. 2, No. 10, No. 12

Or you could try this recent thread: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=50776.0

Offline g_s_223

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #2 on: April 20, 2013, 07:39:54 PM
Try this:

Here's a guide how to:

Much kudos if you can do it!

Offline fftransform

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #3 on: April 20, 2013, 07:41:24 PM
Anybody who can play Gaspard already has a hundreds-long list of pieces they want to learn.  BS.

Offline patrickd

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #4 on: April 20, 2013, 11:07:24 PM
I was going to recommend the Alkan Concerto but here is these instead



Offline rachmaninoff_forever

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #5 on: April 21, 2013, 12:02:04 AM
La Campanella

Your search is now over.
Live large, die large.  Leave a giant coffin.

Offline birba

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #6 on: April 21, 2013, 03:34:39 AM
Yuck!  I would have expected something by scriabin from you...

Offline rachmaninoff_forever

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #7 on: April 21, 2013, 04:06:04 AM
Yuck!  I would have expected something by scriabin from you...

Fine then, Scriabin Op. 8 No. 12.

op. 42 No. 5 is better, but not what the original poster wants... 

Happy?! >:(
Live large, die large.  Leave a giant coffin.

Offline chopin2015

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #8 on: April 21, 2013, 06:06:13 AM
why not a beethoven?

Also, I love agitato. Try Chopin scherzo no 1? it repeats a lot so it is easy and it is only grade 7, I believe. it has some large spans of movements for the left hand, but manageable even for slender girl hands(after some work)! Ballade no 2? it is much easier than 1, 3 or 4 and is about 6 pages long I think...
Chopin is a good way to go because he has a lot of those big moments that are obviously just forbidden music theory moments that are to be played fast and brilliant. A lot of Scriabin is VERY impressive, with heavy amounts of polyrhythms.... it would take a while to learn one given, impressive piece like this if you have not done a fair load of difficult, angry, fast pieces like the obvious...why not practice polyrhythms in a slower piece for now, and do a different etude than op 10 no 12...
Liszt transc. etude no 4 is awesome!!!

p.s. chopin 10/4 is pretty easy when it comes to memorizing it. the staccato chords are a lil different when the left hand repeats the same scale pattern the right hand does first(in different keys) but the scales are the scales are easy to memorize. The best part is that the mini coda is suuuper annoying if you actually think about it...it doesn't resolve, either. it ends in this augmented type sound. I lol every time I hear the end.
"Beethoven wrote in three flats a lot. That's because he moved twice."

Offline redbaron

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #9 on: April 21, 2013, 10:42:46 AM
As has already been suggested, La Campanella. It should fulfil your requirements nicely. You could also try:

Stravinsky - Danse Infernale
Ravel - Toccata
Rachmaninov - Prelude in B flat Op 23, No 2
Rachmaninov - Oriental Sketch
Mussorgsky - The Hut on Fowl's Legs
Khachaturian's Toccata is always good for an outing

Offline worov

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #10 on: April 21, 2013, 11:16:08 AM
Any Chopin Etude will do. Here are some others.

















This should keep you busy for a while. There are a thousand others.

Offline chopianologue

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #11 on: April 21, 2013, 01:09:27 PM
For Chopin :

Etudes: 10/4, 25/11, 25/12
Scherzi: All of them
Polonaises: Heroic, Tragic, Grande Polonaise
Ballades: Except Ab major -maybe G minor too- two of them are insane. Especially F minor!!! F minor ballade is... It's even scary take a look to the note sheet...
Also Fantasy in F minor and huge piano sonatas...



Offline worov

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #12 on: April 21, 2013, 04:11:17 PM
Quote
two of them are insane. Especially F minor!!! F minor ballade is... It's even scary take a look to the note sheet...

The original poster said difficulty wasn't a problem so I guess these are OK.

Offline sv3nno

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #13 on: April 21, 2013, 07:00:59 PM
many thanks to all who replied...
now it's between chopin's op. 10 no. 4 and op. 10 no. 12... in terms of technical difficulty, do you think no. 4 is harder than no. 12? i have 2 months until my performance on my high school's... um.. prom, i guess? (im not that good in english, lol) and the no. 12 etude seems a bit too easy... do you think i could pull of the no. 4? basically, noone in my school knows that i've been playing the piano for 11 years(since i was 5), i'm considered the "shy" guy who, according to many, knows nothing about musical instruments, lmao. so since this is my final year in that god damned school (thank god) i wanna go out with a bang  8)
Live With the Earth, not On it.

Offline chopin2015

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #14 on: April 21, 2013, 10:18:37 PM
How much time do you have? I memorized op 10 no 4 pretty quick but haven't performed it yet, some parts take more time than others in this one. I attached some pictures of the parts that you will have to work on more, because there the pinkies are to jump in opposite direction from each other...the second pic is of what is toward the end, try the left hand and see if it gives you any problems...other than the left hand that people seem to have trouble with, and the pinkies jumps, it is pretty simple and really fun to play! listen to these parts that I shared played by Horowitz. it is amazing! It is really hard to play it as well as he does, so good luck to you! PS the rev etude is shorter in length. So, if you have little time, I suggest just go with the rev. etude.
"Beethoven wrote in three flats a lot. That's because he moved twice."

Offline robert_s

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #15 on: April 22, 2013, 01:12:58 AM
Liszt Scherzo and March (for something the audience probably won't know).  If you can learn it in that amount of time . . .

Offline maestro57

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #16 on: April 29, 2013, 06:02:31 AM
I'm going to chime in and 3rd the notion of playing La Campanella. It's melody is beautiful and everyone will recognize it - a definite show-stopper.

Offline sirpazhan

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #17 on: April 29, 2013, 08:29:16 AM
I'd like to suggest something different from what has been mentioned above:
-Rachmaninoff - Musicaux Op.16 no.4 & prelude 23 no.7  



\\\\\\\"I like these calm little moments before the storm. It reminds me of Beethoven\\\\\\\"

Offline black_keys

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #18 on: May 04, 2013, 09:27:12 AM
La campanella
Chopin etudes op10 no 1,2,4,12, op25 no 10,11,12
Scriabin etude op 8 no 12 , op42 no 5
Liszt Transcendental etude no 4,10,12.
Antheil Jazz sonata
Alkan op39 no 10(about 8 minutes), allegro barbaro, op 39 no 7
Some Villa-lobos
Volodos arrangements
Cziffra Bumblebee
Sorabji pastiches , minute waltz
Hamelin etudes no 3,4,5,9





Offline canada100

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Re: Fast, Crazy, furious, difficult piano pieces?
Reply #19 on: February 15, 2014, 05:28:48 PM
What level are you? You have not mentioned your level yet.

It is important not to play something too technically difficult-it can cause injuries. Liszt will not be forgiving if you do not have your basic technical idioms well-known.

Prokofiev's Toccata Op. 11 is very difficult too.

Easier showpieces include the Khachuturian Toccata.
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