Beginning of a piano depression

[ignaceii]

Hi,
My depression. Well I'll tell you. I'm first of all disgusted with all that marketing circus around the pianistz made in China, sorry I'm depressed, cd's, dvc's in 3d,... by mr. Lang, the maffioso himself.

Secondly, and that is far more important.
When you look at repertoires pianists build up, all the same, the one more classical, Beet, Wolfie, Franz, others, of course some Rachs, Proks , hy Yuyuyu, Chopin, Brahms, Beethoven. Schumann, Argerichs only concert piece seems, and Liszt.

DEAD CLASSICAL PIANO MUSIC

For me Howard Shelley is my man. Reveals all unknown masterpieces. But there are far more,  Paisiello, Salieris pianoconcert, sublime... Alkan, ....  Nobody gives a damn. I'm lucky they get recorded by Spada, and Shelley, and other all but stars, also Hough, huge musician.
These are the stars for me.
But who reach the platform and magazines, the safe players. I know, standard repertoire is not easy, but it is standard.
Concert managers don't have the nerve to program non-standard pieces.
What is nice in listening for the 100st time to Gaspard de la nuit by another newcomer. My god, If they asked Trifonov about his repertoire building. Same dull story. When will this end ?

Same with symphonies, chamber music.
When you see Uchida or Pires, a Mozart pianoconcerto.
Semi finals Queen Elisabeth comp, 24 semi finalist, 24 times a Mozart pianoconcert plus recital.

I'm ending here my depression output, sorry.

[thalbergmad]

I do appreciate what you are saying, but the internet age has opened up huge possibilities for exploring the lesser known composers and gradually, I expect this will begin to get through to the record producers, orchestras, concert managers and top level pianists.

Enlightened companies such as Hyperion, Dutton, Sterling etc.... have released hundreds of hitherto unperformed or rarely performed works, so it is easy to expand on listening habits and avoid the pieces that are regularly hammered out.

Instead of Mozart try Clementi, Beethoven try Woelfl, Schumann try Gernsheim, Liszt try Thalberg. The possibilities are endless.

Thal

[faulty_damper]

You're making a faulty assumption about recital programming.  The reality is that concert goers are the ones who decide what they want to hear.  They don't want to hear "new"; they want to hear what they've already heard.  Otherwise, they wouldn't come to concerts and that means fewer ticket sales.  Ticket sales are what decides what will be programmed or not.

[visitor]

there is hope and a small but continuing strong light that I hope never stops,
https://www.raritaeten-der-klaviermusik.de/home_english.phtml

this festival is dedicated exclusively to playing/performing, and recording neglected and forgotten music. some of the best recordings of anything I have ever heard are from this (the CDs are beginning to get up there in numbers as they release each year, and are WELL WORTH PURCHASING), and many of the only recordings available for these pieces come from this festival. the performers are top notch as well.

so cheer up!

[ignaceii]

Well, there is still hope, I hope it goes that way. Concerning cds that's going very good. What the other guy said on concertprogrammes decided by the goers, bullshit, because they don't know better, and come for the show often.
I'm not going to concerts anymore because of my health, but I'm missing nothing at all.

But there are rare chafacters like Volodos,  von Eckardstein, Schiff of course, Hamelin, ... who stand above and don't let themselves dictated by managers.

I wish I could see Richters face looking at this circus, he surely will turn around in his coffin.

[g_s_223]

This issue applies throughout classical music, not just piano. Orchestral concerts are usually the same overture/concerto/interval/symphony and opera houses programme the same 20-odd operas. From time to time, a contemporary piece is shoved in somewhere as a gesture (almost invariably utter rubbish).

Alternative suggestions welcome.

[j_menz]

Alternative suggestions welcome.

1) Smaller/indie groups often have more adventurous programming.

2) Travel

3) Play more adventurous repertoire yourself. Be part of the solution, not the problem.

[chopin2015]

tell your local music store...order some new sheet music. Look at catalogues. part of it is that pianists are not exploring enough.

[ignaceii]

1) Smaller/indie groups often have more adventurous programming.

2) Travel

3) Play more adventurous repertoire yourself. Be part of the solution, not the problem.

3.
Being chronically ill. Be glad I present the issue. I am an amateur you know. I'll play them all on youtube ok. But I won't get a Lisitsa award.
And, yes I do play non mainstream music. But you get me wrong. If Lisitsa can come away with her youtubes,
We all could start thinking on how to break the monopoly of standard repertoire.
Don't make comments that might hurt, you don't know who is  behind, ok, I can hardly play 1/2 hour a day at the mkst.
Does this mean I cannot participate in the debate.
I propose you do the same, and load it up on youtube.

[andd845]

I'm lucky perhaps in that I only fully appreciated classical music later on in my life, so I'm likely part of the problem as even works that you have heard several 100 times, I am yet to discover. But, no matter how many times I hear the same piece of Bach, (in particular, but likewise other composers) I never tire of it. It stays beautiful. The fact that a composer or piece is obscure, doesn't really make any difference in the level of enjoyment, for me at least.

[ignaceii]

Quite right.
A lot of the music composed by the geniuses is for eternity.
I just want to point out that a lot of energy goes in over performing, over recording, this same great pieces. And I understand that every young concertpianist wants to show what he can do.
But there is a wealth of great music waiting to be discovered and listened, performed and recorded.
The recording finds his way through good labels as CPO, Alpha,...
Performing is another matter.

One way could be to let concert pianists no more active give them the challenge of performing on youtube those pearls. Just a suggestion.

[ignaceii]

there is hope and a small but continuing strong light that I hope never stops,
https://www.raritaeten-der-klaviermusik.de/home_english.phtml

this festival is dedicated exclusively to playing/performing, and recording neglected and forgotten music. some of the best recordings of anything I have ever heard are from this (the CDs are beginning to get up there in numbers as they release each year, and are WELL WORTH PURCHASING), and many of the only recordings available for these pieces come from this festival. the performers are top notch as well.

so cheer up!

Just browsing through some programs on the link, the played pieces might be unknown, but not the composers. Salonpieces are not suited for a big hall.
Danny Driver was on to, he recorded the CPE Bach sonates, wonderful.

[rmbarbosa]

If you like baroc music, you may wish to try the 300 hundred sonatas of the portuguese composer Carlos Seixas. He is not well known, however his music is so good as Scarlatti. If I was younger, I`ll try to play and record his sonatas. Because nobody does it.
If you dont know him, listen his Concert in A, for harpsichord and orchestra, that you can find in youtube. Or one of his sonatas, by maria joão pires.
The great problem is public does not like music, if it is not Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin.... I do love Schomberg, for example, but I risk to play to nobody if I try to offer Schomberg... And Concert halls and professional performers need money...
Best wishes.
rui

[ignaceii]

I'm still mad, on the other forum Miscellaneous.
In pianiste magazine a young pianist 24 years old is recording all the Liapunov pieces. He carries an encyclopedia of piano music with him everywhere he goes.
It is a work by a french writer Guy Serc. Now this is the first time I read of a pianist using this encyclopaedia for exploring new territoria, he got it for his 12th birthday.
I bought it some years ago second hand, in 2 volumes, about 3000pages of pianomusic described and analysed.

But you take it all too easy. If Andsnes would stop his Beethoven tour.... who cares about another cycle. If Andsnes, Perrahia, Buniatishvilli, (no chinese - marketing toys), and some other giants you can't get around. "Look, it is time we honour CPE Bach with his Birthday, we play him, and Soler,
and Kabalevsky,...or you can take your money". I think Volodos is in exile because of the way things are going.

But nobody dares. It is not for us to play them, although I do, but to the concert pianists.
Sudbin, other russians are open for such arguments. The public comes for the performer, and will be intrigued by the program.

But let the Royal Albert hall be sold out in 48e  hours for Monsieur Lang, I don't care. What does an englishman know about music ? They were fortunate, to home Haydn and Handel or they music-analphabets.

The stages don't matter anymore. I see more cds coming on the market with ries concertos, ries cello music, with Beethoven friends Czerny and Moscheles. These are labels who still care.
Sad to see Abbado do one of his last concertos do with mrs high heel Wang.

I don't go anymore. I play them myself, and listen. If I need the standard repertoire, The greatest pianists of the 20th century on Philips has it all.
But wasting a talent like Buzhonov, who crashes Lang if he wants to is criminal.
Klang Klang the german forgotten, wrong name. Now they drop the K, he comes back as chinese, bang...  My God, Lang, with a young competition under his belt. Buzhonov did all the majors.

Remember Soler, is like Scarlatti, wrote a great deal of keyboard music, and Spanish.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I just want to point out that a lot of energy goes in over performing, over recording, this same great pieces. And I understand that every young concertpianist wants to show what he can do.
But there is a wealth of great music waiting to be discovered and listened, performed and recorded.

I completely agree. I keep seeing "x records Rachmaninov Piano Concerto no. y (or indeed the full set)". Who cares? They have already been recorded by the greatest masters of the 20th century, and x isn't going to surpass them, or add anything new of significance. Unfortunately it seems there is an accepted canon of works, and anything outwith them is assigned curiosity value at best.

In pianiste magazine a young pianist 24 years old is recording all the Liapunov pieces. He carries an encyclopedia of piano music with him everywhere he goes.

Now that IS interesting, let's hope he does them justice.

I am absolutely convinced that you can sell imaginative programming to the public, it is just a matter of finding the correct way to do so. But DG and other big companies are more interested in what their female pianists look like.

[ignaceii]

I must add to that there are no more real heroes in the concertpianistaudience.
I listened to Andsnes playing 3 Beethovens in the Barbican, then some othes in America, he flies over to Japan, I think, and some other place, all with those same old sonatas.
What an eco-score, and easy-winning, they learned the sonatas at conservatory.
At least Schiff has the courage to wait up to his 50, to play them. Still, another rendering., nr x, and counting. Mozart and Beethoven concerts counting. Mozart concerts are being played like bread sold every morning, cheap, that's what it is.

You know Brendel told Andreas Staier once, "Why dont't you quit with the pianoforte, and go solo on the modern grand, you'll earn a lot more money".
At that point, streetmembers, my esteem for Mr. Brendel dropped to almost zero.
Staier resisted and is one of the few great heroes left, to play CPE Bach, and others, as Lane, Shelley on the grand for the romantic repertoire. Volodos went in sabbath for long I guess, he needs open air, and records Mompou. Great musician.

No great conductor dares to refuse Lang for a silvesterkonzert, poor Rattle...
As well as Barenboim, with his private jet (although I admire him for playing and conducting everything from memory even the new years concert, you must do it - Gergiev needs his score even for his own Tsjaikovsky symphonies , poor guy).

They can't resist the money, and I was thinking they did it for the arts...

That's why I'm still mad on the other forum...

[ignaceii]

If you like baroc music, you may wish to try the 300 hundred sonatas of the portuguese composer Carlos Seixas. He is not well known, however his music is so good as Scarlatti. If I was younger, I`ll try to play and record his sonatas. Because nobody does it.
If you dont know him, listen his Concert in A, for harpsichord and orchestra, that you can find in youtube. Or one of his sonatas, by maria joão pires.
The great problem is public does not like music, if it is not Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin.... I do love Schomberg, for example, but I risk to play to nobody if I try to offer Schomberg... And Concert halls and professional performers need money...
Best wishes.
rui

Thanks for the tip. I adore baroque music. I do love CPE Bach, although he is practically classic.
I certainly will look into it. Perhaps IMSLP has some sheet music.
As things go now, with everybody playing the same pieces, and Lang characters who like Kremer the famous violinist said for his success he is building up in a very quick way, he may have sold his soul as bargain.
Anyway I took a step and wrote Leif Ove Andsnes that the repertoire must change, cause it is too narrow, immensely repeated, as if it were all replays.
I'm curious if he will answer.
Henselt, one of the famous six, with Liszt and Chopin wrote beautiful music. It's beyond my imagination that nobody takes notice of all these pearls, and just go on playing Beethoven all over the world. Absolutely a disgrace.