CHOPIN Piano Concerto No.1 vs. SAINT-SAENS Piano Concerto No. 2

[sungyoon]

Hello there, I am a high school junior, and I will be competing in a concerto competition at my school in the upcoming fall. I have narrowed down my options to the first movements of either the Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 11, or the Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2 Op. 22.

Both pieces are very emotionally powerful, and both seem to be technically challenging enough to impress the judges.

However, I am still stuck on which piece to decide on. Any input on these following items would be greatly appreciated:

1. Technical Difficulty
2. Emotional Difficulty
3. Amount of time to learn (relative)
4. Impressiveness

Also, any tips or recommendations are also wecome 

[cabbynum]

Ive read through and gotten a quiet a bit of the saint saens up to tempo just for fun. SO i will comment on this one.
It is one of my favorite pieces so the emotional difficulty was no trouble because i was so passionate about it anyway. So that being said, pick the one you connect with the best. Which one makes you think more when you listen to it? The saint saens made me sad listening to it, like really sad, so I wanted to learn it. I have no intention of performing it anytime soon or learning the rest of the first movement to full tempo.
My answer to no.1, never go off of diffculty. Most technical difficulty can be surpassed with the right practice. Just so long as it is not soooooo far above what you should be playing. So again go with the one you are more connected with.
to answer no.3, not that long for me to read through and not too long to memorise most of the first movement.
All of it makes sense, so thats a good thing. But the orchestra weaving in this one is way harder than in the Chopin.


pick the one you like most, judges dont care so much about difficulty, at that level they are all hard. With obvious harder ones. But again its not all about difficulty.

[sungyoon]

Thank you for the advice, it really helps. Sadly I'm still kind of stuck, I really like both pieces  ..... Although I might go with the Saint Saens because it sounds a bit easier.

Now that I think about it, I do agree that technical difficulty isn't all that important, but if it means that I can have more time to polish the Saint Saens because it doesn't take as much time to learn it, I'll definitely go with that.

[cabbynum]

Thank you for the advice, it really helps. Sadly I'm still kind of stuck, I really like both pieces  ..... Although I might go with the Saint Saens because it sounds a bit easier.

Now that I think about it, I do agree that technical difficulty isn't all that important, but if it means that I can have more time to polish the Saint Saens because it doesn't take as much time to learn it, I'll definitely go with that.

Read through both first movements all the way to the end in one sitting. One of them will feel better. Pick one and stick to it.
You always have time later to learn the other. So just make a desicion and stick with it. I finally did that for my audition program after about 8 months of lost time now. But I have the program lined out and will not be veering off course

[david456103]

i personally find the chopin(esp mvmt 1, good stuff) much more emotionally satisfying and beautiful. of course, the trade off is that it's more technically difficult.