How real estate is all about "location,location,location", the difference between Liszt and Chopin is "Melody,Melody,Melody". Listen to any piece by Chopin no matter what the difficulty which by the way, does not matter for we do not listen to music and think "Wow" listen to that technique Technique is useless if you cannot put forth a beautiful interpretation, all of his melodies are amazing and sublime. It took Liszt years before he created beautiful melodies. If anyone argues that the Hungarian Rhapsodies are beautiful note that Liszt found those themes whilst traveling. I have listened to a lot of Liszt and I have found only a handful of pieces where melodic genius comes out. It is amazing but never as good as Chopin. There are a lot of different forms of music for piano, the best way to see the difference between the two is to listen to some of the forms that they both wrote in. Listen to these pieces,Liszt Polonaises and Chopin PolonaisesLiszt Ballades and Chopin BalladesLiszt Etudes and Chopin Etudes Liszt Concertos and Chopin Concertos these are just a few. Which Composer presents the most simplistic yet sublime melodies?
Chopin would have never been able to write something like Liszt's Dante Symphony. I wish he would have...
Imagine what a Chopin opera would sound like? Chopin's a ability to write sexy long melodies would have definitely suited the genre. Too bad he didn't invest in any other genres beside piano & piano's sidekicks.
Of course not. It would have been called Chopin's Dante Symphony and, given Freddy's orchestrational shortcomings you would never have heard of it.He actually wrote quite a number of songs. Go listen to them. It may make you rethink your wish for an opera.
True true...I feel sorry for the orchestras that have to play his concertos, or worse, his op. 22..
I think it is relatively ungrateful that we think this of his concertante works. Schumann, an amazing orchestrator himself, once said "We may be sure that a genius like Mozart, were he born today, would write concertos like Chopin and not like Mozart."And Mozart's concertos are held in high regard. Chopin did not wish to make exciting orchestral parts for these works. He sought to provide a new type of dialogue between piano and orchestra. There is never a moment where the piano is lost in the orchestral parts or vice versa. Which the former is sadly too often.
Yeah, but the bored to death soloists who are sitting behind the pianist might not agree you.
That is because they are not pianists and I would not call them soloists either as the orchestra performs as a whole in his concertante works. If they were pianists they could understand better the significance of what they are playing. In a concerto all instruments work as a whole if the orchestra does not play because their part is exciting they play because they enjoy the whole work. There are much more boring parts ever hear the cello part for cannon in d major by Pachebel...
I think it's because Chopin's music is more accessible to the layperson than Liszt for whatever reason. Part of this may have to do with interpretation. From the anecdotes regarding Liszt's concerts, we know that he was really able to excite the public's imagination. I think very few pianists are currently able to do that because of the conservative, note-perfection mindset that has taken over the community which gives it a bit of a stale sound. And Liszt suffers more from a stale sound than Chopin, as Chopin is easier to understand because it's very melodic. Liszt seems to rely on textures and harmonies much more which are brilliant and unprecedented for the time, but which am uninspired reading can completely destroy.Calling Liszt an empty showman is one of my pet peeves. I would argue that he is possibly more of a genius than Chopin given the range of his innovations. He basically reimagined the piano in a lot of ways. I think that for a common person (and for a lot of pretentious musicians), Liszt's music is just "too much". A common response I get from people I introduce Liszt to is, this is too many notes, this guy is a showoff, I'd much rather listen to Eric Satie, lol.I sometimes think it's akin to someone who sees a person exceptionally talented at what they do, and concludes that they must be a fraud, because they don't understand what they're doing at first glance.
Greenberg made the statement that the two composers looked at the new instrument in different ways. Chopin saw a way to create more expressive music, and Liszt saw a way to better demonstrate virtuosic playing. The musician vs the showmen theme, but in no way was Greenberg making a statement that one made the other "better". Simply that it allowed for different styles of genius to emerge. These different styles do account for some of the accessibility comments, Chopin was much more likely to write simple music simply because it was beautiful.
Topic: Why do people like Chopin better than Liszt? 