Looking for a substantial contemporary piece

[justinpaul]

Hi all, I'm beginning to look for a fairly substantial contemporary piece to look into working on this coming semester, and figure you guys might have some good suggestions. I'm hoping to find something on the experimental side that will hopefully make the average listener, and me, uncomfortable at first. I'm just looking for a different kind of challenge and to expand my horizons in a direction not a lot of undergrad students do. I guess I'm looking for something in the 6 to 10 minute range, but I don't care too much about length. Some technical challenge might be nice, just so that people can at least say "wow, he can play" even if they hate it. I'd prefer that the composer be alive, or at least to have seen the 21st century. Honestly I don't have too many parameters, so just hit me with whatever ya got, or any suggestions to help me with my search.

If it helps:

I'm going to be a junior, and the two most recent and most challenging modern-ish works I've completed are Prokofiev's Suggestions Diabolique (I know, I know) and Barber's Excursions, as well as Schubert's Sonata D. 537 and Brahms' Rhapsodies Op. 79, plus the piano part to Mozart's Piano Trio K.548 in C major (also a bit of a killer).

Cheers!

[visitor]

Jacob drukman
the seven deadly sins
It's a theme w variations and each var is a sin
Really cool piece he was a student of Persichetti I believe
I was able to pull the score and audio to it in the university library and if they don't have it just do interlibrary loan

I have a few other ideas but Will need to post later. Time for zzzz

[visitor]

Love this thing

[/youtube]

[visitor]

Karen tanaka's set of three techno etudes would fit the bill well in terms of modernity length experimental and flash

[/youtube]
 The other two are up on you tube as well

Also look at her Crystaline
[ Invalid YouTube link ]

[ Invalid YouTube link ]

[visitor]

Loved this from moment i discovered .

[/youtube]

[visitor]

PS
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=59128.0

[fftransform]

The pieces posted thus far are really cute.


For something in the mainstream of 20th/21st century, maybe Stockhausen Klavierstuck I-IV, a Dusapin Etude, some Takemitsu or some Sciarrino Nocturnes.  Boulez also wrote a piece somewhat recently, Une page d'ephemeride.  If you want something more neoclassical, look at Ustvolskaya or Grinblat.  If you want something spectral, you could look at Radulescu's piano sonatas (although I think they're pretty boring) or Murail's La Mandragore.  You should also look into some of the Italian School composers like Donatoni, Castiglioni, Petrassi etc.  Kurtag's Jatekok are very popular to play right now; if you want to really look into the Avant-Garde stuff, I know that Globokar's Piano Piece is really virtuosic, or you could look at some of the stuff by Joachim-Hespos/Staebler/Cassidy.

Ferneyhough's 'Three Pieces' is very Schoenberg Op. 33-ish, and if I recall it's pseudo-playable.  Finnissy wrote some pieces that are also playable, believe it or not, especially a lot of the stuff from the Gershwin cycles.  Emsley also wrote a lot of piano pieces.

[visitor]

this just hit. pretty cool. too.

[revanyoda777]

Before someone else suggests Nikolai Kapustin I will

He composes in jazz idiom, but his music is classically centered; as you can tell by the sonata allegro form of his 2nd piano sonata 1st mvt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvaxHHuWoMY