The hardest piece you can play

[kevonthegreatpianist]

Have you honestly mastered K545?

um no durr. i just mastered the first mov of K 284 not long ago.

and btw, i think k 282 is a bit easier than k 545

[kevonthegreatpianist]

Sorry, but that's not in his vocabulary.

well, i honestly made a new page on  piano street

[rubinsteinmad]

Sorry, but that's not in his vocabulary.

#glennross

[kypiano]

#glennross

What's this?

[pencilart3]

What's this?

Emily's (sorry - Eleanor's ) new hashtag.

[kypiano]

OMG I DONT FREAKING CARE

I CANT BELIEVE I GOT DISSED BY PENCILART FOR PLAYING A PIECE REALLY UNMUSICALLY. AS IF I DIDN'T WARN HIM

You got dissed for a reason, dear. Yes, you warned him, but you didn't warn him that you were THAT bad.

[lhb_]

fur elise
Mario theme
eine klein nachmusic
poker face

[devron]

I have played chopin's 1 and 4 ballade, all of Beethoven no 30 op 109, op 14 no 1, working on Scriabin op 8 no 12, ravel sonatina 1st movement.
 
They were all a joy to play but presented a lot of musical challenges as well as technical

[dcstudio]

OMG I WISH I WAS YOU

I thought the EXACT SAME THING like 1 year ago. But then, the teacher I was learning from assigned me the Ballade 4. I loved to play/hear Chopin back then. It always gave me a certain sensation.

Before I learned from that arrogant (for no apparent reason) b!tch, my musical instincts were pretty musical. But after learning that friggin Chopin Ballade 4, my musical instincts completely changed. My teacher had made me play like a thousand times along with her (she can't even handle m.152-163 without making it sound like Hanon ), and the part she REALLY destroyed me are:

(1) in the theme and
(2)m.80-100, the "chorale" section.

Those places are the places that really show ur musical instinct.

Before, those places were LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT for me. But after learning from that b!tch, I couldn't play them musically. I am still trying to recover my musical instinct. Now, whenvver I do ritardandos, rubatos, or accelrandos, it is always because I am forcing myself to. It just doesn't sound NATURAL!!!!!!!!!!! I HATE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My teacher FORCED ME to play w/out any ritards.

So yeah, the "chorale" section of Ballade 4 and Ballade 2 are VERY similar, unfortunately. So that COMPLETELY changed me. Now, Ballade 2 is IMPOSSIBLE to play musically for me, now. what Before then, I never even USED the word "Musicality". But now, I always keep on using it. IT IS SO FREAKING STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So now, I have 0 musical sense on the chorale part, which just DOESNT MAKE SENSE ANYMORE. Also, each once in a while I attempt the Ballade 4 theme, it sounds like a Waltz when I'm playing. WHAT THE sh*t

Sorry for the rant. But kypiano is an angel compared to the b!tch teacher.

wow... I understand I am not this teacher...but still...  I really hope none of my former students speak of me that way...

I am sorry this happened to you.

[iansinclair]

J. S. Bach BWV 552, the Ste. Anne Prelude and Fugue in E flat major -- but only on the organ.

[aweshana21]

feux follets and torrent etude i'm playing

[pencilart3]

feux follets and torrent etude i'm playing

Yeah, they're pretty much the same difficulty

[rubinsteinmad]

Yeah, they're pretty much the same difficulty

rofl  

EDIT: This is probably the only case that trollbuster can actually"bust"  

[richard black]

The hardest thing I've made an acceptable job of in public is I suppose the vocal score of 'Die Walküre' as arranged by Karl Klindworth (original, not 'erleichtete'). Apart from anything else, it's damn near 4 hours long.

I mention this only because I would love to encourage a few more pianists to take up opera repetiteuring. There's a shortage of us! A lot of the playing is both challenging and fun.

[isaach]

Usually whatever I'm working in at the time! I like to push myself techinically so I look for things that are challenging, but still very musically pleasing. Once I can play a piece though, I can hardly call it difficult- I've always found that to be an oxymoron. If you can play it, how can it still be hard? I would never say I am ready to perform sonething which I considered difficult! That wouldn't go well, I expect.
Anything I bring to an audience I can literally play drunk and blindfolded while holding a conversation. Difficulty is really more of other peomes perpective- when you get more advanced you sort of lose this awe for things and it becomes about playing anything as well as possible.

At one time I found the Prokovief toccata to be intimidating, and I think if I was to ever get it back under my fingers it would take some practice (which I won't). Right now I'm focused on things which force me to build s specialized technique- Left hand ability & octaves primarily- very tedious stuff. I have found though that it is very difficult to find composed music that is insanely difficult and still good music- it barely exists! Godowsky etudes, two of which I'm working on, are mostly rambling nonsense! The textures are so thick they just lose all the eloquence of the original etudes.

As far as the Chopin Ballade debate goes the order of 'technical' difficulty goes (easy to hard): 3,2,1,4
Although, in my opinion, #1 & #3 are almost always played terribly, and #2 is a spectacular waste of time. #3 dosen't have any real ddifficulties, #2 has fast bits but they fit under the hand very easily, #1 has some tricky finger work for sure- including those scales which nobody can ever play fast enough to be convincing, and #4 is mostly full of polyphony and detail, and requires very agile fingers to play everything that's happening (goes on a bit to long though doesn't it?)

[chopinlover01]

#3 has no technical difficulties? You're either a piano god or deluding yourself.. Try the leggerio section at a piano-pianissimo dynamic the entire way without missing a note, and making each note as crisp and light as a string of pearls, as the expression goes.
Oh, and the C sharp minor section is a bit of a b*tch to get right.
I agree it's the easiest of all the Ballades, but to say it has no difficulties is plainly idiotic..
Also, #2 being a waste of time is also a horrifically disgusting statement. The pure beauty of the beginning pastorale, followed by the tempest..
Anyways, I digress.
The hardest piece I play right now is probably the Beethoven Op. 13, though it's been getting easier (I had 5 months to learn the first movement, but it was still bloody difficult!). So many awkward jumps for the melody, the voicing is hard, and the light E flat scales are also far harder than they sound. I'm playing the Tempest right now, and I personally find it less taxing (though it has its own unique challenges).
Also, La Campanella, which I occasionally play around with.

[pencilart3]

#3 has no technical difficulties? You're either a piano god or deluding yourself.. Try the leggerio section at a piano-pianissimo dynamic the entire way without missing a note, and making each note as crisp and light as a string of pearls, as the expression goes.
Oh, and the C sharp minor section is a bit of a b*tch to get right.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!

[isaach]

#3 has no technical difficulties? You're either a piano god or deluding yourself.. Try the leggerio section at a piano-pianissimo dynamic the entire way without missing a note, and making each note as crisp and light as a string of pearls, as the expression goes.
Oh, and the C sharp minor section is a bit of a b*tch to get right.
I agree it's the easiest of all the Ballades, but to say it has no difficulties is plainly idiotic..
Also, #2 being a waste of time is also a horrifically disgusting statement. The pure beauty of the beginning pastorale, followed by the tempest..
Anyways, I digress.
The hardest piece I play right now is probably the Beethoven Op. 13, though it's been getting easier (I had 5 months to learn the first movement, but it was still bloody difficult!). So many awkward jumps for the melody, the voicing is hard, and the light E flat scales are also far harder than they sound. I'm playing the Tempest right now, and I personally find it less taxing (though it has its own unique challenges).
Also, La Campanella, which I occasionally play around with.

Well, it isn't difficult for me to play soft- I suppose it's a talent, but I've never had a problem playing soft at all. I know this is something others struggle with, but I don't, and I don't think it makes me a 'god' on the piano. Any thing I can play, I can easily play pianissimo. It probably goes back to my early training where always maintaining a beautiful legato was always first and foremost.  It's not a practical skill though, because in concert, one never really plays pianissimo, do they? Or can I assume you don't know what I'm talking about?
I do find the 3rd Ballade easy, it's the only one I can just play at sight without breaking tempo (which I do ever other year). You also talk about the Pathetique Sonata, which I played almost 20 years ago and wasn't very challenging to me then either, but I played it because I thought it was cool. That also doesn't make me a god by any stretch of the imagination, but it does mean we have different levels of talent and abilities, which you should learn to respect when communicating with others. Not everyone is a beginner. I am a professional, and you are rude and presumptuous in assuming everyone is as clumsy, slow and baffled at the piano as you apparently are. You have to acknowledge your limitations, and that you have superiors before making grand authoritative statements about music you don't understand completely and can't play. Really, if those pieces are really challenging to you, you can hardly call yourself a pianist, let alone a 'classical' pianist. You are obviously a frustrated amateur, which is also perfectly fine thing to be.

And yes, as Ballade #2, some people, including myself, find the pastoral section boring (it's pretty, but long winded), and the 'tempest' section childishly aggressive and emotionally and lyrically flat, which makes the piece as a whole, a waste of time for me; in other words, boring.