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For those of us who spend our lives on the bench — whether teaching, practicing for a recital, or simply playing for the love of it – the piano has always been a singular concept: wood, felt, strings, and soul. Yet, recent global market reports reveal that the definition of our instrument is expanding and evolving in ways that affect us all. Read more

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Topic: The hardest operatic fantasies (Read 3852 times)

ronde_des_sylphes

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The hardest operatic fantasies

on: September 01, 2021, 06:57:49 PM

A bit of fun. I put together a video with samples from what I believe to be the most demanding paraphrases in the romantic style. So a lot of Liszt, obviously, and the likes of Sorabji and Finnissy don't get included. I've been a touch naughty and included a few of my compositions, but they are genuinely quite difficult, so I'm emphatically not being facetious with their inclusion. Some famous pieces here, of course, and some definitely not so famous. I'm sure Thal and visitor will enjoy this if they see it, and hopefully it might amuse a few others. There is some truly stellar piano playing at some points in this video!

It's not an attempt to create an absolute hierarchy, but I'm sure that most people would agree that those at the end are really hard whereas those at ths start are merely difficult.

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My website - www.andrewwrightpianist.com
Info and samples from my first commercial album - https://youtu.be/IlRtSyPAVNU
My SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/andrew-wright-35

lelle

PS Gold Member
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Posts: 2656

Re: The hardest operatic fantasies

Reply #1 on: September 01, 2021, 08:44:01 PM

Haha, this is really fun

I really think you should include time codes in the video description though, I wanted to hop around a bit and also easily find my way back to a certain pianist/piece, but could not do so

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ronde_des_sylphes

PS Silver Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 2992

Re: The hardest operatic fantasies

Reply #2 on: September 01, 2021, 08:49:31 PM

Yeah, I'll incorporate that shortly.. I meant to include that but went out in a hurry this morning having just uploaded it and didn't get round to writing everything down to edit in later.

(Done now.)

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My website - www.andrewwrightpianist.com
Info and samples from my first commercial album - https://youtu.be/IlRtSyPAVNU
My SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/andrew-wright-35

lelle

PS Gold Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 2656

Re: The hardest operatic fantasies

Reply #3 on: September 06, 2021, 08:02:18 PM

Quote from: ronde_des_sylphes on September 01, 2021, 08:49:31 PM

Yeah, I'll incorporate that shortly.. I meant to include that but went out in a hurry this morning having just uploaded it and didn't get round to writing everything down to edit in later.

(Done now.)

Great! It's made the video even more awesome

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ronde_des_sylphes

PS Silver Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 2992

Re: The hardest operatic fantasies

Reply #4 on: September 07, 2021, 08:45:06 AM

Thanks

One of my regular channel viewers was kind enough to write a comment with the full details of each extract (diacritics and all!) so I pinned it.

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My website - www.andrewwrightpianist.com
Info and samples from my first commercial album - https://youtu.be/IlRtSyPAVNU
My SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/andrew-wright-35

ahinton

PS Silver Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 12149

Re: The hardest operatic fantasies

Reply #5 on: September 08, 2021, 03:17:32 PM

"the likes of Sorabji and Finnissy don't get included". Any reason for that? And any other exclusions?...

Best,

Alistair

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Alistair Hinton
Curator / Director
The Sorabji Archive

ronde_des_sylphes

PS Silver Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 2992

Re: The hardest operatic fantasies

Reply #6 on: September 08, 2021, 05:33:54 PM

Quote from: ronde_des_sylphes on September 01, 2021, 06:57:49 PM

I put together a video with samples from what I believe to be the most demanding paraphrases in the romantic style.

I don't think anyone can realistically describe either Sorabji or Finnissy as romantic. Plus restricting it to the romantic style means that I was selecting from repertoire I'm familiar with: in around a dozen examples that familiarity is at the performance level. As it happens I played three of them in public the week before making the video, but they were mostly at the "easier" end of the selection.

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My website - www.andrewwrightpianist.com
Info and samples from my first commercial album - https://youtu.be/IlRtSyPAVNU
My SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/andrew-wright-35

ranjit

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Sr. Member
Posts: 1489

Re: The hardest operatic fantasies

Reply #7 on: September 08, 2021, 06:36:15 PM

Do Sorabji and Finnissy even have operatic fantaisies?

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ronde_des_sylphes

PS Silver Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 2992

Re: The hardest operatic fantasies

Reply #8 on: September 08, 2021, 06:53:26 PM

Finnissy did ones on Verdi and there is a Sorabji 'pastiche' on Carmen.

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My website - www.andrewwrightpianist.com
Info and samples from my first commercial album - https://youtu.be/IlRtSyPAVNU
My SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/andrew-wright-35

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Piano Street Magazine:New Piano Market Statistics: Inside the Quiet Transformation of Piano Playing

Topic: The hardest operatic fantasies (Read 3852 times)

Piano Street Magazine:
New Piano Market Statistics: Inside the Quiet Transformation of Piano Playing