Musical Madness 2025! Liszt Rhapsody, Scriabin Sonata, Chop Ballade, Rach Etude!

[liszt-and-the-galops]

Link to the form for voting: https://forms.gle/pUECQ46oB4pPJmRd8

Pieces in the matches:
Chopin - Ballade no. 4
Chopin - Etude op. 25 no. 11 "Winter Wind"

Liszt/Hamelin - Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2 (with Hamelin's Cadenza)
Brahms - Study no. 1 after Chopin's Op. 25 no. 2

Liszt - S. 254 Spanish Rhapsody
Rachmaninoff - Etude Tableau Op. 39 no. 6 "Little Red Riding Hood"

Chopin - Etude op. 10 no. 4 "Torrent"
Scriabin - Sonata no. 8


Current bracket: https://challonge.com/musicalmadness2025
Winners of the last matchups: Feux Follets, Le Preux, Arpeggio, Petrushka.
Results page on MM website: https://sites.google.com/view/musicalmadness-ps/voting-results
Matches/results spreadsheet: https://1drv.ms/x/c/373bca7cb13fd958/ERCeNi1RJdVCuYiYk2KhQlkBEpSOnfoDFbYla3MknPz-vA?e=oxosxa&nav=MTVfezAwMDAwMDAwLTAwMDEtMDAwMC0wMDAwLTAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMH0
Full results will be added in a couple hours. Until then, you can check the bracket for the vote counts.


This thread also doubles as the official discussion thread for these four matches and the results of the previous four.
Apologies for the slight delay in posting. I’ve updated the deadline accordingly.
Voting closes at 5:05 PM on March 8th, 2025 (US Eastern time).

[transitional]

So Chopin is Chop now?

I'm not too surprised about the Liszt Etude, though it's not as absurdly difficult as 4b, which I honestly think should be the only version of it in the competition. Anyways it's your tournament.

[liszt-and-the-galops]

So Chopin is Chop now?

There seems to be a 100 character limit on titles, so I chose to sacrifice characters from the name that was most recognizable when shortened.

I'm not too surprised about the Liszt Etude, though it's not as absurdly difficult as 4b, which I honestly think should be the only version of it in the competition. Anyways it's your tournament.

It's definitely still difficult enough to be in the competition; just because it doesn't have a shot at winning doesn't mean it can't participate (I mean, look at Scriabin 42/5 lol).
Also, if I only included the hardest version of each piece that fit the requirements, S. 140 La Campanella wouldn't be in the tournament at all, since La Clochette is way more difficult.

[lelle]

Voted!

[essence]

Pieces in the matches:
Chopin - Ballade no. 4
Chopin - Etude op. 25 no. 11 "Winter Wind"

Liszt/Hamelin - Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2 (with Hamelin's Cadenza)
Brahms - Study no. 1 after Chopin's Op. 25 no. 2

Liszt - S. 254 Spanish Rhapsody
Rachmaninoff - Etude Tableau Op. 39 no. 6 "Little Red Riding Hood"

Chopin - Etude op. 10 no. 4 "Torrent"
Scriabin - Sonata no. 8

I like this list. I've played the Chopin ballade 4, Rachmaninoff little red riding hood and scriabin sonata 8 in public or in masterclasses.

Badly.

[thorn]

I think this is a question of long forms vs short ones. They're probably of equal difficulty if you isolate a few bars and analyse the technical demands but ultimately it comes down to whether you're a sprinter or long distance runner.