Musical Madness 2025: Awards, results for all the matches, and the final reveal!

[liszt-and-the-galops]

It’s finally time to reveal the awards and the winner of the final match of MM25!
Before we get to that: I’ve set all of the forms to allow everyone to view the results summary due to my continuous inability to spend 5 minutes on each match editing a screenshot. X(
You can go back to the previous threads and click on the match links to view the full breakdown of the results. Links to every MM25 thread can be found here: https://sites.google.com/view/musicalmadness-ps/tournaments/2025/links

Link to results for the final match: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSewgj8la1-qrQMXHapUYc2UW9TQZB1Wdfo34U-tohmopsFZlg/viewanalytics?usp=form_confirm
Link to the complete bracket (spoilers for final match): https://challonge.com/musicalmadness2025
First: awards voting!
Winner of the Upset Award, with 12 votes (25.5%):
33. S. 140 "La Campanella" beats "Hammerklavier" (mvt. 4)!

In joint second place (6 votes, 12.8%) were:
41. S. 137 "Feux Follets" beats Le Preux, and
54. Chopin's 4th Ballade beats Spanish Rhapsody


Winner of the Cinderella Award:
Saint-Saëns - Op. 111 no. 6 "Toccata d'Aprés le Cinquième Concerto"   (12 votes)

Second and third:
Czerny - Sonata op. 268 (4th mvt.)   (11 votes)
Liszt - S. 137 no. 5 Feux Follets (1837)   (9 votes)


The top three pieces in the Honorable Mentions contest were:
Alkan - Op. 17 Le Preux   (20 votes)
Fauré - Ballade Op. 19   (23 votes)
And the winner:
Beethoven - Sonata no. 29 op. 106 "Hammerklavier" (4th mvt.)   (27 votes, or 67.5%)!


And of course, who was the winner of Musical Madness 2025?
With a final tally of 46 votes (59%) to 32, the second piece to win Musical Madness is…

Czerny - Sonata op. 268 (mvt. 4)!!!!!


Lastly, some extra awards:
Winner of the bracket contest: “Untitled,” with 107 points and 39 correct predictions
Highest-ranked Pianostreet member: “sweet georgia brown,” with 99 points and 43 correct predictions
Highest-ranked Pianostreet commenter: “transitional,” with 82 points and 39 correct predictions
Most correct predictions: “Liszt-and-the-Galops’ prediction,” with 49 correct predictions (77.8%)
Longest perfect bracket: “Liszt-and-the-Galops’ prediction” busted in match #36

Funniest suggestion for improving the tournament: “I disagree.”


Lastly, thanks to everyone who voted in the matches, submitted a bracket, or commented in the threads. The fact that this tournament has now amassed nearly 2,500 votes over its lifespan is downright incredible, and your participation in this project means the world to me. Thank you, and see you next year.

[transitional]

Thanks for this tournament! And it's great seeing the love for the Fauré in the honorable mentions (:

Some of the possible changes that I agree with just for some input:
- Include a more diverse set of composers; there were too many Liszts and Chopins this time around: 100% agree
- Do some play-in matchups like the real MM: Might be kind of fun
- Make every match in the voting forms (except when there's only one match) optional. There have been a few times when I only had time to listen to pieces in one/two matchups and didn't get to vote because of it: Didn't happen to me, but that makes sense.

Other things I kinda want to address:
- Also hold a "May Madness" tournament which is the same bracket as the March tournament but people pick their favorites instead of the most difficult piece: While I would like having a tournament not completely based on difficulty, this kind of goes against the whole point of the tournament so that would need to be in another tournament (no pressure though).
- 1. Allow people to submit two brackets (the real March Madness lets people submit up to 6) 2. Change the font of these forms to Courier New. 3. Allow for pieces longer than 15 minutes: Is this gasplamey 
- Make the nomination round more inclusive by allowing non-PS members to make suggestions: No offense, but is it really that hard to make a pianostreet account? Or is this for online privacy reasons or something? Just wondering because I would love to see more activity on the Musical Madness threads!

"Impossible" lol. I guess I know how to pick a bracket next time. (Hopefully)

[liszt-and-the-galops]

- Make every match in the voting forms (except when there's only one match) optional. There have been a few times when I only had time to listen to pieces in one/two matchups and didn't get to vote because of it: Didn't happen to me, but that makes sense.

I was actually almost going to do that this year, but changed it last-second. I'm definitely doing it for next year.

- Include a more diverse set of composers; there were too many Liszts and Chopins this time around: 100% agree
- Do some play-in matchups like the real MM: Might be kind of fun

First one is definitely planned. Minor spoiler for next year: unless there are some suggestions and/or I find something I definitely need to include, Liszt's roster will be cut roughly in half.
If I can figure out how to make Challonge work for the second one, I'll definitely do it. No promises, though.

- 1. Allow people to submit two brackets (the real March Madness lets people submit up to 6) 2. Change the font of these forms to Courier New. 3. Allow for pieces longer than 15 minutes: Is this gasplamey 

Almost certainly.

[gasplamey]

Is this gasplamey 

Almost certainly.

I will neither confirm nor deny the accusations surrounding gasplameygate. /joking
Folloing in the footsteps of transitional, here are some of the suggestions I'd like to see (different font for easier reading):
Have a consolation (3rd place) match please!
Do some play-in matchups like the real MM!
Go back to the S. 139/S.141 versions, please!
1. Allow people to submit two brackets (the real March Madness lets people submit up to 6) 2. Change the font of these forms to Courier New. 3. Allow for pieces longer than 15 minutes.
Give us a set number of nominations for honorable mentions (say 16) and allow us to distribute them however we want (say 8 for one piece, 2 for three others, and 1 for two others).
Maybe do some of the awards (honorable mention?) during the semifinal matchups, and split them beween the two votes. As it is now, it's really time-consuming to actually vote in the final match.
Something from Medtner and Mendelssohn would be cool, as well as something from Rachmaninoff's more difficult works (e.g. 2nd Sonata, 3rd Concerto, etc.)
Have a seeded bracket instead of a random one. Possible seeding systems include: your opinion on actual difficulty, YT views of the chosen video, your opinion on which pieces will win, or even seeding by alphabetical order
Limit the number of pieces from a given composer to four and have all of their pieces play each-other in the early rounds, so there will be 16 different composers in the round of 16.

Reasoing:
I want an official "third place"
More pieces and more matchups = more fun
S. 137 sucks
More bracket contest entres and courier=best fon. Also, I'd argue the primayr restriction going back to being common repertoire rather than lenth would be staing true to the original purpoes of the tournament, not having these obscure things like the Czerny and S. 137 Feux Follets sweep the whole brcaket
I think this would make honorable mentons voting more interesting
Ahgterd, the ginal form was way too long
Fan of Rachmaninoff hgerem and I think he should get more accurate representation, as opposed to these small " difficult" Etudes and Preludes and things
Seedung would provide more  onrete ways to define "upsets," and thus more discussion prompts
Fan of divertsity among composers in this tourenament, so more different people making the later rounds would be cool

Overall this has been a fun thing, though some of the votes have been infuriatinhg *** Feux Follets *** Piece Of ***. Also, I greatly appreaciate the new results format over the one used lasdt year.
Looking forward to next year!
[/font]

[liszt-and-the-galops]

A third place match is definitely something I'd consider, and so are the "first four" matchup things, assuming I could figure out how to make Challonge work for that.

S. 137 sucks

I respectfully disagree with that.

As for multiple bracket entries per person (I assume "entres" was a typo), it's a similar problem as with the bonus matchups: Challonge doesn't work terribly well for it.

Courier=best fon[t]

Of course you'd think that.

Also, I'd argue the primayr restriction going back to being common repertoire rather than lenth would be staing true to the original purpoes of the tournament, not having these obscure things like the Czerny and S. 137 Feux Follets sweep the whole brcaket

The tournament was originally meant to be a "common repertoire" tournament, but that's no longer what it's purpose is.

Ahgterd, the ginal form was way too long

What?

Don't worry, I've got something of a plan for giving Rachmaninoff a better shot next year.

IMO there's a certain charm that comes from the randomized matchups that seeding just doesn't give off. Though I am admittedly tempted to put La Campanella up against something like Op. 268, Rondeau Fantastique, or S. 137 Wilde Jagd.
That could also backfire horribly.

I am planning on having a more diverse set of composers next year as well, in multiple ways.

[transitional]

If you do Schumann next year, do the Fantasie. The Toccata is getting old for me, and the Fantasie is one of his most difficult and best pieces imo.

[liszt-and-the-galops]

If you do Schumann next year, do the Fantasie. The Toccata is getting old for me, and the Fantasie is one of his most difficult and best pieces imo.

I was already thinking about adding the Fantasie in addition to the Toccata lol, though I could definitely use it as a replacement instead. Thanks for the suggestion!

[gasplamey]

Hang on, didn't you say that this match broke two vote count records? It looks like the only new one is that the Czerny now has the most votes for a piece in a single match?

[liszt-and-the-galops]

Hang on, didn't you say that this match broke two vote count records? It looks like the only new one is that the Czerny now has the most votes for a piece in a single match?

I did.
New record #1: Most votes by for a single piece in an individual match.
New record #2: Least votes for a piece in a Finals match.