Piano Solo Concert Program

[lostinidlewonder]

Hey ya'll. I have been mixing around the peices for a program I've been doing the last few concerts and now come to this list, but I would like to get some input as to what you think of it. Balanced? Annoy? Boring? lol.

Bach: WTC Preludes and Fugues: Bk1 No1(P),2(P),3(P),6(P) and Bk2 No6(P+F)

Ravel: Sonatine I)Modere II)Menuet III)Anime
Pavane pour une infante defunte

(Water Pieces)
Jeux Deau
Miroirs No3: Une Barque sur l'ocean
Gaspard de la Nuit: Ondine.

Interval

Debussy:
Prelude Bk1 no5: The Hills of Anacapri
Children's Corner no 1: Doctor Gradus au Parnassum

(Snow Pieces)
Prelude Bk1 no6: Des pas sur la neige
Children's Corner no 4: The snow is dancing

(Water Pieces)
Prelude Bk1 no10: Sunken Cathedral
Images Bk1 no1: Reflets dan leau

(Cakewalk/Doll peices)
Children's Corner no 3: Seranade for the Doll
Children's Corner no 6: Gollywogs Cakewalk
Prelude Bk2 no6: General Lavine Eccentric

(show off peice)
Prelude Bk2 No10: Fireworks

End

Encore: Grieg: Hall of the Mountain Troll King, some spanish stuff prepared too like Lecuona's Malaguenna, De Falla's Ritual Fire Dance.

I usually do Beethoven Sonata with the Bach, but i just dont want to do it this time, just Bach, Ravel and Debussy this time. The total playing time is just over 60 minutes. I talk a little before playing each one, so it all evens out to like two 45 min sessions.

[pianonut]

i am annoyed.  why are you performing four preludes without the fugues (sacriledge) and children's pieces (pavane for the infant?) with  much harder pieces.  it seems like it would take away from the good stuff.  why don't you just leave out all the children's stuff?  is this a trick question to see if anyone knows much about debussy?  are you serious.  i am so annoyed, i am going to eat more saurkraut chocolate cake.

if i heard you play, i would walk up to you afterwards and say, 'oh, you can't play the fugues because they're too hard, right!'  and, you would blush.  then, i would say, there are no children in the audience 'so why are you playing all this easy stuff.'  you would do better to play a little less harder music instead of an insipid blend of easy hard easy hard.  it makes me think that you might be weak of hand (and need a rest after every piece). ok.  enough spasms in the neck.

[pianonut]

de falla's ritual fire dance is the only encore i'd want to hear you play.

[lostinidlewonder]

I can play the Fugues  I just don't think people could listen to too many fugues because I personally get bored and fall asleep listening to too many in a row. Maybe I should do 2 or 3 more. I guess i want to keep the momentum going with playing just the preludes, keep it fast paced. But I know some people will have tongue in cheek, but does it really bug you? 

Ravels Pavane isn't a childrens peice(I don't think so at least), I doubt any child could get their fingers on it, many big stretches and deep expression. I guess I wanted to do the Debussy Childrens Corner simply because I think they sound so cool and are very memorable(you can sorta hum it back even the first time listening to it, which i am expecting most of the audience will be, cos in Australia the majority of the audience have not much of an idea about piano solo music, I know elsewhere in the world the people are much more educated.)  Also, when they where written back in 1908 they sold over 20,000 which is pretty incredible back then(got that out of preface in the Urtext).

They where an instant success and played all over the place (maybe because it was easyish and most people could play it). I put a lot of character in each of them, so they are pretty much played my own way. I listen to these played all the time and groan in disgust. They have a great deal of potential, its not just about playing all the notes and dynamics right, you have to really know how to express the ideas and useage of sound. You can really characterise it your own way, because of that flexibility I thought it would also be good to play because you can present your own ideas to your audience with "simpler" to listen to and understand music. Lots of story behind each peice at least which makes what you choose to say a lot easier.

The basis for a lot of what I want to talk about with Debussy is how he communicates his music. They are a lot of solid images depicted through sound and new ideas in music Debussy sorta pioneered (eg: Reflets dan leau, the use of Dorian Scales, and Whole tone Scales etc, which are used a lot is jazz today).

I don't want to torture people with overly hard music, but the pieces aren't overly simple. I mean Debussy preludes aren't really a walk in the park, neither is the Ravel Water peices. I would be happy to do eccentric Debussy Etudes and Preludes but I dunno if Mr Joe Bloggs sitting in the audience would appreciate it. I even feel the Fireworks is pushing it even for the average listeners, but yeah.

[rodrk352]

    I think it's a great program. Some thoughts...
    The Pavane for a Dead Princess (Infante) is a stately, magical work and is not well-known. I played it myself in public (in a café that had a piano) and it made a good impression. I wonder if your version is edited like mine by Paolo Gallico? My version may or not be Ravel's original.
    Golliwog's Cakewalk and the Sunken Cathedral are my favorite Debussy pieces along with the Girl With the Flaxen Hair (which you omitted.)
     I have a recording of Ondine with John Gielgud reciting Christopher Fry's translation of the poem on which it is based. Gina Bachauer plays the Sunken Cathedral on that disc too.
     You should preface the work with that poem, I think. Do you have a translation to read? If not, I can pass it along to you. It begins: "Listen! Do you know what you hear?" Good translation.
     The Fire Dance and the Malaguena are on a disc of Oscar Levant showstoppers I once heard. He was a showman, if not a great pianist, and knew how to wow an audience like Lang Lang.
      You have water and fire in your program. The poet (Aloysius Bertrand) who wrote Ondine also wrote a poem about a salamander that lived in the fireplace, but Ravel never set the fire poem to music.
      Hall of the Mountain King is the most technically difficult Grieg solo piano work for me to play. Maybe that's why I don't like it! I have trouble reading the two bass clefs.
       All in all, good mix of the unusual and familiar. Personally, I agree that too much solo Bach would put the audience to sleep. (I love Bach: but most of all his orchestral works!) More fun to play his piano works than to listen to them, IMHO. 

[steinwayguy]

Frankly, I dont' like it all.
I agree, you can't play Preludes without playing Fugues.
Also, I dont like the idea of seperating Children's Corner into like four different categories. Just play the entire thing. Not to mention, playing only part of Miroirs and Gaspard de la Nuit.

[allchopin]

the preludes were not originally meant to be played with the fugues - in fact, they werent meant to be performed at all. Dont get too stuck up in this.

[pianonut]

now i see where we're going!  i guess we are in the 21st century.  being of the 'old school' for so long - (i don't like change) - it's very difficult to understand how far we've come.  guess we shouldn't go backwards.  here's a story i read that helped me understand about preludes standing alone:

Debussy, about the time he turned 30, conceived an orchestral work (now known as Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) from Stephane Marllarme's poem by the same name.  Debussy originally conceived his work to be in three parts, Prelude, Interlude, and Paraphrase finale.  A performance of "such a triptych work was announced for Brussels in March 1894"  but it did not take place because Debussy never got beyone the sketches for the last two parts.  The prelude was revised to stand alone.  He may have been looking forward (15 years) to his 2 books of preludes compromising 24 brief pieces (each self-contained).

so, i guess, that even though Bach conceived the prelude to set the pitch for the fugue or mass, we don't conceive it in a religious setting anymore.  if we were to play for church, even, the fugue (nowdays) would be very dense to the audience.  i suppose the lightness of the prelude is what people like to hear.

BUT, i agree with SteinwayGuy about gathering together the pieces of Children's Corner and not mixing them in with the Preludes.  I wouldn't even put them in the program at all (maybe use them for a sunday afternoon concert - for kids/adults)

I would focus on your theme - Preludes, but include 20th century preludes or fugues for comparison with your theme of Preludes with and without Fugues.  Is this your theme?  I like it.  I would sit through without annoyance or boredom.  You sound like you really think about your programs and try to include every listener (whether musician or not).  Maybe you are right about Children's Corner!  You must have a very good memory to play so much Debussy.  This sounds probably too romantic for a guy's recital, but I would have one big boquet of flowers somewhere in the room (preferrable near the front - on other side of piano).  Debussy captures something in color/texture/and light.  I would even dim the lights slightly - and if you wanted to get really extravagant, use (or borrow) a water feature to put in the back of the room.  The combination of natural sounds and piano sounds is cool to me.

[pianonut]

you know, like wedding planners, i should be a recital planner (just thought of it) ahahhahaha. 

now, i've been thinking so much about your program (how to make it perfect) that i got sidestracked by equaltemperament ideas of bach vs.? debussy's unique whir of notes (that really does away with equal temperament) and starts playing with the harp aspect of the piano.  now, what would you say is happening in 20th and 21st century music (are BOTH prelude and fugue dead?).  Do we start messing more with percussive elements of the piano and frequent rhythm changes.  Does this make the prelude and nocturne really a romantic element and neo-romantic's like Barber the exception rather than the rule?  just wondering.

[pianonut]

ps  i guess what i meant about debussy was more of his use of harmonics??? is this right?  we don't listen for the fugue anymore (voices coming in and out and being in a specific key) - we listen for a blend of overtones that pile one upon another and make for expanding, waning, fading tones that remind us of wafts of air or drops of water making wakes or something etherial.  it's not like a formula anymore (his preludes)--they materialize and disappear without much effort to the listener.

[lostinidlewonder]

   The Pavane for a Dead Princess (Infante) is a stately, magical work and is not well-known. I wonder if your version is edited like mine by Paolo Gallico? My version may or not be Ravel's original.

I haven't seen that version before, I would be really interested to hear it though.

I do have the Gaspard poems in my Dover edition. Another interesting thing about the Gaspard de la Nuit was that it has connection to Ravel's father. The Ondine represents Ravel's love for his father, the Le Gibet represents his fathers decay in sickness(since a gibet is one of those cages which hung infront of medievil castles, people put in there to just die and rot. The whole piece represents that image of a cage swinging side to side, a body slowly dying, rotting away, bells tolling in the distance*shudder*. The Scarbo releases Ravel's pain and fury over his fathers passing. This underlying emotion is often overshadowed by the stories, but i think it is an underlying emotion throughout, deep stuff.

I would focus on your theme - Preludes, but include 20th century preludes or fugues for comparison with your theme of Preludes with and without Fugues. Is this your theme?

I just wanted to represent images Debussy created with his music. I personally want to play Debussy Preludes more in concert because I think it has a lasting effect on people through both the sound and images that are created. I certainly like them very much, enjoy listening to it being played at any standard (especially when its my students who get pissed off )

I am yet to do all 24 for a concert program, maybe a future thing if i can work out how to explain the more eccentric stuff to an audience, it is hard to get your ears around some of them first time listening, and again lots of the people there would be first time listeners to the Debussy Preludes, shocking but true!

----

The reasoning behind me seperating things up is for a creative purpose. To tell you the truth I am rather bored hearing the Children's Corner Suite being played from 1-6. It is too routine for me, it lacks creativity on behalf of structure of your concert presentation. I am playing the Sonatine in its whole form though.

I grouped peices of differed books to reflect a similar image. I want to paint images in a logical order for the audience rather than scattered all over the place. Childrens Corner is like: Doctor, lullaby, oh look a doll and now you got some snow, which moves on to a shepard and then a black faced gollywog doll. A little scattered for me, so put all the dolls and cakewalks together, put all the water peices together, dont let The Snow is Dancing be played without also Footsteps in the Snow, just to present two examples of Debussy's musical expression of that one image. That is why i play the gaspard by itself, and the une barque with the jeux deau. Ravels three ideas on water, instead of three movements of Gaspard. Does that make up for the fact that they arent played in their entirety?

[steinwayguy]

All I'm saying is I wouldn't go hear it. But I'm not the world's biggest Debussy fan.

[pianonut]

you sound confident (so you probably play well) and your recital will probably go off without a hitch.  i like how deeply you thought about the organization.

for myself, and possibly SteinwayGuy...(ok. i speak for myself) it would be memory frustration at not playing all the movements of a piece.  or, things not in order.  But, what you said makes sense (putting like things together).

I would go to the concert, but i would not do it myself (yet).  i am very classically oriented.  if i were to label myself - it would be a romantic classicist.  i like things in precise order, symmetrical, and even.  hearing the preludes with the fugues eases my mind. 

[steinwayguy]

Piano Nut. Look at my name.

[astroboy]

Your concert program sounds quite interesting, I'm looking forward to hearing it. Let me know when and where and i'll come watch.

[pianonut]

oops.  i was really thinking your name, but accidentally typed tony.

[nicko124]

It's a very good program actually and i am sure it will go really well. Ondine and Jeux D'eaux are two very difficult pieces and both masterpieces. I beleive that Pascal Roge's performance of Jeux D'eau and Ondine are the best that i have heard. You might want to use them.

The only piece on your program which i can't stand is Footsteps in the Snow which has to be one of the most boring piano works i have ever heard. I have never understood why it has any popularity, it seems like a piece that never gets going and sticks to the same boring theme.
However you obviously want to use it to create the snow effect with the snow is dancing. I can't understand how Bach's preludes and Fugues can be fun to listen to in a large volume.

[Nordlys]

It is an interesting idea to group pieces according to themes.  I myself have thought about grouping the Debussy preludes this way:

Nature:
2. Voiles
3. Le vent dans la plaine
6. Des pas sur la neige
7. Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest
13. Brouillards
14. Feuilles mortes
17. Bruyères

Fairytales:
8. La fille aux cheveux de lin
11. La danse de Puck
16. Les fées sont d'exquises danseuses
20. Ondine

Nocturnal pieces:
4. Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir
19. La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune

Spain/Italy:
5. Les collines d'Anacapri
9. La sérénade Interrompue
15. La Puerta del Vino

Ancient times:
1. Danseuses de Delphes
10. La cathédrale engloutie
22. Canope

Entertainment:
12. Minstrels
18. Général Lavine
21. Hommage à Samuel Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C.
23. Les tierces alternées
24. Feux d'artifices


But actually after seeing the list I am not sure if I would do it after all. It somehow makes the music look a bit cheaper. Now you see that Debussy used some of his ideas several times. Maybe it is better that they come in an unorganised way.

There is a book by Siglind Bruhn: "Images and Ideas in Modern French Piano Music: The Extra-Musical Subtext in Piano Works by Ravel, Debussy, and Messiaen". You should checkt it out. The preludes by Debussy, Gaspard and mirroirs by Ravel are grouped according to themes. Quite inspiring book to read!

[Nordlys]

Encore: Grieg: Hall of the Mountain Troll King, some spanish stuff prepared too like Lecuona's Malaguenna, De Falla's Ritual Fire Dance.

By the way, Hall of the Mountain Troll King is an orchestral piece. Who made the transcription? You yourself?

[lostinidlewonder]

Cool grouping. When I group music it's always with connection to the sound. I like to group piece which sound similar in structure to one another, even if it is in some abstract way.

I'll check out that book thanks sounds good since it mentioned combined music that im also combining in this concert. I got the sheet music for the Grieg from sheetmusicarchive.net and added bits myself here and there. It is being played as encore so you can do whatever you want with it I guess.