Piano competitions/ recitals.

[popdog]

Hi,

What types of pieces are good for a piano competition?  What are you trying to prove?  What makes a good performance programme?  Any related comments welcome. 

I ask because a) I have a 22 minute performance at the end of the year for music.
b) I am thinking of entering a piano competition at the moment (Geelong Advertiser Nation Wide (Australia))

22 Minute Performance (In no particular order):
Mozart - Sonata in F K.332 1st movt
Bach - Prelude 21 (Well Tempered Clavier Book 1)
Norton - Prelude (VII Latin Preludes 2)
Mendelssohn - "Tarentella" (Songs Without Words)
Bartok - Sonatine in D
Abeniz - Malaguena Op. 165 No. 3

Any suggestions/opinions appreciated. 

[paris]

What types of pieces are good for a piano competition?  What are you trying to prove?  What makes a good performance programme?  Any related comments welcome. 

Generally, overplayed pieces aren't good for competitions. Always is better to play some not-very-well-known piece, you'll make everybody to listen you.  A good competition programme, on my opinion, depends on what are you good at. (if you can choose).  if you don't like or don't play good bach, you won't play him, you'll play something else.  but, on most of competitions i've been, there is strictly assigned programme, like beethoven sonata, two chopin/liszt/rach/or other etudes,  bach WTK, romantic and contemporary piece and piece from country where you are from.
every piece has to show your technical and musical skills. it's good to have virtuoso pieces, and slow, interpretative pieces, for showing both.
hope this helps!

[LVB op.57]

Pretty good choices. If you're gonna do any Bach, remember, with that kind of music it's really hit or miss. Errors in Bach are glaringly obvious, so make sure you can play it in your sleep. If you can, it also might be nice to do the fugue after the prelude, otherwise some judges might see it as incomplete.

[dmk]

I agree with Paris, overplayed repertoire is never a good idea.

If you are in Australia, I can nearly 100% promise you...that the best thing you can do is to find an Australian piece to play.  There are a lot of underplayed Australian pieces which are around the difficulty level you are looking at. (and PLEASE do not  say Christopher Norton is Australian, he is from NZ!! the amount of times I have students telling me that he is Australian would blow you mind).

Go to the Australian Music Centre's website and they have a HUGE and full catalogue of Australian works.  Equally, you don't want to play an overplayed Australian work...pick something a little different and you will be well rewarded by Australian judges!

Good luck

dmk

[Awakening]

It's true, overplayed pieces are generally not a good idea for a recital or competition, but not always.  If your piece is one that is overplayed and often not played carelessly or not as well as it should be, and you play it the way it is meant ot be played, then you have the advantage over other competitors who may be playing little heard pieces that the judges are having difficulty assessing, due to lack of comparable performances.  Similarly, if you have an especially interesting interpretation (but not <i>too</i> interesting) of a piece that is very commonly played, you may be recognized for your artistic expression and originality.  Basically, if you are very good at playing a piece, even if it is played very frequently, you should still consider playing it at recital or competition, because they are looking for good playing, and it ultimately doesn't matter much what the repertoire is, per se.  The difficulty also isn't the primary concern, as I have seen performers whose pieces are not the most difficult of the competition win based on how polished their performance was.  All this stuff is basically common knowledge and logical. 

[BoliverAllmon]

also, play stuff you like. competitions can be hit or miss. I recently auditioned (not the same thing but somewhat close) and played a haydn sonata really nice (at least to several teachers that heard me play before) but the juror didn't like it too much. He prefered faster and more even. The typical boring haydn really. I had no idea what the juror was going to think when I went in there. Therefore, the only thing I can do is play it the way I like and enjoy the piano part like nobody's business.

boliver

[lostinidlewonder]

Pieces good for competition are ones which show lots of elements of the piano. How the piano can be used to make different sounds, the effective demonstration of the different sounds the piano can go through on stage is really what will win you a competition. So playing a piece which has a lot of content that highlights a lot of what the piano is capable of is good. That could include a whole huge repetiore of virtuosic pieces from the piano composers like Liszt, Chopin, Scriabin, Rachmaninov etc who really know the capabilities of the instrument. So I think you shouldn't play anything in the classical or baroque (some exceptions, eg: impressive Beethoven Sonata) if the choice of what you play is totally open, play more romantic, 20th/21st.

The earlier piano works do not really bring forth all that the piano can do. It is like the olympics sports i guess. Does a diver for instance go do a safe dive, something traditional and routine and get good marks, or do they take risks and push the limitation of their physical ability to get the top marks? Piano competitions are exactly the same but based on the choice of music, what you play you must be convinced is going to excite anyone who hears it. What you have must push the limits of yourself to demonstrate the acrobatic nature of your piano dive lol.

Of course the traditional methods win too, but it depends on what the competition specifies, but if it is an open choice then I would really go for the works after the classical.


As for performance programme I think what is critical is that each piece gels with one another, so that when you talk about your music to your audience you are keeping a solid image not just jumping all around the place. For instance i would find it hard to start talking about Gottschalk, an American pianist and composer then all of a sudden after him start talking about Bach, or vice versa. The connection isn't there. So if pieces paint similar images, or have similar ideas than the other, they could be coupled together, not only for sound logic but also the logic in your talk presentation to your audience. This logic can often be found just by trying to gather as much info as you can on the pieces you want to play, the order reveals itself to you then and sometimes even what needs to be removed and replaced.