Musical Madness 2026! Feux Follets eliminated + End of the first round!

[liszt-and-the-galops]

Link to the form for voting: https://forms.gle/kth3GAxQ9x1Wnp827

Pieces in the matches:
Beethoven - Op. 106 Sonata no. 29 "Hammerklavier" (mvt. 4)
Szymanowski - Op. 29 Métopes

Stravinsky - Trois Mouvements de Petrouchka
Brahms - Op. 35 Variations on a Theme of Paganini (Book I)

Liszt - S. 420 Grande Fantaisie de Bravoure sur La Clochette
Liszt - S. 218 Galop in A Minor

Prokofiev - Op. 84 Sonata no. 8 (mvt. 3)
Medtner - Op. 25 no. 2 "Night Wind" Sonata (mvt. 5 "Quasi Cadenza" ONLY)

Current bracket: https://challonge.com/musicalmadness26

Winners of the previous matchups: Saint-Saëns Op. 111 no. 1, C. Schumann Sonata mvt. 4, Le Festin d'Ésope, and Rachmaninoff Op. 36 mvt. 1. Full results are available on challonge.

This thread also doubles as the official discussion thread for this match and the results of the previous one.

Voting closes at 8:00 PM on March 11th, 2026 (US Eastern time). (side note: daylight savings just happened in the US, so stuff is going to be an hour earlier for non-US people.)

[the_franzliszt]

WTHHHHH. Who voted against Feux Follet. I NEED TO KNOW WHO IS RESPONSIBLE  .

[liszt-and-the-galops]

WTHHHHH. Who voted against Feux Follet. I NEED TO KNOW WHO IS RESPONSIBLE  .

15 people.

And thank f_ck they did lmao, I did not have the courage to predict that it would lose.

What's more surprising to me is that the C. Schumann Sonata mvt. 4 won (and by a decent amount, too).

[the_franzliszt]

15 people. 

tsk tsk tsk, smh

What's more surprising to me is that the C. Schumann Sonata mvt. 4 won (and by a decent amount, too).

That did suprise me a bit, I ended up choosing the Schubert.

[thorn]

What's more surprising to me is that the C. Schumann Sonata mvt. 4 won (and by a decent amount, too).

I chose the Schumann because there seemed more polyphony. I imagine the Schubert is harder musically because all his sonatas are long and repetitive and need something 'extra' to hold audience attention. But this is a technical difficulty contest vs. a musical difficulty one. (Confession: I don't care for the Schumanns or Schubert so only skim-listened to both).

[liszt-and-the-galops]

I chose the Schumann because there seemed more polyphony. I imagine the Schubert is harder musically because all his sonatas are long and repetitive and need something 'extra' to hold audience attention. But this is a technical difficulty contest vs. a musical difficulty one. (Confession: I don't care for the Schumanns or Schubert so only skim-listened to both).

It's an overall difficulty contest, though most people do vote almost entirely on technical difficulty.