Musical Madness 2026! Start of the second round!

[liszt-and-the-galops]

Link to the form for voting: https://forms.gle/XHmj5MHJMu2Uuaxd9

Pieces in the matches:
Rimsky-Korsakov/Cziffra - Flight of the Bumblebee
Chopin - Op. 52 Ballade no. 4

Cziffra - La Fantaisie Roumaine
Scriabin - Étude Op. 8 no. 12

Messiaen - Vingt Regards no. 6 "Par Lui tout a été fait"
Medtner - Op. 25 no. 2 "Night Wind" Sonata (mvt. 2 "Allegro" ONLY)

R. Schumann - Op. 17 Fantaisie (mvt. 2)
Cziffra - Fantasy on William Tell

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

Winners of the previous matchups: Métopes, Petrushka, La Clochette, and Prokofiev Op. 84 mvt. 3. 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 13th, 2026 (US Eastern time).

[thorn]

Petrushka vs Brahms Paganini was one of the more difficult choices. I went with Petrushka because it's less pianistic and I've heard many bad renditions so it's clearly hard to pull off (my least favourite is Pogorelich, he forgets it's a ballet).

[liszt-and-the-galops]

Petrushka vs Brahms Paganini was one of the more difficult choices. I went with Petrushka because it's less pianistic and I've heard many bad renditions so it's clearly hard to pull off

Agreed. I have no clue how it won by so much lmfao.