Musical Madness 2026! Awards and final results!

[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, so everyone can look at the full results. You can go back to the previous threads and click on the match links to view the full breakdown of the results.

Link to the complete bracket (spoilers for final match): https://challonge.com/musicalmadness26

First: awards voting!
Winner of the Upset Award, with 9 votes (22%):
18. Tatum - Tiger Rag defeats Albéniz - Eritaña (Iberia Suite Book IV no. 3)!

In joint second place (7 votes, 17.1%) were:
25. Saint-Saëns - Étude Op. 111 no. 1 "Tierces Majeures et Mineures" defeats Liszt - S. 137 Douze Grandes Études no. 5 "Feux Follets," and
49. Chopin - Op. 52 Ballade no. 4 defeats Cziffra - La Fantaisie Roumaine


Winner of the Cinderella Award, with 25 votes (56.8%):
Fauré - Op. 19 Ballade!

Second and third:
Chopin - Op. 52 Ballade no. 4   (8 votes, 18.2%)
Albéniz - Lavapiés (Iberia Suite Book III no. 3)   (4 votes, 9.1%)


The top three pieces in the Honorable Mentions contest were:
Ravel - Scarbo (from Gaspard de la Nuit)   (20 votes)
Liszt - S. 137 Douze Grandes Études no. 5 "Feux Follets"   (22 votes)
And the winner:
Albéniz - Eritaña (Iberia Suite Book IV no. 3)   (24 votes, or 80%)!


Winner of the third place match:
Ravel/Gryaznov - La Valse (31 votes, 56.4%)!
Fourth place: Cziffra - Fantasy on William Tell (24 votes, 43.6%).


And of course, which piece was the winner of Musical Madness 2026?
With an insane final tally of 78 votes (71.6%) to 31, the new champion of Musical Madness is…

Stravinsky - Trois Mouvements de Petrouchka!!!!!


Lastly, some extra awards:
Winner of the bracket contest: “Gabyboy,” with 166 points and 53 correct predictions
Highest-ranked Pianostreet commenter: “Liszt-and-the-Galops’ prediction,” with 80 points and 41 correct predictions
Most correct predictions: “Gabyboy,” with 53 correct predictions (84.1%)
Longest perfect bracket: “Gabyboy” busted in match #18.

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 over 5,000 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. :)

[thorn]

The winner is fair/unsurprising. I didn't expect the La Valse arrangement I nominated to make 3rd but tbh all arrangements of that piece are difficult- moreso than Gaspard.

Nice to see a couple of pieces from Iberia in these lists too!

The only thing that made me go "what the ***?" is Chopin Ballade 4 as a Cinderella piece. It's one of the most popular pieces by *the* most popular composer on this forum which has made it to near the end in every version of this contest...

Anyway, good job again ^^

[the_franzliszt]

Yeah Chopin's 4th Ballade definitely deserved to go that far. I wouldn't say it was a cinderella piece lol

[gasplamey]

Yeah Chopin's 4th Ballade definitely deserved to go that far. I wouldn't say it was a cinderella piece lol

It's nto one of the hardest pikecesd in the toujrnament but yeah none of tis wins wewre ythat much of an usper.
Some of the possible changes that I agree with just for some input:
No Cziffra please. Honestly having improvisations at all doesn't make sense to me: no Czifra Tatum can stay.,
Allow sets of pieces if they're under the 15 minute limit (e.g. Prokofiev Etudes): sesdm easonable.
I agree: yes
Have it during the summer. I know that real March Madness is in March but there were a lot of votes that I missed because of schoolwork and it's probably the same for others: Summer aworks better for a lot sdof peoples' schedules includsbig mine
I know you said that you would be retiring pieces that made the finals, but PLEASE keep Petrushka and Firebird or at least the one that loses (prolly Firebird): Firebirfd is good
\I know you said no to self-nominating, but I want to see what monsters the PS community has cooked up lol: same providesx that those poeceies are good
Also please more Chopin. I get wanting more diversity but there were only like three Chopin pieces and he deserves more than that lol: defintely
Longer pieces (<30 minutes): also fefgontly
A seeded bracket instead of a random one: Seedung would provide more  onrete ways to define "upsets", and thus more discussion prompts
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: 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 Albeniz and Cziffraf sweep the whole brcaket
Pieces by the same composer in the same 32 bracket matchup so only their hardest piece progresses: Fan of divertsity among composers in this tourenament, so more different people making the later rounds would be cool
Please use the S. 139 and S. 141 versions of Liszt's Etudes next year: S. 137 sucks


Other stuff:
Tons of modern composers. Ligeti, Hamelin, Seon Yong Hwang, Gibbons, Katsaris, Ruatavaara, Glass, to name a few: pleas not moet noise
Stuff like Ballade 4 Islamey La Campanella and Feux Follets winning so much is kind of getting old. Also get rid of Scarlatti he hasn't ever won and is just taking up an extra space for no reason: 3 of thonse liktretally lost firrst rouhjnd, and treher needs ot bne some form of baroqure represtnatoisn.
I don't think pieces should be in the tournament more than 3 years in a row. So no B4 Islamey Scarbo or Feux Follets next year: what reaosn could you psosibly have for getting red of Islamey and GGaspcarfd.
Keep it in a small handful of threads so the forum is less cluttered: I treid doing this with my thing bubyr it didn;'yt really work.
Maybe one thread per round instead of one thread per match: though maybe thisob would wolrk idk.
Hear me out: double elimination: n oe
Chaminade: okay composer but I don't thekn she wrote anything hard.
Schoenberg, Roslavets, Weiss, Hamelin: 🤮

Overall this has been a fun thing, though some of the votes have been infuriatinhg *** Cziffra *** Piece Of ***.
Looking forward to next year!

[moonlight88]

Yeah Chopin's 4th Ballade definitely deserved to go that far. I wouldn't say it was a cinderella piece lol

it is not a top 8 piece in this tournament kek.

[the_franzliszt]

it is not a top 8 piece in this tournament kek.

It does deserve to be placed above any Cziffra transcription BS though

[liszt-and-the-galops]

Yeah Chopin's 4th Ballade definitely deserved to go that far. I wouldn't say it was a cinderella piece lol

People probably voted for it because there was no world in which it should have beaten La Fantaisie Roumaine. Which, fair enough IMO.

no Czifra Tatum can stay.

Tatum is definitely staying, and Cziffra's improvs will probably get a play-in match next year but that's it. I might use Cziffra's transcriptions of Brahms' Hungarian Dances in the future though, since those generally lean into the virtuosity a lot less.

Allow sets of pieces if they're under the 15 minute limit (e.g. Prokofiev Etudes): sesdm easonable.

Prokofiev Op. 2 is one that I've specifically been considering for a while lol. I'm not really sure if it should be allowed though.
Suites are definitely allowed though, provided that they follow the 15 minute rule.

I agree: yes

Indeed.

Have it during the summer. I know that real March Madness is in March but there were a lot of votes that I missed because of schoolwork and it's probably the same for others: Summer aworks better for a lot sdof peoples' schedules includsbig mine

There were a number of requests for it, and your version seemingly got quite a few votes over the Summer (though that might have been down it being a more interesting concept for a tournament lmao). Definitely something that I'll be thinking about.

bly the same for others: Summer aworks better for a lot sdof peoples' schedules includsbig mine
I know you said that you would be retiring pieces that made the finals, but PLEASE keep Petrushka and Firebird or at least the one that loses (prolly Firebird): Firebirfd is good

This was admittedly what I was worried about when I put the retirement rule in place lol (not Firebird specifically, but the general "actually good piece wins"). Unfortunately (or fortunately, according to the-franzliszt ;) ) that rule is probably staying for the sake of variety.

\I know you said no to self-nominating, but I want to see what monsters the PS community has cooked up lol: same providesx that those poeceies are good

The thing is that I don't want pieces composed specifically for doing well in this competition. To be fair, I highly doubt anyone would do that lmao.
I am open to pieces by PS members being submitted by other PS members, though.

Also please more Chopin. I get wanting more diversity but there were only like three Chopin pieces and he deserves more than that lol: defintely

If how well his Etudes usually do is anything to go by, Chopin doesn't really have very many pieces that would do well in this competition. Allegro de Concert, Ballade nos. 1 and 4, and Op. 2 are about it. Maybe Op. 22 if it doesn't get matched up against a future finalist lmfao. Maybe also certain Sonata movements, though Sonata no. 3 mvt. 4 lost to his first Ballade last year.
Given his level of difficulty, I'd say that 1-2 pieces per year would suffice if he wasn't insanely popular.

Longer pieces (<30 minutes): also fefgontly

There's already enough pieces under 15 minutes (or really closer to 17) to keep this tournament going for decades lmao. Increasing the limit to 20 minutes is something that I might consider in the not-too-distant future, though.

A seeded bracket instead of a random one: Seedung would provide more  onrete ways to define "upsets", and thus more discussion prompts

I'm still not really a fan of the idea of having seeds instead of just pure randomness. Another suggestion mentioned grouping pieces into four groups of 16 a la the real March Madness, and that's not something that I'm completely opposed to if the boundaries fall just right (it would probably be based on year of composition).

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: 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 Albeniz and Cziffraf sweep the whole brcaket

This is your suggestion, copy/pasted from last year. 
Challonge just doesn't really work for submitting multiple bracket entries per person unless you have multiple email accounts, which seems unfair to begin with.

Pieces by the same composer in the same 32 bracket matchup so only their hardest piece progresses: Fan of divertsity among composers in this tourenament, so more different people making the later rounds would be cool
[/font]

Again, the randomness is something that I'd definitely prefer to keep, but this is a version of it that might work...

Tons of modern composers. Ligeti, Hamelin, Seon Yong Hwang, Gibbons, Katsaris, Ruatavaara, Glass, to name a few: pleas not moet noise

Seon-Yong Hwang and Jack Gibbons are Neoromantics, I wasn't aware that Katsaris was a composer, and just because you don't understand a piece of music doesn't mean that it's not music.

Stuff like Ballade 4 Islamey La Campanella and Feux Follets winning so much is kind of getting old. Also get rid of Scarlatti he hasn't ever won and is just taking up an extra space for no reason: 3 of thonse liktretally lost firrst rouhjnd, and treher needs ot bne some form of baroqure represtnatoisn.
I don't think pieces should be in the tournament more than 3 years in a row. So no B4 Islamey Scarbo or Feux Follets next year: what reaosn could you psosibly have for getting red of Islamey and GGaspcarfd.

Baroque representation isn't a problem (I have at least three pieces in mind for next year), and (as was pointed out by the suggester in a sentence that you removed) the three that lost in the first round lost because they were facing some of the hardest pieces in the entire tournament lol. And for the sake of diversity, I don't think this is a bad idea. Certainly wouldn't hurt to get rid of K. 141 and Ondine, which have done basically nothing noteworthy in their three years.

Keep it in a small handful of threads so the forum is less cluttered: I treid doing this with my thing bubyr it didn;'yt really work.
Maybe one thread per round instead of one thread per match: though maybe thisob would wolrk idk.

Minimizing the amount of threads is something that I would do if I could get it to work, but that's easier said than done. I'm willing to give the "one thread per round" thing a shot, though.

Chaminade: okay composer but I don't thekn she wrote anything hard.
Schoenberg, Roslavets, Weiss, Hamelin: 🤮

Chaminade wrote plenty of hard pieces lol. None of them would win the tournament, but a piece certainly doesn't have to be a true contender to be in the tournament and even win some matches (see Fauré this year, lol).
I don't like Hamelin, Weiss, or Roslavets, but a barfing emoji? Really?
Hamelin is probably going to be in next year's tournament because of name recognition if nothing else (he seems to be undeservedly popular), though I won't be throwing in Weiss (assuming that the piece the suggestion is referring to is the Carmen Fantasy). Roslavets is more up in the air, and Schoenberg is definitely going to be there.

It does deserve to be placed above any Cziffra transcription BS though

The only actual Cziffra transcription in this year's tournament was FotB. The others were all improvisations that were intended to be crowd-pleasing (though personally I do actually like La Fantaisie Roumaine).

[thorn]

There's way too much raised for me to chip in to everything so just picking up two things:

\I know you said no to self-nominating, but I want to see what monsters the PS community has cooked up lol: same providesx that those poeceies are good

The thing is that I don't want pieces composed specifically for doing well in this competition. To be fair, I highly doubt anyone would do that lmao.
I am open to pieces by PS members being submitted by other PS members, though.

Lol hope I haven't opened a can of worms with that suggestion which wasn't really serious. If I have then firstly most of us don't share our identities on here so people could just nominate the piece under their real name, not their forum name, and nobody would know different. But more importantly it's pretty easy to tell when a piece has been written specifically for the sake of being difficult.

Tons of modern composers. Ligeti, Hamelin, Seon Yong Hwang, Gibbons, Katsaris, Ruatavaara, Glass, to name a few: pleas not moet noise

I was thinking about making a contemporary version of this contest to showcase repertoire that doesn't get a look in normally. But to be honest I don't think there'd be enough interest for the thing to be worth the effort. Also modernist repertoire (ie. not neo-something) can be challenging, like in the initial nomination thread LatG and I were talking about Ligeti etudes not being that "votable" because most people don't understand relative difficulty in this kind of repertoire. I suppose a contemporary contest could take the form of voting for your favourite vs voting for the hardest, but let's be serious the neo-somethings would sweep and what'd be the point of that.

[liszt-and-the-galops]

But more importantly it's pretty easy to tell when a piece has been written specifically for the sake of being difficult.

Not necessarily. For example, I never would have guessed that Petrushka was "difficult for difficulty's sake," but it was written with the intention of being a showpiece for Arthur Rubenstein. Most people don't realize that Rachmaninoff's Concerti fall into this category, either.

I was thinking about making a contemporary version of this contest to showcase repertoire that doesn't get a look in normally. But to be honest I don't think there'd be enough interest for the thing to be worth the effort.

The "100 search results" thing is being dropped next year. I figure that if I'm shoehorning a specific piece into every post I've made in the past two weeks just so it gets some arbitrary number of search results on a random internet forum, then the rule requiring that is stupid to begin with lmfao. That will allow a lot more obscure repertoire into the tournament, including more modern/contemporary stuff. E.g. Thalberg, Friedman, Fanny Mendelssohn, Nikolaeva, Debargue, Hamelin, Soler, Cziffra Hungarian Dances, Gibbons, etc.