what is the single greatest solo piano work of the 20th century

[dizzyfingers]

Curious to hear your thoughts on the "single greatest solo piano work of the 20th century".

I'm excluding Rachmaninoff, who really continued the 19th century aesthetic.  Ravel and Debussy too because the debate would largely center around these 3 composers with pieces written between 1900 and 1925, so let's just skip that.  This leaves Bartok's music, which really was radical for it's time (and still sounds so, imo) and Prokofiev; also Stravinsky, Poulenc, Hindemith (3 sonatas!), and Berg (and his friends) - and don't forget Godowsky. And that's the early part of the century. 

If you want to cast submissions for pre 1950 and post, that makes a lot of sense.

[flimson]

I don't really have one specific favorite piece, but I love Nikolai Medtner in general. I feel like he doesn't get enough attention, although I personally think he wrote some of the best piano concertos out there. If I had to choose one solo piano piece, I'd say his second sonata in e minor

[liszt-and-the-galops]

Either Rzewski - The People United Will Never be Defeated or Medtner - Op. 25 no. 2 "Night Wind" Sonata.

I'd also add Medtner - Op. 60 Piano Concerto no. 3 (best piano piece, hands down IMO) and Saariaho - Ballade (21st Century, but honestly most people on this forum seem to not distinguish between 20th and 21st Century much, irrespective of the fact that there's an ocean between them).

Honorable mentions to Albéniz - Iberia Suite, Scriabin's late Sonatas, Debussy's Preludes and Etudes, Price - Sonata in E Minor, Prokofiev War Sonatas, Medtner "Tragica" and "Romantica" Sonatas, Sorabji - Sonata no. 5, and plenty of others.

I don't really have one specific favorite piece, but I love Nikolai Medtner in general. I feel like he doesn't get enough attention, although I personally think he wrote some of the best piano concertos out there. If I had to choose one solo piano piece, I'd say his second sonata in e minor

Medtner's "second sonata in e minor" would be his third Violin Sonata, Op. 57. I assume you're referring to Night Wind, which is his seventh piano sonata (eighth overall) and first in e minor?

[thorn]

To me this is the wrong question because unlike in the 19th century where there's clear stylistic periods and forces influencing how music was composed (making comparison easier within those periodic categories), the 20th century doesn't have any of that- there was so much overlapping stuff going on at once which very broadly fall into three strands:

1. Post-1900 Romantic: eg. Rachmaninoff and Medtner, and living composers like Hamelin and Hough.
2. Modernism: composers who wanted to break away from Romanticism (Impressionists, Neoclassicists, Serialists etc)
3. Postmodernism: composers who felt modernism had made music too complicated, so returning to tonality/simpler forms and turning to popular/film music for inspiration (eg. Philip Glass, John Adams etc)

But even this collapses pretty fast when you ask where a composer like Messiaen fits. Or when you think of Debussy whose piano music moves from late Romantic-Impressionistic-experimental (perhaps 'more' modernist, but Impressionism is strictly a form of early modernism too- but most of the Etudes are not Impressionistic so what do you call them if Impressionism = a subcategory of Modernism? And to complicate matters further Etudes are a Romantic form and he dedicated them to Chopin x_x). 

[dizzyfingers]

I think Stravinsky's piano solo arrangement of his Petrouchka ballet, and Agosti's arrangement of the Firebird demonstrate a great achievement of musical imagination and using the piano as an orchestral instrument.

Here's what Google AI had to say:
Musicologists and pianists frequently point to:

The Virtuoso Sonata:  Prokofiev - Piano Sonata No. 7, Op. 83
High-octane, percussive, and intensely rhythmic.  Written during World War II, it is the most famous of Prokofiev's three "War Sonatas."  The relentless, driving (7/8) time signature of the final movement (Precipitato) makes it one of the most thrilling and physically demanding showpieces in the literature.

The Coloristic & Avant-Garde: Messiaen - Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus
Mystical, heavily textured, and deeply spiritual. A massive, two-hour cycle of 20 contemplations on the infancy of Jesus. It utilizes Messiaen's signature modes of limited transposition, complex rhythmic structures, and striking harmonic colors that evoke shimmering, bell-like sonorities.

The Modernist Breakthrough: Bartók - Out of Doors
Primitive, earthy, and fiercely dissonant.  A five-movement suite that redefined how the piano was played. It famously treats the piano as a percussion instrument, most notably in the With Drums and Pipes movement, while also featuring the eerie, atmospheric "night music" sounds in The Night's Music.

The Structural Triumph: Elliott Carter - Piano Sonata (1945–46)
Intellectually rigorous, complex, and dynamic.  An American masterpiece that synthesizes the rhythmic complexity of European modernism with bold American energy. It introduces "metric modulation" (fluid tempo changes) and remains a monumental challenge for performers.

The Minimalist Foundation: Philip Glass - Metamorphosis (1988)
Meditative, hypnotic, and repetitive.  Composed later in the century, this suite is a cornerstone of minimalist piano music, characterized by slow, hypnotic harmonic shifts and subtle melodic development.

Also mentioned by AI:
Scriabin – Piano Sonata No. 5, Op. 53 (1907)
Frederic Rzewski – The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1975)
Paul Hindemith – Ludus Tonalis (1942)
Charles Ives – Piano Sonata No. 2, "Concord, Mass., 1840–1860 (1915)

I've never listened (in it's entirety)
Carter - Piano Sonata
Glass - Metamorphosis
Hindemith - Ludus Tonalis

If anyone has listened to all the above and can draw some comparisons, please do - -

[perfect_pitch]

John Cage's 4'33"





(Sorry... couldn't resist    ).

[dizzyfingers]

John Cage's 4'33"
(Sorry... couldn't resist    ).

Probably more fun to write than to read ...  ;-)    ... it's been around for a while.

[essence]

Stockhausen? i once heard a performance of one of his pieces, it involved hanging bells/balls at each end of the keyboard.

Boulez wrote plenty of solo piano music. I heard a performance with his ensemble once in Paris, lots of ring modulation.

Tippett wrote 4 sonatas.

[dizzyfingers]

Stockhausen? i once heard a performance of one of his pieces, it involved hanging bells/balls at each end of the keyboard.

Boulez wrote plenty of solo piano music. I heard a performance with his ensemble once in Paris, lots of ring modulation.

Tippett wrote 4 sonatas.

Stockhausen, Boulez - were part of an experimental / intelligentsia movement - they're rarely programmed now.  Pollini recorded a Boulez sonata, not that he (Pollini) was a champion of lesser known 20th century works.  I've never listened to it.

Michael Tippett  - Wikipedia has a long article on him (disproportionately long?), but he's not a composer who comes up in discussing later 20th century piano music.  Four sonatas is something - - but why never programmed?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Tippett

[liszt-and-the-galops]

To me this is the wrong question because unlike in the 19th century where there's clear stylistic periods and forces influencing how music was composed (making comparison easier within those periodic categories), the 20th century doesn't have any of that- there was so much overlapping stuff going on at once which very broadly fall into three strands:

1. Post-1900 Romantic: eg. Rachmaninoff and Medtner, and living composers like Hamelin and Hough.
2. Modernism: composers who wanted to break away from Romanticism (Impressionists, Neoclassicists, Serialists etc)
3. Postmodernism: composers who felt modernism had made music too complicated, so returning to tonality/simpler forms and turning to popular/film music for inspiration (eg. Philip Glass, John Adams etc)

But even this collapses pretty fast when you ask where a composer like Messiaen fits. Or when you think of Debussy whose piano music moves from late Romantic-Impressionistic-experimental (perhaps 'more' modernist, but Impressionism is strictly a form of early modernism too- but most of the Etudes are not Impressionistic so what do you call them if Impressionism = a subcategory of Modernism? And to complicate matters further Etudes are a Romantic form and he dedicated them to Chopin x_x).

Honestly, after a certain point it feels like almost everyone in the 20th Century had their own very distinctive style in a way that composers of prior eras just didn't.

[thorn]

Honestly, after a certain point it feels like almost everyone in the 20th Century had their own very distinctive style in a way that composers of prior eras just didn't.

I'd say it's more that composers had a freedom to explore that composers of prior eras didn't. I obviously wouldn't ever say that pre-1900 composers were not creative, inventive, distinctive, but in 20/21c there was less pressure to write in a certain way, the world became smaller (eg. the Paris colonial exhibitions where Debussy/Ravel first heard gamelan), recording technology meant composers could be inspired by one another without ever actually meeting/attending a live performance of each others' works etc., and at the same time advances in travel meant IRL meeting/hearing each other was easier. It's more a global historical/technological phenomenon vs a purely musical one.

The composer I keep coming back to when I think of the OP question is Messiaen because he sort of represents everything- the prewar heritage, the major currents of 20c composition, and living composers who were students of his at the Paris Conservatoire. Take the Vingt Regards- no.15 always reminds me of Liszt's Benediction de dieu because it's a large work of subtle virtuosity using F# major to represent the divine. But then in other movements you have rhythmic augmentation/diminution which were the seeds of total serialism. Then you have the super modernist Catalogue d'oiseaux (which has places of beautiful Impressionist colouring and places of serial technique), and then he scraps the idea of writing a second Catalogue d'oiseaux (there's surviving sketches apparently) and creates the Petites esquisses d'oiseaux instead which are closer to postmodernism vs modernism (because they're small and simple). And we don't talk about the 4 Etudes enough either (esp. Mode de valeurs et d'intensites).

I'd pick Vingt Regards over CdO as 'the single greatest' though (even though the latter is my favourite subjectively speaking.

[essence]

I couldn't possibly disagree!