Giving "Points" for Difficulty

[Glyptodont]

Posts appear from time to time where people appear to be awarding "points" for the difficulty of various piano compositions.  The more diabolically hard, somehow the more merit for learning and playing the piece.  Leave aside the issue of whether the piece is good music or not.

Am I getting it wrong, or is there a kind of implied equivalence between quality and difficulty?   Or that somehow the ability to play very difficult pieces makes one a better pianist?  Is this somehow a "Boy Scout merit badge" approach to music?

Perhaps playing some of these works only proves that one is a technician, not a musician.  (The two can go together-- Horowitz, I think, was both. But they don't -- alas -- always go together.)

For one example, one composition that is notorious for difficulty is Liszt's "Transcendental Etudes." 

Supposing that "Joe Smith" can play these etudes, where "Sam Brown" doesn't have the technical proficiency. 

Does that make "Joe Smith" a better musician?   Are we getting back to the "piano monkey" thing again, where blazing through incredibly difficult material is the "sum bonum" of value?  The "contest winning at all costs" mentality?

And if we compare some of these most difficult selections from the professional repertoire, are the Transcendental Etudes even worth playing?  I know they are a "merit badge" type thing, but are they MUSICALLY worth the trouble?  This question is worth asking.

Franz Liszt, forgive me.  No time for more than one quick example, and I picked on you!

I honestly don't know the answer to my own questions, but I do think this is a question worth discussion. 

[teresa_b]

Dear Glyptodont (LOVE the name),

I seem to recall reading somewhere on this board that you are an older amateur pianist (?).  So am I, although I am young enough not to have met any glyptodonts in person.   

Interesting question, and I think you probably have an answer already in mind.  Indeed there IS an equivalence implied between difficulty and quality.  But considering who these posters generally are--mostly kids from ages 12 through college--it's easy to understand why they equate bone-crushing technical difficulty with great piano playing. 

Up to a point, you could probably say there's some correlation, because a lot of practice ought to result in improvements in both technical and interpretive pianism--For example, if the most difficult thing I can play is Chopsticks, and you can play Bach's Two-Part Inventions, well, you're a better pianist than I. 

But when you get a little more advanced, and you've had experience--Well, are you still "better" if you can play Rach 3 and I can only muster Mozart 23?  I would say NO on that.  (I can't speak to the Liszt, as I haven't played those etudes.)  We've all heard someone play a very hard piece BADLY, even if the notes were okay. 

But to make people cry (the good kind of tears!) with, say the second movement of Mozart K488--says it all.

All the best, Teresa

[ted]

Firstly, from the player's point of view, I tend to think it is a matter of looking at the effort to reward ratio. Up to a point , and quite a high one admittedly, physical proficiency is well worth cultivating because it leads to greater expressive power with the instrument. Once a fairly high degree of dexterity has been obtained, however, the effort to musical reward ratio increases steeply. That is to say hours spent developing an already excellent technique a fraction further is not going to lead to proportionate musical gratification.

Secondly, from the listener's point of view, to assess a player primarily on the grounds of physical proficiency then becomes like assessing a mathematician on the length of numbers he can multiply together in his head. Some abilities are not capable of being placed on a line from bad to good. They are more like a landscape than a piece of string. Music is one of them. To judge the art by linearly comparing those of its components which happen to be measurable in the greater than or less than sense is surely very naive.

[Stolzing]

Posts appear from time to time where people appear to be awarding "points" for the difficulty of various piano compositions.  The more diabolically hard, somehow the more merit for learning and playing the piece. 

Could you give an example of some of these posts?  I never see this here.  If people want to play a certain piece, I assume it's because they really like it and want to play it despite how difficult it is.

For one example, one composition that is notorious for difficulty is Liszt's "Transcendental Etudes." 

Supposing that "Joe Smith" can play these etudes, where "Sam Brown" doesn't have the technical proficiency. 

From everything that I've seen on these forums, people here don't judge soley on the ability to hit the notes.  This thread comes to mind:
https://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3991.0.html