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I think it is true that many professional pianists who perform frequently repeat their recital programs or at least many of the works on their programs throughout a given year or more.

1. Do you agree?

2. Is this because busy pros don't have time to prepare many new works(just one or two recital programs) or for some other reason?

3. How do pianists who play the same works 10 or more times a year avoid boredom? When I played piano for high school musicals, we had three performances on one weekend and I would not want to have a lot more than that as much as I loved doing it. For the last 20 years I gave recitals at my Grandmother's birthday party. After each recital, I would basically never play any of the recital pieces for at least another year.

Yes, most pianists carry around a programme, or two, with a couple of extra "inserts" for a season. Some carry works over to the next season. Some have many more and play several different works in the course of a week. It varies and depends on the artist. One reason this is so, is, that, it does take time to raise a programme to performance level and explore each work to the depths any given pianist feels comfortable with. Believe it, or not, "professionals" have to work at it too. How does one avoid boredom? That's simple. There's something new to be found, and learned, every single day on every single page. Boredom, should not be a word found in any musician's vocabulary. If you're bored, then I assume you've learned all there is to learn, so, you may as well step away and try something else.

I agree with stores, for although the question of "boredom" may be a personal thing, it has never surfaced for me in all the years of been playing (at) the piano.

I have been fortunate in that I have never had to study works that I really didn't like, so revisiting previously-studied works is like visiting old and dear friends.

But, yes, the well-known concert pianist's life often leaves little time for working up new programs. It does not surprise me to read that the same pianist repeats a program - with minor variations, at times - throughout a season. It almost seems a necessity in the life of an international concert artist. I would speculate that many of them might be working on new repertoire to eventually incorporate into future programs, but I would think that it would be next to impossible to have a different program for every city visited in a season.

Regards,

The other thing worth bearing in mind is that some of the concerts or recitals for a top level pianist can be arranged a year or so in advance.

Have you ever performed a particular work many times within short period of time? If so, did any boredom or tiredness with the piece set in?

It's possible that some of my boredom with pieces is because although I select only pieces I want to play very much, they are often not the ultimate kinds of pieces in terms of "greatness". For example my latest piece is this transcription of a Rachmaninov song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xro_es57yis

I think one can be bored with a piece without having learned all there is to learn about a piece. I know professional musicians who don't even want to hear certain pieces any more, no less play them again.

Personally, I've found that although I thought there were some pieces that were so great I would never tire of them(and have used that at PW as one of my personal criteria for greatness), some of the works on that list have been "removed".

There are MANY pieces that I could get by without hearing, or playing again. That doesn't infer boredom, however. It simply means I've either heard it one too many times (most Chopin, for example, will probably make me want to scream, after this year), or I feel a need to move on to something else. It never means that I've stopped finding something worth learning within said work, though. If you're not finding something new every day, then the problem is with you and not the music. There's simply FAR too much to learn for boredom to EVER become a factor.

I think we aren't using "boredom" in the same way. For me hearing something "one too many times" is no different from boredom. And there are pieces I've definitely become bored with despite the fact I feel I've learned something new about them each day.

If you imagime someone listening to/playing a piece they consider to be one of the greatest and most complex pieces 100 times in a row, I think most people would say they're "bored" with the piece at that point. I've wondered how the people who listen to and evaluate 50-100 performances of the same piece for International Piano can do that? Would they do it if they weren't being paid?