have to play a program of French music, will/must do it, no regrets, will play a 4-mains thing also, have a thread out about that, is on, and my main concern: Alkan, want to play the following: Ouverture, not there yet, Symfonie, practically in the fingers, break, Concerto, in the fingers and heart, is this musically appealing to an everage public? I'll do it anyway...

I think it's appealing to some portion of "the average public," and (this is big) it depends hugely on the nature of the performance.

Don't expect everyone ever to love it, but expect lots of people to like it or love it, as long as you do a good job with it.

As I'm sure you would.

P.S. I think your enjoyment of calling him by that name probably isn't outweighed by the fact that a lot of people won't know who you're talking about.
But that's for you to decide.

Do it! Do it! Do it!
And record it so all us people can hear it! As you said in the Kapustin thread, Hamelin's recordings won't get (insert composer here) famous, more people learning and performing his music (well) will. And you're a professional, so I have faith you'll do great justice to his music.

What would your encore be? Would you be like "I've had you here for just about two hours, that's long enough" or would you milk it for all its worth?

Play the Beethoven Concerto No. 3 transcription for encore, haha!

or one of his smaller pieces, an esquisse or prelude, some of them are virtuosic as well.

sounds like a nice program, but i would add some miniatures (see above) to relieve some cognitive load and patience you require with these larger works.

tell us how it went!

thx, won't be put off by small minds who think it's too much, will let the world know there's more than MAH, or what's that Polish guy on youtube..

"I'll do it anyway..."

Haha! right on buddy.

I've always felt that as modern pianists we have an obligation to perform and record lesser known works - from any decade. The more Alkan circulates through the halls of the world, the better.

Now go fulfill your obligation!

Where and when ?

If you record that program, you can bet I'll be chomping at the bit to hear it!

Hehe, I was kidding about the encore suggestion. Would your encore also be an Alkan piece?

Yeah, I REALLY want to hear this!

I think it was you who suggested that piece to me, and I must say I hate you for it. That piece is like, hard. Really hard. But all those chords ! It's so sweet.

Mostly, I think a 4-hand arrangement of it would be really cool, don't you think?

A two hands arrangement you mean, do you not ?

Edit : but jokes aside, it would be cool. I've been learning the Rachmaninov op17 suite for a while now, hoping to perform it with a friend - two piano chord frenzy looks so fun I want to try it.
On only one piano, maybe not so much - you'd have to be careful with the grand gesture and the elbowing !

Haha! And the coda would be a little tricky to score effectively I think, but the rest of it seems like it would be simple to arrange for 4 hands, and even on one piano... I mean, during the B major part (and then switches to G sharp minor) when the "stark straightforward style" comes back after the dreamy part with the happy melody and lots of jumps, I can imagine both pianists swinging their heads back and forth with a carefree smile on their face.

"I can't believe you just slapped me !
- Sorry, honest mistake !
- No, I was clearly playing with much more style than you, so you slapped me !
- I was just being expressive, no need to make a fuss..."

I can already imagine some of the youtube performers playing 4-hands. You'd have to glue stools and piano to the ground, unless you wanted them to ebb and flow in rhythm with the crazy head/body choregraphy some guys make up.

I'm sure these guys would enjoy it a lot, hmm? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XIx0ILXODw

How many times has this video come to PW now? Hehe!

the problem is the left hand, don't they understand?

i disagree, the first and second are about the left/right hand, the third (hands reunited) is about coordination. coordinating between two people is even harder.

try it and notice that the left hand will have more problems then the right, this comes from a lefthanded pianist who plays the darned piece, same applies to the finale of Chopin's 2nd sonata of course

but do you have more problems with the left hand than in the study for left hand alone? i can't imagine that's what the hands united is about.. but i don't play the piece, so i won't say you're wrong.

the right hand study is cruel on, well, the right, the left hand study is taxing for the left hand, but the two hand one is so cruel on the left, because the runs are ok to the right, but so awkward for the left, it's one of the best études I know, btw, but hairraisingly difficult, by far the most horrible of the 3, and the only of 2 examples that I know of, al least of this calibre, Chopin's movement is thought to have been written after Alkan's, isn't that stunning?

Chopin's movement? What work are you talking about?

But yes Sorcerer88, the left hand part of Hands Reunited at full speed is harder than the left hand etude. Mr. Sfogato was probably joking around that they were chickening out by not playing the left hand, because Mr. Holbrook actually plays the etude like normal. Alkanian probably does too, but he doesn't have a video of it up (I don't think).

Also, if both people can play evenly and keep tempo and are aware of/listening to each other, coordinating (especially on this piece) is not very difficult. Plus, they're conservatory pianists, and VERY good conservatory pianists at that... I'm sure they have duet experience.

I'm thinking he must have meant the last mvt of the 2nd sonata.

this couldn't be more obvious, of course, but look at the dates of writing/ publishing, it's spooky...

Yeah -- and I understand they were sort of friends, right.....

Very good friends, and neighbors.

So how come there's no sit-com?

Somebody oughta do it......

Well, there aren't too many letters between them BECAUSE they were close neighbors (according to Piers Lane's Alkan lecture on YouTube that I re-uploaded after it was taken off). The lecture actually does discuss one specific event where they went together to see a comedian and how they were laughing so hard at the stories he was telling. I'll have to find more info on that occasion...

That so needs to be in the sit-com!

Or, we could just all get together and do a semi-fictionalized duo-ography flick about them.
We could call it Fred and Chuck.

Haha! We could make it a soap opera instead and involve the love triangle between Fred, Chuck, and Georgina (George Sand).

That's actually only speculation, and I don't think it's totally true... But for show purposes it would be great.

In the end, Chuck and Fred fight over it. Chuck poisons Fred's drink and Fred dies. Chuck says it's tuberculosis as a cover up, but has a guilty conscience and withdraws from the public. Finally, over 20 years later, he gets over it and comes back out into public. Then some relative to Chopin or something rigs his bookcase to kill him for the season finale.

The most amazing thing about that is.......it was written by you in just a couple of minutes.

I nominate you for head-writer of the soap opera or duo-ography or whatever.

P.S. You're wasting your time playing the stupid piano. You need to get into TV writing.