Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Is there less pressure performing contemporary classical...

piano music because very few people would know if you missed some notes?

I'm certainly not trying to imply that playing contemporary piano music is easier(many would say it's harder)than playing Romantic and earlier music. But I'd think that someone performing say the Boulez Sonata or even something like the Vine Sonata might not be as concerned about missing some notes because only a small number of the audience would know.

Is there less pressure at least in the area of playing all the notes correctly?

The advantage of playing standard repertoire is that people know it and like it already. The difficulty is that they know it already. If someone has a strong connection to a famous recording of a work you are playing, they may dislike or even dismiss your performance even if you are better.
Most people prefer the familiar, so playing new music, especially new music in a less familiar language, can be a bit of an uphill battle. At least your interpretation of something new isn't competing with the ghost of Horowitz or whomever.

Good musicians by definition are driven by pride regardless of what they are playing.

I responded in the Piano Forum.

True the fact that people will recognize more if you mess up notes in more familiar pieces, I think there would be as much, or even more pressure when playing unfamiliar works because you risk messing up people's first impression of the piece.