Balakirev, obviously... Rimsky-Korsakov at a close second

Now that your satisfied, it doesn't have to be asked anymore, right? Besides, everyone knows the answer is Tchaikovsky.

When I was a youngster, Rachmaninoff wasn't as popular as he now seems to be. Besides, there can only be one and nearly the whole planet responds to Tchaikovsky.

A couple of reactions to this thread --

1 I agree with the original assessment: that Scriabin and Prokofiev are the two most significant, if we're just sticking to piano music alone. Unlike Pianoloverus, I'd have to give a very slight nod to Scriabin over Prokofiev, largely because of the full complement of high quality material Scriabin provided from his earlier Chopinesque days (the best evocation of Chopin, ever, IMO) through his later, well, crazy mystical days -- which, incidentally, was always informed with a sense of proportion and order. This is not in any way to denigrate Prokofiev, who IMO was more compelling than Stravinsky as an overall composer in 20th century music.

2 I'm surprised that nobody at at all has cited Alexandr Glazunov, who provided some elegant and fluent piano music and two terrific concertos. Personally, I think he outdid Rimsky-Korsakov by quite a lot in the realm of piano music, although both have to be regarded as "kingpins" in Russian composition, along with the far more frequently cited Tschaikovsky, Rachmaninov, and Shostakovich.

Obviously? Why "obviously"? Based on what criteria? A handful of piano compositions that one rarely plays and never hears?

If, on the other hand, you are referring to that overwrought overlong piece of melodrama that we occasionally hear and whose title I dare not mention, would that not put Balakirev at the bottom of the pile rather than among the "greats"?

nah, i was being sarcastic...my votes would seriously go to scriabin or rimsky korsakov...i think some of balakirev's underplayed pieces (the lark and toccata, for example) are great though...

Wonder why Tchaikovsky and Korsakov are mentioned, along with Balakriev. Tchaikovsky and Balakriev for the piano are pretty much like Pachelbel (one hit wonders), and there's the Korsakov concerto, but it's not exactly played a lot...

Zombie thread.

I agree. My vote is Rachmaninoff or Prokofiev.

IMO, Prokofiev can just win with his 8th sonata, Rachmaninoff can win with his 3rd concerto, and Scriabin can win with his 7th sonata, so many high quality works by the three of them!

Nice post!

Does it change anything and give a reason to bury the topic? Every opinion is precious and usually has no date of expire...



Galynin is absolutely unknown even in Russia composer. Here is his concert. My mother played it in music college :-)
Very modern. Too modern for me :-)

he hjad a difficult life, was diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age.

reading this thread, i can t believe how underrated shostakovich s piano works are ....

lol ok. im new to this site

If we are talking about the greatest Russian composer FOR THE PIANO, Rachmaninoff seems like the easy answer for me. And I actually do not love Rachmaninoff, but am obsessed with Shostakovich and Prokofiev. I think Shostakovich’s preludes and fugues and many of Prokofiev’s sonatas and concertos are better compositions than anything Rachmaninoff did, but Rachmaninoff’s music sounds to me like it is all about the piano and puts the instrument in the best possible light. Rachmaninoff is just so pianistic; he seems to focus on the strengths of the instrument and conceal its weaknesses.

Scriabin is okay. I really dislike Tchaikovsky. Just my opinions.

Yes, it does change things - I am surprised by the question. Most of us are here, I think, for the ongoing exchanges with others, rather than to read old messages from people who cannot or will not respond when someone responds to their posts. That is why it is called a forum - it's about and designed for active participation, not for sifting through history.

If you love reading stuff from inactive or deleted accounts, the archives are there for you to browse to your heart's content.

It's easy enough, if one finds a message or thread of particular interest in the archives, to copy and paste the message or reference the topic in a new thread. In that way, things don't have to be buried, but the topic list and topmost messages aren't littered with material from people who are no longer participating.

wr, in that case why does it not embarass You a bit that we are talking about people (great Russian composers) that are not participating?
Why not have somebody's opinion in sight rather than buried and never read again as if never written? Everybody can see that date of the message. Besides it is a kind of topic where one would just add his own opinion.



I agree 100% with what you say about Rachmaninoff - he seems to be most concentrated on the piano. But I can't agree about Tchaikovsky. Even Rachmaninoff never knew how to make the melody or the sound like in Seasons - this masterpiece of 12 works puts Tchaikovsky definitely among the first, as long as he paints like an impressionist but only with the sounds, when one listens to these piano works from Seasons he can even forget that it is the piano that gives the sound - the chords he uses are just amazing, unbelievable...
When one listens to Rachmaninoff piano works - he hears the piano playing most of the time, while listening to Tchaikovsky's music - it gives some other impression... that I can compare only with the Clair de Lune for example...

I doubt that most people here have any problem with old threads being revived, provided it's done sincerely and especially if the continuing discussion is meaningful and intelligent, as is the case here. If more than a few do have such concerns, they can certainly indicate it -- and at least so far, they haven't, while a goodly number of people do appear to find such revivals to be of positive interest. I can see that it could be a problem if the new discussion were ripping into people who are no longer here and who have no opportunity to reply -- but I don't think I've ever seen that happen on this site on revived threads.

You can't tell the difference between talking about composers, and talking with the people here? That's kind of sad.

If you are so concerned about opinions being buried, what about the vast majority that are in the archives, which are effectively buried right now? There have been over 28,000 threads in this forum - do you propose we revive all of them?

You are at least partly wrong about seeing the date - when an old thread is brought to the surface, the listing in the topic list shows the date of the most recent post, not the date of the first post that started the thread. In other words, there's no way of knowing, without opening the thread, and wading through who knows how many old messages, before getting to one from someone who is active in the forum.

And, as I pointed out in my previous post, you can either copy and paste one of those opinions you value into a new message starting a new topic, or, if you want to reference the entire thread, you can copy paste the URL of the thread. For that reason, your argument about opinions being buried forever just doesn't work, since you have a couple of options of bringing them into current conversations without restarting the whole thread.

It seems to me disappointing that within 24 hours of joining these forums, toymachine198 received an unnecessarily curt post from BruceD ("Why don't you contribute to current threads instead of reviving long-dormant ones?") as if an obvious rule of forum etiquette had been breached.

It was perfectly apparent (certainly to experienced users of the forum) when this thread was resurrected that toymachine198 was new to the forum, based on date of his/her registration. It was revived "sincerely" to use Mark C's word.

If there is a concern that earlier posters who are no longer active could be maligned in some way, then the forum moderators can take appropriate action to ensure things don't get out of hand.

If reviving an old thread is objectionable to someone, then they can always just ignore it and allow the discussion to be developed freely by others.

But how else does one go about achieving such a high post count?

Two years and a lot of music later I choose Alexander Scriabin with total conviction.