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Le Monte Young is kinda forgotten anywhere I go, I'm not a "fan" but I recognise the contribution. Something should be said for a 5 hour long piano grind.
A lot of modern composers get snubbed for not being academic or artsy enough.
Le Monte Young is kinda forgotten anywhere I go, I'm not a "fan" but I recognise the contribution. Something should be said for a 5 hour long piano grind.
A lot of modern composers get snubbed for not being academic or artsy enough.
And then there are all the modern composers who get snubbed for being too academic or artsy. Can't win, unless dead for a over a century, and even then, it's dicey.
Off the top of my head, here's a list of composers who have written some fine piano music who rarely get mentioned here, if ever, and if they do, it's in a list such as this:
...and there's a great number more who don't come to mind right now. Even relatively well-known composers of piano music like Poulenc hardly ever come up for discussion here.
I feel like Prokofiev doesn't come up as often as he should.
And, considering how many versions there are of some of his works, it is surprising there are some others that are hardly represented at all. I've been working on a cool piece of his called "Paysage" (or "Landscape"), from his op. 59. My edition has a typo in the metronome marking, so I thought I would check on YouTube to see what tempo others were taking for it. And I was amazed that I could only find one single performance of it. Fortunately for my needs, it was from a recognized and expert Prokofiev pianist - Richter.
I wonder if Mark was facetious in throwing in "great" in the title. Such a title would assume that we can only pick from the accepted 15 or 20 "greats".
Otherwise it obviously turns into either 1) who's your favorite composer of the moment that's not Bach/Chopin/Rachmaninoff... or 2) who do you wish you heard a lot more regularly on Sirius/XM or your local classical station, even though they didn't create 25 Variations on a theme by Handel, or a suite inspired by Iberia or something...
I'll nominate Carl Vine. Besides everyone jumping at the chance to recommend a new listener to his Piano Sonata No 1, does anyone ever actually say anything about the work itself? If only Kreisler could post more frequently.... If his music is recommended so frequently, shouldn't people talk about his music more?
wr, I only know choice works by some of the composers on your list because of invaluable YT contributors like John11 and especially fyrexianoff (I forget now, but I believe he is reincarnated SWMD.)
I haven't even heard of some of them. Any specific recommendations for the ones listed?:
Originally Posted by wr
Off the top of my head, here's a list of composers who have written some fine piano music who rarely get mentioned here... Kenneth Leighton Harold Shapero Roger Sessions Ernest Krenek Arthur Honegger Igor Markevitch Sigrid Karg-Elert Charles Koechlin ...
Originally Posted by wr
...Even relatively well-known composers of piano music like Poulenc hardly ever come up for discussion here.
I admit I only know Poulenc's two-piano concerto, but I don't understand why I hear it all the time. I don't think it's a great work at all... I cringe from that opening crash and piano flourish. The simple-hommage-to-Classical-wait-no-just-boring Larghetto.. The 3rd movement is the highlight and somewhat catchy and bouncy, but overall, the piece is hardly worth the frequency of performance and airtime that I come across. I don't even own a recording of it and I hear it all the time...
What else by Poulenc is worthwhile?
-Daniel
Currently working on: -Poulenc Trois pièces -Liszt Harmonies du Soir -Bach/Brahms Chaconne for Left Hand
