Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Composing semi-difficult works. Why bother?

Hi Nikolas, I learned a lot from your thread! You seem to have received a lot of encouragement already, but I just want to add a little something.

Shakespeare and Charles Dickens were the pop writers of their day. They wrote what sold well. Shakespeare also wrote stuff that was more "literary" while Dickens less so. I'm not a super fan of their works (because it seems like Dickens is a ripoff of every Korean or ABC drama, or is it the other way around?).

What I want to say is that you seem to be already operating in a fulfilling state. Stick to your artistic guns and compose whatever you want. To make some money you might write pedagogical stuff or even pop or commercials or TV or film. Most people have jobs and then they have their hobbies like painting. Take it easy Who knows, maybe you might be famous some day! Vivaldi and Bach weren't "great composers" back in their days.

I'm bumping this to say that I bit the bullet and I'm almost done with No. 2!

Normally I should be doing something else, but I couldn't stop myself! They should be done fairly quickly I reckon!

Yay!

yes, it also makes us wonder what if all the extra dissonance that crept into Beethoven's music was a result of his own clumsiness and deafness and if subsequent composers believed it to be an inevitable "progress"? my god, serialism might have been triggered by errors upon errors o_0

Hello all,

I wanted to thank you all for taking part in this thread. As you may have realized I went through a rather difficult time and these preludes (now miniatures) actually helped me through.

So as a small way to say thank you, here's the first one in PDF format: https://app.box.com/s/zlws3chaoayyrgkvu9eo75ogc1cvh3ga

Thanks Nikolas!

Nikos, thank you for the score. I read this entire thread from beginning to end and found it informative with some great discoveries. I have to say, and I know this was not what the thread was about, but I am BLOWN AWAY by Perniciosus. Wow! I must have listened to that 20 times in the past couple days. One of the things I find interesting about different levels of listening is how I experience the piece while watching the score scroll (which I sometimes in video's like this can't endure due to anticipation, judging, etc.) vs. just listening with no judgment, allowing the piece to unfold as a surprise. It's as extreme as hearing two different pieces for me. I'm reminded of a live performance I heard of Barenboim playing Schoenberg's Piano Concerto with Boulez and Vienna Phil more than a decade ago. Boulez you would expect to be very analytical, and maybe so...but in the collaboration it was music as if it had nothing to do with tone rows, melting, dripping with late romantic lyrical phrases. It really opened a different door to experiencing music I thought I knew, and even still did like. I'm not sure I actually established a connection in this, but ah well.

It is becoming clear that exploring the idea of playing some of Nikos Sideris's more difficult works would be well worth the time and effort.

I can imagine; the emotions in these pieces are all very sad. Hope you are feeling better!

"Like stepping on butterfly's wings"

Couldn't it at least be a moth?

No, not really... Especially on how I was feeling. You should really see the rest.

The whole collection is about giving up (but I'm still here, so I'm definitely doing better! ). All the tempo markings are like the first one. They provide a much better understanding of each piece, more than the titles do. The combination should give a very clear understanding on how the pieces should be played.

BTW, for those who downloaded this first miniature, I should note that, indeed, I play the piece exactly as notated (I'm talking about the chords in the left hand), but everything can be re-distributed to be played by those with... smaller hands than mine!

EDIT:

David, thank you for listening and for posting. There's a funny incident right here in this forum a few years ago, where a member here, in a thread of mine, complained about perniciosus and mentioned that it made his dogs howl... I'm very very happy to know that there's more people who appreciate my more difficult works (and Perniciosus is a beast really). If you have the time have a look at "Burning Kiev", performed by our very own Heather of PianoWorld, where she did a marvelous job.

Wow, big hands

Nikolas, to respond to your original post....
I would gladly play contemporary works from an unknown composer. However, mostly I like to play music that I enjoy and that makes me feel good. So I'm not a big fan of extremely dark modern music (but I "get it", I really do!). Sure life is difficult (more than ever today) but does that mean that all modern music needs to reflect that side of the world? I don't think so. I think there is somewhat of a stigma amongst modern composers towards writing happy music. As if it childish and silly because it tends to be simpler than darker more dissonant music. Even when writing darker music though, is it not possible to still have hope for humanity? You yourself brought this thought to my attention with your kickstarter project. So I hope you reflect upon this again.

Speaking of which, can you please check your messages? I sent you a e-mail about a new composer who's work I enjoyed, who is interested in getting in contact with you regarding publication.

Thanks, Greg

Getting back to Ligeti, I've spent quite a bit of time listening to this in the intervening months, and this is my analysis.

At the core, repeated over and over, is the ostinuto, rising up. It's an ostinuto, but harmonically for performance purposes, I consider it to be like a Pedal (albeit a complex one)...something that fades somewhat into the background, while the harmony is determined primarily by the other notes.
Ostinuto:


The ostinuto could be considered an invented scale (and that would be interesting!), but he doesn't really develop it, by which I mean he doesn't build chords from it.

Instead, he builds a melody on top. In listening, in performance this should be played as a melody in the top note, with the rest of the notes of the chords acting as a percussive instrument. In this way he takes after Bartok, which isn't surprising since Ligeti liked Bartok.
Melody with percussive harmony and ostinuto:



That's the basic structure. From there, he plays with it in interesting ways, for example:


melody below ostinuto:


melody reduced to a single note, and played faster:


very soft:


If the audience can hear that, it's probably too loud. But if you don't break any strings, then you probably played this section too soft:


And why not? This variation is loud and soft simultaneously:


Of course there's more, but that's a taste of it.

When I listened to this piece over and over, I thought it would be difficult to play because it is quite fast.


However, when I tried to play it, I found out it is relatively easy, because it is very pianistic. The notes fit very nicely under the fingers, and just kind of roll off your hand. This is the hardest section, with the quick pairs of notes together:



But I think that is manageable with a good fingering.

When I realized how easy it is, I considered learning to play it, but I decided against it. It's very long, and drones on and on, without a lot of interest. If it were 2 or 4 pages, I might have gone for it, but I don't think I can keep my own interest for 11 pages, let alone an audience's interest.

That's kind of a jazzy version

Ligeti's etudes ARE very musical and quite pianistic. I'm friends with a Greek composer who did his PhD on these etudes (and played all of them in concert which is a rather impressive fit really).

This particular one is exciting for me, exactly because of the rhythm and the change of dynamics. Given that he never changes this ostinato, the fact that all the melodic segments are of different length and every changing, creates an instability which works in the favor of this work I think.

I find that the alteration of the melody after the middle keeps the interest going.

However I do think that these etudes are meant to be heard in a whole, rather than individual etudes. Even the "devil's staircase" doesn't work too well without No. 11 before it! :-/

I agree, I like hearing at least three or four together.

Feat.

Fair enough.

I actually almost wrote "feet"... Good thing I can edit away whenever I want in PW, but I won't...

Thanks

Whether feat feet or fit, that is indeed quite impressive.