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Every Saturday I pull out new music and sight read my way through. It is a wonderful time of exploration and sometimes I get lucky enough to find a piece that I want to work on.

Today, I fell in love with Mozart's Adagio in B minor K.540. I can see what my new passion will be over the next weeks. The notes are deceptively simple............the dynamics and technique required are anything but. What an absolutely gorgeous piece of music. I didn't know whether to laugh with the wonderful discovery or cry at profound emotions this piece brings forth. Now this is why I am still playing the piano 42 years after that first lesson.

So what piece do you just respond to completely? Should be an interesting list. Give me some more things to sight ready through and discover.

Eileen

Interesting question, Eileen. For me, most recently it was "Souvenir de la Havane" by Gottschalk. BDB here identified it from an audio clip and Plays88 scanned her sheets for me. I am grateful to both. It, too, appears deceptively simple on paper. But between constant large leaps in a tango rhythm for the left and a mostly single-note-at-a-time melody for the right which must be played elegantly legato with little graceful trill-like turns interspersed, it's not so easy. I spend a little time every afternoon working on that, among other things. Close, but no "Havana". After discovering that Gottschalk piece, I've rounded up several things of his I may work on someday.

I'm a big fan of Gottschalk... my favorites are Bamboula, Souvenir de Puerto Rico, The Dying Poet, Tournament Galop, and the Grand Tarantelle for Piano and Orchestra.

moonlite 3 because it stays in your head forever after u reely lisen to it once and in a league of its own when played with enough emotion and artistic-ness if thats a word...

Brahms Intermezzo #2 Opus 118

I never get tired of that piece.

Jodi

oh, oh, oh - one more - the piano duet that Elena and Laura play - Schubert Fantasy in f minor (I think). It is SO fabulous. Gives me goosebumps.

Jodi

How can there be just one? Barber - Adagio for Strings, Rhapsody in Blue, I don't think I could choose one if I had to.

I have been personally obsessing over a piano roll transcription of Gershwin's Kickin' The Clouds Away. I have been rescoring it from a duet version. It is playable but, like a lot of piano roll versions that include a lot of "hand cutting" there are some inner voices that I will probably have to forego. That is unless I can learn to stretch two octaves with fills.

The first of Schumann's "Gesang der Fruhe"

I just sight read this one this weekend: Prelude by Ravel. The notes aren't hard, it doesn't go fast, and it's gorgeous. To turn it into music takes a little effort.

Mine varies. For a long time last year, it was Brahms' Capriccio op. 116 no. 3.

This summer's new obsession is Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 no 1. I've just started and would love any tips on measures 3-4 and 11-12, BTW!!

Probably the smartest thing for me to do would be to obsess about something by a composer who didn't like writing things for people with such big hands...

Nina

I can certainly relate to that post. Wanting to work on something outside classical, I chose to work on Gershwin's "Summertime". I could only find a version arranged for 2 violins, viola, cello and voice. I had such fun transcribing that for piano two hands last week. I made choices as I went about merging the various voices into two hands and learned a lot about rhythm and time values as a result of my desire to keep as much of the counterpoint of the voices as possible while arriving at something actually playable. Working in Finale, I was able to note and audition the choices as I went. When I finally sat down at the piano to play it, I did find a small number of reaches I couldn't make, though I'd eliminated most at the computer. So I'm amid the first edition, marking it up, preparing for the final edition. What I have ended up with is not Rick Wakeman's tour de force version, but something quite near the original between my transcription of the melody, but with Gershwin's long overture leading in.

I'm guessing those piano-roll hand cuts are pretty much the same as those wonderful bits written for a fourth or fifth player that a soloist has to scrap, if he has the sense to realize it. I could have gone and bought the score, but I doubt I'd have learned as much.

I've started a little file to list pieces suggested here.

teachum, that Adagio by S.Barber is gorgeously heart rending. I don't know that I've ever heard it played on piano, and I've never seen piano sheet music for it. (but thats not saying a lot.) It could be one of those pieces that needs the continuous volume and sound control of bowed instruments.

But you have mentioned it here, so I'll optimistically ask if you know of or have piano music for this piece. I would love to see if I could do anything with it.

Bob

Ooooohhh... I selected this as one of my exam pieces for next year.

I'm with Jodi on the Brahms...except I can't play it.

The last piece I went absolutely full-tilt about was the 2nd (variations) movement to the Appassionata. Those beautiful deep chords in the opening measures sometimes bring me to tears. Unfortunately, I injured my left arm trying to bring the final variation up to tempo, so I never truly "finished" it.

Bach's Sinfonia no.2 is such a beautiful piece that i just keep playing over and over. i first heard Gould playing it and decided to learn it right after...

In recent years the only music eliciting the "love at first hearing" symptoms has been that of David Thomas Roberts.

I told my teacher the same thing. Problem is I think she is probably tired of me playing it! :p I am working on it again over the summer..

I never tire of Schumann, it is always on my piano.

I wish it could be done on piano, but I agree it is just for strings - I was just responding literally to the question - what piece of music do you totally respond to. That music just tears me up no matter what context I hear it in. It did it to me long before they used it in Platoon - but that totally sealed it.

I believe it was Kreisler who said he liked the WTC #7 in B minor. I certainly am enjoying relearning it. I think it's love. I'm not sure.

I'm a sucker for music from musicals. I play through it whenever or wherever (I once spent an afternoon playing Jerome Kern at Davies Symphony Hall while waiting for Bobby Short to show up). 'Til the Clouds Roll By is great, and I was just playing Rodgers and Hart's The Blue Room along with the little chirpy-chirps of the birds in the next room. I pick up piano scores whenever I can. The last one was My Fair Lady, which gave me the chance to try Show Me! as well as the more famous numbers. There's so much of it that just makes me tingle.

Of course, there's plenty of other things. Mendelssohn's Scotch Symphony is wonderful. I've been playing a recording of Françaix's BEA Serenade over and over. There have been live performances: Horowitz playing Au Bord d'une Source, Bobby Enriquez and Flip Nuñez improvising a waltz together, Pharoah Sanders and Zakir Hussein playing together incredibly, Zoltan Szekely playing Bartok's Concerto, which was written for him. I get a great thrill out of playing my Mason & Hamlin, which is more mine than any piano most of you could ever have.

I recently fell in love with the 3rd movement of Beethoven's Les Adieux sonata. I've started learning it but I don't know how far I'll get because I've read on these forums that it's one of the harder ones.

I often wonder how my neighbors feel about the Brahms...

:p

Nina, I learned this last year. Quite surely, these measures should not be played metronomically. I play the 2nd half of measure 3 as: a triplet, followed by a turn (5 notes starting on a and ending on a, followed by another triplet.

Measure 6 is a little harder to describe. First of all at mid-measure I play the e natural in the right hand with the b flat in the left hand. One possibility for the first half of the measure is: a triplet, followed by a triplet, followed by 4 eighth notes. A possibility for the second half of the measure (starting on e natural) would be: 4 eighth notes, followed by a 5-note turn (starting and ending on c), followed by a triplet starting on f natural.

Measure 10 is the same as measure 3.

Measure 11 is 3 (right hand) against 2 (left hand) but I think you need to "wing" it with the right hand, e.i. be free so it doesn't sound like strickly 3 against 2.

This is such a gorgeous piece. I also know op.9 #2 and have read through op.9 #3. One of my goals is to learn #3 so I have the whole opus under my belt. I think I'll make that a goal to accomplish sometime next year. (It's probably going to take another 3 or so months to polish the entire Ravel Sonatine. I just reached the end of the 3rd movement this week. What a great feeling to reach the end. Now there's lots of work to do!)

Bernard: Thanks for the help! I'll get out my score and work it out. Fortunately there's nothing particularly hard about the notes in this, just getting them all packed in so it sounds like it belongs. (At least, that's the issue for me.)

Good luck in learning the entire opus. I felt so accomplished when I had Brahms op. 117 up to speed. My fantasy would be to have Brahms op. 116 as well, but I think that's probably out of my reach, literally and figuratively! Didn't Kreisler play op. 116 in this year's round of concerts?

Thanks again,
Nina

RKVS1 wrote:

There is a piano transcription of Barber's Adagio published by G. Schirmer (about $4). It's a relatively simple arrangement so don't expect much in its fidelity to the original.

But pay close attention to the tied notes and work out fingering (including finger substitutions, crossing hands, etc.) ahead of time that achieves legato without pedaling. Then add the sustain pedaling and the sostenuto pedal judiciously if you have one.

Like most transcriptions of works for strings, it doesn't sound all that great to an audience. But, in your mind's ear, it can sound authentic enough and give you the thrill of reproducing this wonderful piece.

The same transcription appears along with other transcriptions in "Classical Chart Hits, Gold" by Wise Publications (about $15).

Regarding Chopin's 9-1, like many of his pieces, it's helpful to learn the LH first and so well that you can put it on automatic pilot while you weave the RH around and through it. Naturally, you should master the RH also by HS separate practice before playing HT.

Some of the LH stretches are, for most hands, better negotiated by fingering such as, for instance, 5-2-1-2 rather than, say, 5-4-2-1. I use my RH where I can to replace my LH on the top note of the LH arpeggio just to relieve the tension from so much stretching of the palm.

I love the piece, especially the part from mm. 51 - 70.

A relatively simple Chopin piece I find highly rewarding is his Prelude in C# Minor Op. 45. Anyone not familiar with this piece should give it a listen and, if you like it, a try. There's only one somewhat difficult part in the piece (a cadenza beginning at m. 81). But it yields reasonably quickly to careful practice.

(Why does Chopin always have to stick at least one tough passage in almost every piece? If anyone can provide me his phone number, I intend to call him and sound him out on this one!)

Thanks for the responses, teachum and Magellen.
I may have heard Barber's Adagio before Platoon, but its effect was so strong in the movie that I stayed way late for the credits trying to find out who wrote it.

I was really surprised when I found out it had been written in the 20th century. It seemed like a thowback (a great one) to the mid 1800's romantics.

I'm also in love with Chopin's Op. 9 No. 1 Nocturne and am working on it right now. I have wanted to play this piece for years and am finally studying it with a teacher. I can't get enough of it.

Bob,

I have the Barber Adagio in sheet music for piano solo. It's Hal Leonard. I'm not sure if it "works"...maybe only in my head. But it's a wonderful challenge to try to string together a legato seamless enough to make music out of it on the piano. It's in print.

Debbie

Hey, that's my line!

HAHA that's great.

I'm with you on this one Jodi!

For me it was Beethoven op.14 no.1 - as soon as I heard it, I thought "I must learn that Sonata!".