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Have any of you played Liszt's Rhapsodie Espagnole?

What are some of your biggest hurdles you had to overcome?

For me:

As a whole I have really had to learn how to relax more and conserve my energy. I have also had to master playing fast and quiet. I've also had to learn how to play more musically to make up for some of Liszt's compositional shortcomings as well as my own technical shortcomings in this piece (i.e. play with more direction and really bring out structural nuances that seem to go unoticed by most other pianists I have heard play this piece).

If you have technical shortcomings and believe that Liszt had compositional shortcomings in this piece, I would strongly discourage you from playing it.

I think that there are many people who speak low of Liszt who don't know what they're talking about. Most pianists appreciate Liszt for his sound, imagination, sonority, and conception. Much of this is lost on the common audience, who hears only the crashing thunder.

The piece is very pianistic. The opening cadenza is among the most difficult parts of the piece. The 5-finger scales are also difficult to play evenly for many people.

^^^^^^

See, I feel that the opening cadenza is one of the easiest parts of the piece, it fits in the hand quite nicely. The last 3 pages are probably the most difficult pages of the entire piece.

I am not speaking low of Liszt's compositional abilities only his conception of the piece (particularly developmental material). It seems that Liszt opts to use less imaginative chromaticism as developmental material to move into new sections. For example....the section starting at measure 414 is probably one of Liszt's most unimaginative and most pointless chromatic passages he has ever written. I know Liszt has the capacity to be more creative than what is heard in that section. Just listen to his B minor sonata, it has some of the most imaginative and intellectually deep developmental material ever written.

I am technically capable of playing this piece and i've had some shortcomings that I have had to overcome while learning it. Also, I would like to ask what previous posts of mine lead you to not recommend this piece for me? You've never heard me play before! Anyway, i'm not here to debate whether or not you, or anybody else, thinks I should play the piece or not because I already am and, not to toot my own horn or anything, i'm playing it damn well too. All I want to know is if you have ever played the piece and what hurdles did you have to overcome.

With reference to the last three pages, I find them among the most comfortable.
I assume that mechanisms and techniques vary person-to-person, and will chalk it up to that. One mans toxic sludge is another man's potpourri.

And what is thematic development if not composition? Have you heard Busoni's arrangement for piano and orchestra? I don't prefer it, personally, but it gives a wonderful flavor for the variety of color afforded by Liszt's variation of registers and textures. This is what is being developed in these later sections of which you speak, not so much harmonically. I also think that the formal organization leading to the climax is indicative of planning, but I do take your point that he was harmonically uninventive at the time.

The post which comes to mind is the first post of yours which I saw, namely "Name this piece?" Most of the people making such threads are hardly even classical listeners, let alone pianists. The thread went on to reveal that it was Holst's Planets, which supported that supposition.

It seems, however, that I was mistaken, and that you are merely a pianocentric.

In conclusion, apparently you and I have different strengths and weaknesses, and I was wrong to marginalize you and your points. I ask that you refrain from swearing.

Daniel