Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Top 10 Greatest Piano Concertos!

I couldn't narrow it down to 20, let alone 10. Maybe 10 composers: Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, Saint-Saens, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev. And even there, I probably forgot and left somebody out.


Recently I've been exploring some of the lesser known concertos. There are some good ones out there that don't get much mention: Dvorak, (especially) Paderewski, Scharwenka, Poulenc, Busoni, Khachaturian...

Any other good ones I'm missing out on?

1. Liszt Totentanz
2. Mozart No. 27
3. Beethoven No. 4
4. Ravel Piano concerto for the left hand
5. J. S. Bach D minor
6. Mozart No. 23
7. J. S. Bach F minor
8. Mozart No. 20
9. Mozart No. 22
10. Busoni (gets a place, because it's the greatest piano concerto ever written, and I've managed to listen to it twice despite the fact)

Looks like I have a slightly other taste :

1- Rachmaninov no. 3
2- Rachmaninov no. 2
3- Tchaikovsky no. 1
4- Chopin no. 1
5- Schumann
6- Brahms no. 1
7- Beethoven no. 4
8- Grieg
9- Prokofiev no. 2
10- Mozart no. 23

I was thinking about putting that one on my list. It's wonderful!! The orchestration is great (as should be expected from Dvorak), and I just love the melodies in the 3rd movement especially.

There's nothing necessarily paradoxical about it at all. If I am reading critical biographies of composers whose works I do not know well enough to judge their "greatness" but am told by more than one esteemed historian that these works are indeed among the greatest in the genre, then I would have to acknowledge their "greatness" even though I could not voice an opinion on whether or not I like them.

Conversely, for someone to list (his/her) top 10 Greatest Keyboard Concertos of All Time! (sure sounds like a pop list to me) in one post and then say s/he hasn't heard 90% of the ten (fairly standard works) listed in the following post, then I do believe we are talking about personal likes rather than criteria of greatness. So, yes, there is a difference between establishing criteria of what makes a work great and more simply just listing the works that one likes.

Hence, my question : Are we talking about what concertos we like best - which is what seems to be the case - or are we trying to compile a list of what concertos are really considered among the greatest written? If the latter be the case, I was merely asking by what criteria we are going to judge their greatness.

Brucey me boy you're thinking too much into this all! Semantics can be argued to all eternity you know that! Whether you title it greatness or "opion OF" greatness what's the difference, obviously physics nor mathematics can accurately prove which piece is "greater" than another so obviously anytime someone claims greatness it should inherently understood as OPINION ONLY!

The list is done to see which pieces get the most points and make the top 10 so that we can see (for fun) the general breakdown of what people at PianoWorld think are the top 10 pieces. Do you get it now??????????

OK, now that you've explained that this is a popularity poll, I understand the rules of the game. That's all I was asking.

Are not ALL POLLS popularity polls? Even Time Magazine's top 100 Innovators or anything of that sort. Nobel Peace Prize, it's all about popularity and opinion. No one in the world can actually PROVE that anything is better or greater than something else, who can PROVE to me Einstein is greater than Newton, for anything you say I can easily counter you with my own "opinion". So in a sense I just feel it's just a given and should be inherently understood that ALL POLLS are opinion/popularity polls wouldn't you agree? Unless of course the poll specifically states something mathematically like, "list the top 10 grossing movies of all time" obviously that can be deduced and quanticized because you can look at the figures and see which movie made more money.

This post is digressing into an intellectual chatter fest...

I agree, care to put us back on track and list your top 10?

I don't know about the other nine, but click on this link and listen to this played as you have never heard it before, and you will certainly have your number one!
savefile.com

that's 10 points for Chopin

Ok, starting at #1:
Beethoven 4
Mozart 20
Schumann
Mozart 17
Beethoven 5
Ravel G maj.
Shosti 2
Schumann
Rachmaninoff 2
Mozart 12
I couldn't really think too much about the order here.

1)Beethoven No.3
2)Chopin No.1
3)Mendelssohn No.1
4)Brahms No.2
5)Chopin No.2
6)Mozart No.23
7)Beethoven No.4
8)Schumann A minor
9)Greig A minor
10)Saint-Saen's G minor

Beethoven is doing pretty well it looks like.

my favorites

1.Beethoven 5 Emperor
2.Beethoven 4
3.Mozart 23

1. Rachmaninoff 3
2. Prokofiev 5
3. Prokofiev 2
4. Brahms 2
5. Rachmaninoff 2
6. Rachmaninoff Rhapsody
7. Prokofiev 3
8. Shostakovich 2
9. Ravel
10. Grieg

I hope there were more spots!

11. Bartok 2
12. Brahms 1
13. Chopin 1
14. Chopin 2
15. Beethoven 4
16. Beethoven 5
17. Mendelssohn 1

Rach 3
Gershwin: concerto in F
Prok 3
Saint Saens 2
Rach 2
Tchaikovsky 1
Beethoven: Emperor
Shosti 1 (piano/trumpet)
Saint Saens #5 (Egyptian)
Prok 1

Rachmaninoff 2
Rachmaninoff 3
Beethoven 3
Chopin 1
Bach 5
Totentanz
Rach rhapsody
Rachmaninoff 1
Greig
Bach 1

In fact these are most of what i heard
I must increase my listening repertoire

Beethoven 1-5
Mozart 20, 24
Brahms 1
Rach 2, 3