Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Describe your life with a Piano Work

Which piano work describes your life at this moment in time and why?


For me I'd say Brahms 1st piano concerto for all of its tumult and confusion. This seems to fit quite well.

Hammerklavier! ...ok, maybe not, but Beethoven piano concerto 3 got close.

Chopin's 'Fantasy Impromptu' - Fast paced, seems all over the place yet has moments of serene and above all very beautiful (thats was a joke guys - im not really that big headed, although, the impromtu is very beautiful)!

Prokofiev 5th Concerto comes to mind: it's a relatively new style (I'm beginning quite a new part of my life about now), and, through its seriousness, it's a bit humorous and whimsical in the 2nd movement (as I am on occassion). It's sometimes unsure yet often quite optimistic. Common themes keep popping up amongst the new - there is a sense of constant structure, yet there is always something new. Overall it's very lighthearted, although it can also be quite emotional and introspective.

Well, now that I'm listening to the Prokofiev 5th again...

Maybe it's a bit dark for me. Oh well.

Bartok's 'With Drums and Pipes'.

Home remodelling.


David

Life, is like an improv...

Schumann Toccata.

"Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch."

Excellent question so far I'd pick

Rachmaninoff Piano Sonata no. 2

reason being, it started off with a crash; life appeared bleak for a time. Poverty. Illness. Hard times and melancholy. Then a glimmer of hope. Patches of brightness, never quite fully realized. Settling into a stable state yet rumbling deep beneath.

Hmmm...it *is* a pretty interesting question! Neat to think about at least.

I'll say, until (unless) I can come up with something better, Godowsky's sonata in E minor. Its ambitions are almost unfathomable, yet its flawed and ambiguous structure tends to force it into a state of esoterica, out of which only the finest pianist with almost incomparable musical intelligence can create a cohesive and effective performance that achieves its ultimate goal whilst transcending its rambling nature. At a glance, it is almost an unattractive piece, too large and cumbersome to be worthwhile, but once revealed for what it truly is, therein lies tremendous beauty and understanding, and indeed sentimentality and nostalgia.

And, not without humour!

Another example might be Mahler's 9th Symphony, from which there is derived amazing catharsis, brilliance, and understanding about humanity, but only *after* a long, drawn-out and complicated process that is difficult to understand and ocassionally so dense, the way is lost and one can run the risk of never fully appreciating it.

Ligeti's Ramifications/Lux Aeterna and Rautavaara's Preludes/Angel of Light Symphony and a lot of Schoenberg's and Berg's works remind me instantly of a desire of mine that is something similar to Gould's, one that I have had for several years now: that is, to escape to an isolated, arctic landscape (the ideal location is Antarctica, but the realistic one is either Canada or Alaska) and live and work there for a considerable amount of time, largely removed from the rest of the human population. I really, really, really think that would do wonders for me, but anyway the point is I like music with that kind of cold, isolated abandon about them!

As for my humour, I love the quirky and witty humour found in nearly every Haydn sonata, and just adore the musical jokes of early Beethoven, for example in op. 10 no. 2 when he begins the recapitulation in the wrong key. Sauer also makes me laugh!

Schubert/Liszt Ständchen (Horrowitz's interpretation)

it looks like simple, but it is not
it looks like repetitious, but it is not
it looks like familiar, but it is not

some may listen to it as reflecting a hopefulness
but it is sorrowful

The last part of the piece.. Looks like reflecting the voice of conscience, like echoing it, but it is an unconfirmative reply.

You can easily remember its melody ... except the nuances and its final

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 2 in C-major, except when he wrote it, Tchaikovsky forgot his prozac, so we got Rachmaninoff in C-minor. :p

Very interesting replies guys especially you goldberg, I share your desire as well, more literally than you might think believe it or not.

To elaborate a little more on mine, it seems my life parallels Brahms' life in so many ways (though ofcourse it's very different in many ways as well) and just at the same age I am now, Brahms was toiling through his first concerto, transforming it from an initial two piano sonata, then to a symphony, and finally to its concerto form.
The concerto itself as I've said in other threads, amalgamates so many different elements of his life that I too now feel.
His unrequited and confusing love for Clara, his frustrations with being unable to compose and having seemingly lost his muse, his fears of not living up to Schumann's prophecy who a year earlier had declared him to be the next musical Messiah, his embarrassment over not being able to support himself or his parents and family.
And then ofcourse, the final blow, Schumann's death galvanized the process with its final bit of impetus.
On top of all of this his raging youthful virility yearning for its expression, churning the dark desires and frustrations into one grotesque mass of inertia.
The concerto itself reflects all this, its first movement for example is a ghastly and unwieldy creature yet full of beauty, it seemingly has no form and breaks all the age old rules, such as having the soloist introduce a new theme in the development section.
Often it seems to hover in between tonalities like a lurid specter, confounded and wavering in between the various chambers of existence, not able to decide whether to choose life or death, happiness or greatness, the youthful spasm of virility or the damning vesture of academia.
I suppose I too am at such a crossroads although I too like Brahms have already chosen, but nevertheless am haunted by the harrowing geist of that great lure.
I too have entered into that vast troubled period, from which I hope to emerge as Brahms did, a new man.

no long work describes my life but Chopin's Berceuse, Op. 57, Prelude in D Op. 32 no. 4, Suite Bergamasque Clair de Lune and Prelude and Pavane for the dead princess are the pieces that I relate too... They mean so much to me...

In the concerto, I will include the 2nd movement of Ravel Piano Concerto in G...

After DP's response, I may have changed my mind. As a "real man", *manly grunt*, the best piece that describes me...

*pause to think*

...*sigh* is probably the "Minute Waltz". :p

Flight of the Bumblebee - I am always on the run...