is one of those concertos that I never really listened to very much, because I never really liked it.

But now I'm listening to Krystian Zimmerman, and


Amazing what one can do with only one hand... (but besides that, it's just such incredible music)

2nd Concerto > 1st Concerto

Is this the Zimerman/Boulez recording on DG? It's a good one, for sure. The savagery of his glissandi never fails to astound me, and such delicacy in the final cadenza... think I'm going to have to dig it out again

I agree with Danor, its an amazing piece. I'd love to learn it.

I have that CD also. Seems like a good time to give it a listen

One of my favorite concerti. Beautiful music, and it fits like a glove.

Go read through it!

Zimerman's is one of the very best readings of this concerto. That probably has something to do as you 'discover' this piece, pianojerome.

Rgds,
AndrewG

I love this concerto, listened to Zimmermans recording today. I have a recording with Haas Werner too, it's not one of the best versions though.

Has anyone here tried to play it? Im wondering how difficult it is and if there's anything special you should study before working on it, like certain etudes... I know that Ravel himself studied Saint-saens left hand etudes when writing the concerto, so I recently bought the sheet music for both the concerto and the saint-saens etudes. It will be fun to see how doable it is, although I've already borrowed a study score to try some parts...

I remember Brendan played this. Right, Brendan?

The technique is not really derived from the SS etudes - which are much easier, although the level of complexity is lesser than the most difficult of the Chopin-Godowsky studies.

I actually just got the score this weekend, if you want to do a progress log. Should sight read it today or tomorrow and will post back then.

Favorite recordings: Abbey Simon and Philippe Entremont.

I stumbled through the opening solo, and gave up completely when I got to those 9ths, 10ths and 11ths(!!!)

Brendan posted his own recording of it a few months ago:

http://www.sadarnoomsby.com/Ravel.mp3


It's from a master-class, with the orchestral part played on a second piano.

Hey, have you tried the concerto yet? I got the score recently but I have only tried the first part so far. Do you have any suggestions for etudes or anything else to study BEFORE working on the concerto? I mean, it seems like a great challenge to play it, and it might be better to start with some left-hand-etude for instance. The first part actually doesn't look too hard, but the very first chords when the piano enters and decends (with the melody A - - G E G D E H D A - - etc) will cause me some trouble... hard to play in tempo I think.

BTW, if you have started to look on it - what fingerings to you use on the FF "strepitoso" part in the very end of the first solo piano episode (before nr 5 in the durand edition)? If you know which place I'm talking about.

Well there are some good Scriabin pieces for left hand alone. Also, try the first part of Corligiano's etude-fantasy. Another great left hand piece to study is the Bach-Brahms Chaconne.

i've never tried it or even seen a score for it. but ive heard that this is an extremely difficult concerto. id be interested to get some input on it from those that have played it, just for the sake of learning about it.