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autoharp
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« on: 18:58:15, 05-10-2008 » |
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Two questions here. not only is Catalogue d'Oiseaux the most significant piano music of the twentieth century I have a problem with this, not because I don't relate to the collection of Messiaen pieces referred to, but because of the use of the word significant (or, for that matter, important or some such equivalent word): I don't really understand what it's supposed to, well, signify. I assume that in this case it's something other than simply the taste of the writer, but what? Apologies to Tantris - this isn't a personal attack! I'm familiar with a wide range of 20th century piano music, but if I was asked whose or what was the most significant, I wouldn't be able to answer. On the other hand, if I was asked which 20th century composer's piano music I would least like to live without, I could come up with an answer (Medtner, probably). And anybody else's? |
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« Last Edit: 19:05:29, 05-10-2008 by autoharp »
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Turfan Fragment
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« Reply #1 on: 19:01:07, 05-10-2008 » |
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Nikolaj Medtner! I don't know his music at all!
What in particular do you recommend?
The most significant music is the one with the largest number of digits after the decimal point.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #3 on: 19:21:11, 05-10-2008 » |
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I'm afraid Medtner's music leaves me cold - technical wizardry and glossy bombast, shorn of content or depth  Listening to it makes me appreciate Rachmaninov & Taneev ( aka Taneyev, no diff) more enthusiastically. In fairness to Medtner, it may not have been the kind of music he hoped to write - slung into unplanned exile, and denied royalties to all his printed output because he signed with a Berlin publisher (who became "the enemy" in WW1, then slumped in the Great Depression), he was forced to pursue the path of the solo recitalist, and write glitzy works that would impress. So was Rachmaninov, of course - but he fought shy of the vulgarisms into which Medtner slipped, IMHO (and Rachmaninov also had income as a conductor). If I was making a list of "significant" piano music of the C20th, I'd put Kabalevsky on that list somewhere. |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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martle
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« Reply #4 on: 19:27:46, 05-10-2008 » |
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I suppose, if we take 'significant' to mean music that has changed or enriched our understanding of what piano music is or can be,
Debussy
Ravel
Rachmaninov
Bartok
Cage
Ligeti
Xenakis
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Green. Always green.
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #5 on: 19:34:19, 05-10-2008 » |
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Someone said that Medtner is Rachmaninoff without the melody. I don't remember who said that.
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autoharp
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« Reply #6 on: 19:38:18, 05-10-2008 » |
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I'm afraid Medtner's music leaves me cold - technical wizardry and glossy bombast, shorn of content or depth somewhere.
Entirely the opposite of my view! So he's controversial as well. Excellent! Here's Medtner playing March of the Paladin op 14 no 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UovcbFOdRY&feature=relatedAnd Ginzburg playing Sonata Reminiscenza Aaaaargh! Sorry: previous Gilels link was incomplete. http://www.medtner.org.uk/downloads.html |
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« Last Edit: 10:45:09, 06-10-2008 by autoharp »
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BobbyZ
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« Reply #7 on: 20:13:26, 05-10-2008 » |
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What about "the one true American art form" ? Thelonius Monk ?
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Dreams, schemes and themes
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #8 on: 20:17:36, 05-10-2008 » |
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I did not know Thelonius Monk. This is the first time I hear him. It sounds like fun. http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=OMmeNsmQaFw&feature=relatedI like his pedal techinique. I have seen classical pianists playing like that. I tell my students not to do that, but may be I should change. What is the best fun piano pieces in the XX century? |
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« Last Edit: 20:20:16, 05-10-2008 by trained-pianist »
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #9 on: 20:20:10, 05-10-2008 » |
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Here's Medtner playing March of the Paladin op 14 no 2
nice enough, I agree - but could have been written in the 1870s...  |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #11 on: 20:47:22, 05-10-2008 » |
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He has intricate rhythms in his music.
I am afraid that this music will be boring for the audience.
I had a student that played one of Fairy tales. Also when I studied some one usually played a Fairy tale, but I never could remember them.
May be I am wrong, I don't know. It sounds like not a memorable music.
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Ted Ryder
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« Reply #12 on: 20:48:16, 05-10-2008 » |
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How about Kurtag's "Games" Can they stand beside Ligeti's Etudes?
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I've got to get down to Sidcup.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #13 on: 20:49:36, 05-10-2008 » |
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By whom?
Anton Rubinstein... for one  Caprices, Op 21 http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/7/75/IMSLP03376-Rubinstein_caprices_op21.pdfSoirees a Saint-Petersbourg, op 44 http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/c/c9/IMSLP02634-Rubinstein_-_Romance__Op.44_No.1.pdf(nb note the triplet l/h figures on the second page, against duplets in the r/h)Believe me, Auto, I'm not trying to tear-down Medtner's importance - but I don't believe that by the 1930s that this kind of music was any longer in the front rank of what we might term "significance". For very good economic reasons, Medtner was forced to write "listenable" salon-music that threw-down few challenges to the audience, and encouraged ready sales of the sheet music. But the music itself harks back to a different tradition that was half a century old - as though Debussy and Ravel had never lived. |
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« Last Edit: 20:56:13, 05-10-2008 by Reiner Torheit »
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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« Reply #14 on: 21:22:43, 05-10-2008 » |
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And may I express my disappointment at the scanning job on that one. |
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