Favourite Piano Music

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

The reason I start this thread is that I was at a party last night and at one point a friend (who I don't really know that well) was playing some really great stuff on the piano. There were a few of us just sitting around listening to him. He was playing a few Yann Tiersen tunes from Amelie which were fantastic. I really love that main one 'La Valse d'Amelie', if anyone has some sheet music for it I would be their friend forever. Anyway, he also played a couple by Ludovico Einaudi, 'Le Onde' and 'In Un'altra Vita' which I also really enjoyed. I don't want to sound like a big girl but it was quite beautiful, we were all sitting round listening to him at half four in the morning and everyone was so happy and it was just generally felt good. So what are your favourite piano-y songs to listen to or play? Could you recommend me a few bits and bobs I might like, I don't really listen to that much classical music so don't know what I'd like or even what kind of music I am talking about, but from what I've heard I love Einaudi, I like Eric Satie's Gymnopedie which someone uploaded ages ago after I heard it on an advert and loved it, I also love the aformentioned Amelie tune (which again, I'd love a score of but have searched for ages and haven't found anything). So, favourite things to play/listen to on the piano.

[The Region Legion]

Keith Jarrett's "Staircase".

'Nuff said.

[Cliche Guevara]

I like Eric Satie's Gymnopedie

Yeah, it's beautiful.

[butnut]

The reason I start this thread is that I was at a party last night and at one point a friend (who I don't really know that well) was playing some really great stuff on the piano. There were a few of us just sitting around listening to him. He was playing a few Yann Tiersen tunes from Amelie which were fantastic. I really love that main one 'La Valse d'Amelie', if anyone has some sheet music for it I would be their friend forever.

Here you go. A rough transcription of the opening. It sounds quite close to what's played to me, although there's probably a few little mistakes for those with sharper ears. Just play those 5s very freely, like you would in Chopin :)

http://rapidshare.de/files/1125481/Amelie.pdf.html

PDF - 224k.

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

Oh! Thanks so much Butnut, that's brilliant of you.

[Ciarán2]

Debussy - Claire de lune
John Cage - Piano works
Stockhausen - Klavierstuck I-XIV

[BagJob]

I love the music from Amelie - as well as the film. My favourite piece from the film has to be Comptine d'Un Autre Été, makes me wish I could play the piano.

[butnut]

Stockhausen - Klavierstuck I-XIV

I suppose you'll wanting these transcribed next? ;-)

(Actually I could do the opening of No. 9 for you)

[Spiney Norman]

Good call on the Gymnopédies

Dan

[ccab]

There's nothing like Prokofiev's lugubrious piano sonatas, especially no. 8, which I think is the finest piece of piano music ever written. Also Sibelius' miniature pieces for solo piano are a warren of gorgeous passages, like a classy brothel.

[falafel]

Gymnopédie no. 1 is fucking boring to play, I'll tel you that. Da-da-da-da-da-da...... Jeez. Lovely sounding, but much more fun on CD.

[Cambrian Times]

Does "Avril 14th" by Aphex Twin count? If so, I have to say, I love this piece.

[didgeripoo]

I like Berg's Piano Sonata. Even though it practically destroyed my love of learning new pieces...I was too young, hadn't left myself enough time and it was bloody hard.

Janacek's Sonata is great, too. Actually, so is all his piano music.

[Gazeuse]

If you like the Gymnopedies, get a Satie piano compilation. You'll grow to love the other pieces as much as the Gymnopedies.

You may also like Tambeau De Couperin by Ravel which is bee-ooo-tiful.

[Ghost of Troubled Joe]

"Six Pianos" by Steve Reich (with Terry Riley, I think), is a great piece of piano music, if you've got 20 minutes to spare listening to the whole thing.

[falafel]

If you like the Gymnopedies, get a Satie piano compilation. You'll grow to love the other pieces as much as the Gymnopedies.

Despite my earlier comments, I can't help but agree. This one is fantastic and enormous.

[Sam]

Ah, piano music - my speciality. At one point pretty much all I listened to was classical piano music so I know some good stuff.

I am particularly fond of "water" pieces, that is, pieces inspired by water that manage to actually sound "watery". The most overt examples of this are in Ravel's "Jeaux d'Eau" (Fountains) and "Une Barque sur l'Ocean" (A Boat on the Ocean). They are wonderfully evocative and hightly pianistic.

Probably the first piano piece to mimic the sounds of water is Liszt's "Les jeux d'eaux a la Villa d'Este " which was an obvious model for Ravel's "Jeax d''Eau".

Another great Liszt water piece is "Au Lac de Wallenstadt" from the Swiss (first) book of the "Années de Pèlerinage", a collection of beautiful piano pieces inspired by landscapes and nature. Liszt's mistress Marie d'Agoult wrote in her memoirs:

The shores of the lake of Wallenstadt kept us for a long time. Franz wrote there for me a melancholy harmony, imitative of the sight of the waves and the cadence of oars, which I have never been able to hear without  weeping.

And neither have I. This piece is literally sublime. I recently played it to a musician friend of mine who doesn't even like Liszt and he declared it beautiful on first listen. I sent it to another friend who called me later that night, frantically claiming he had an epiphany whilst listening to it and watching the light flicker and the swans glide on the river.

Not only the high point of water music, but without a doubt also one of the high points in the whole literature of the piano is Ravel's piece "Gaspard de La Nuit" after the  poems of Aloysius Bertrand (1807 - 1841). Here's a bit of "Ondine", the first part:

''Listen! Listen! It is I, it is Ondine brushing with these drops of water the resonant diamond panes of your window illuminated by the dull moonbeams; and here in the dress of moire, is the lady of the castle on her balcony gazing at the beautiful starry night and the beautiful slumbering lake. Each wave is a water sprite swimming in the current, Each current is a path winding toward my palace, And my palace is of fluid construction, at the bottom of the lake, Within the triangle formed by fire, earth, and air. ?

Listen! Listen! My father is beating the croaking water with a branch of green alder, And my sisters are caressing the cool islands of grasses, water lilies and gladioli with their arms of foam, Or are laughing at the tottering, bearded willow that is angling.''

After murmuring her song, she besought me to accept her ring on my finger, to be the husband of an Undine, and to visit her palace with her, to be king of the lakes. And when I replied that I was in love with a mortal woman, she was sulky and vexed; She wept a few tears, burst out laughing, and vanished in showers that formed white trickles down my blue windowpanes.

(This fantastic website has translations of the poems and lots of really interesting information: http://www.russischeschule.com/Ravel.htm)

The evocative and macabre descrptions of water are transformed from poetry to music perfectly. The piece opens with a brillaint impressionist device: a complex (and difficult!) trill which imitates the glimmering of the light on the water. From there it unfolds with crystalline beauty, cascading, shimmering piano figuration of unprecedented intricacy and delicacy. Christ, that sounds poncey. But you get the picture.

I highly recommend getting hold of Ravel's complete piano music. There's a great version on Hyperion played by Angela Hewitt:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000063TSM/qid%3D1112735285/026-9749657-2340430

Another good one is Pascal Roge's on Decca:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000422W/qid=1112735398/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_11_1/026-9749657-2340430

In fact, anything with Roge's name on in great. He has recorded all of the great French piano music (Ravel, Debussy, Satie, Faure, Saint-Saens etc) and his interpretations are always perfectly played, sensitive and authentically "French".

For the Liszt I mentioned earlier get Lazar Berman's legendary recording:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000069KJ0/qid=1112735573/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_9_1/026-9749657-2340430

Anyway, I'll come back to this thread cos I have tons of recommendations (if anyone's interested).

[splattermac]

I'm two parts interested and one part lazy.

Can you share out some of your 'watery' recommendations please Sam?

I don't have a river and swans but I have a novelty slipper I can push along a laminate floor.

[Sam]

Sure, if someone can host I can email them a couple of the pieces.

[DanceLikeYourSellingNails]

Chopin - Raindrop Prelude
John Cage - Piano Works
Henry Purcell - Air


Avril 14th by Aphex Twin is prepared piano and probably a bit of processing - but it still counts - anyone had a go at transcribing that?

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

Wow, thanks for typing all that out Sam, you are quite the expert. I'll definitely have to check out some of that stuff.

[9]

I've got an MP3 of someone playing one of those Aphex piano pieces on a prepared piano. I would post it, but it's terrible quality. The guy does a good job of it though.

I got a CD of some of Ligeti's piano pieces today. There's lots of complex polyrhythms going on, and apparently they were written for mechanical piano, but this lass called Idil Biret has a fucking good go at them. Quite difficult to listen to in places, but there's some amazing passages in there.

As for what I listen to most; Satie, Glass, and Cage's sonatas and interludes for prepared piano, whhich I adore.

[little pianist]

Top quality post

I've know if i start posting in this thread i'll be here all night but...

I spent many hours trying to get the beginning to Ondine. And it's never been right. I recommend Martha Ageriech's version of Gaspard. All three movements are superbly played.

Also:

Prokofiev sonata No.7 especially the 3rd movement.
(Try and play it Sam (huh huh) then listen to Pollini's version. It's insane)
Bach's Preludes and Fugues
Bach's Goldberg Variations
Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues
Ligeti - Etudes
Rachmaninov - Polka de W.R.
Keith Jarrett - Just about anything but.. Bremen encore is a bit extra special.
..
i'll be back

[Lt Plonker]

Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is my favourite, although I don't really have a wide knowledge of piano music. It's a great 15 minutes!

[Hoogstraten'sSmilingUlcer]

Beethoven's Rage Over a Lost Penny is joyous, a fantastic almost 'dittyish' piece (and played very well by Bill Bailey in Black Books).

This doesn't count because it's not solely a piano piece, but the jazz piano in Jazz, Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold, is excellent.

[splattermac]

here are Sam's five recommended watery songs

http://tinyurl.com/5z6g2

I like the black notes bestest

[Sam]

Cheers for that splattermac! I don't if you guys are aware of it, but what's hosted is some of the most sublime and beautifully pianistic music ever written. It doesn't get much better than these. Pour a glass of wine, or light a joint (or both!), sit back, queue the pieces up and think of the beauty of water.  Enjoy and tell me what you think!

[Rubbish Monkey]

I've got an MP3 of someone playing one of those Aphex piano pieces on a prepared piano. I would post it, but it's terrible quality. The guy does a good job of it though.

Theres a bunch of piano tribute stuff. I recently got the Nine Inch Nails one. Not bad. Hang on I'll find some links...

Hurt

Closer

Vitamin Records' list 'o' piano tributes

[Gazeuse]

Each to his own (And I know that I've personally churned out some awful old rubbish myself over the years), but I really did not like those piano tributes. Most were in the same key and played in exactly the same style...I can't see the point in them.

However, if it gets people into piano music, then who am I to complain.

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

Huge thank you to the people uploading stuff, I'm really enjoying these.