Except some pieces, Chopin wrote almost exclusively for the piano and was able to push the limits of his instrument. The studies, op. 10 and 25, are still the number one reference in terms of difficulty, especially when it comes to playing both opuses on stage. The whole point of these studies is their undeniable musical value: While insisting on a technical difficulty, Chopin expresses a genuine musical idea. Unlike its predecessors (eg Clementi), the Polish composer gave his letters of nobility to the “study” form, considering it as a serious piece and presentable in concert, and will then be followed by Liszt, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff, among others.

Chopin, who was a lover of the bel canto, especially the bellinian one, never considered the piano as an orchestra but as a voice. In his studies, no breaking chords and no thundering octaves à la Liszt, but his voice, coupled with much deeper and less demonstrative difficulties: nothing easy nothing free. Chopin’s studies are essential: they allow to gain a solid and free technique, but also to master the complexity of a refined musical discourse just as the composer’s one.

When I was younger, their name alone made me shudder. I fought them so much! With hindsight, I think I was trying to fit the study into my fingers rather than fitting the pianist into the study. Today, with a little more experience, I realize that my approach was wrong. These studies are so fun to play that I wonder why I did not understand immediately what to do… The main thing is that I finally settled (or, that I am settling) the score with them! I can now sleep in peace, Chopin’s studies, I don’t fear of you!

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At the top of the pyramid, I would put Gaspard de la nuit by Maurice Ravel. Technically and musically extremely impressive, many pianists shied away from learning it.

In second place, I would put the Second Sonata by Pierre Boulez. No need to spell it out, it is an extremely difficult whole (in particular for memory) and just as Gaspard de la nuit, it fascinates me a lot, but few go through all the work required to perform it in public.

I assign the third place to the three famous movements from Petrushka by Stravinsky. Manually not so easy and musically complicated, like any other piano reduction by Stravinsky…

Some will be surprised by the fourth one: The eighth Sonata by Prokofiev.

And the last one in this very subjective ranking: the Sonata opus 106 hammerklavier by Beethoven, especially for its very famous fugue…

Let’s sum up this “top 5″:
1 – Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit
2 – Boulez : Second Sonata
3 – Stravinsky : 3 movements from Petrushka
4 – Prokofiev : Eighth Sonata
5 – Beethoven : Sonata Hammerklavier opus 106.

Of course, this is just my point of view on the subject and you will certainly hear about other suggestions elsewhere. Notice that 4 in 5 works are from the 20th century, at a time when piano technique and pianos greatly evolved.

And you, what would you add to this list? What are your criterions for considering a work to be difficult?

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The famous Sonata I.X.1905 (of which remains only two movements), the two series of On an Overgrown Path, In the Mists and a sole piece entitled Memory represent the totality of what Janáček wrote for piano. It isn’t much you might say? Yes, but dense! I have learned during my studies in Prague how much this music was stylisticly difficult and stamped with the composer’s Moravian roots.

V mlhách (In the Mists), which I am going to play this Tuesday, January 27th is my favorite cycle by Janáček. I love to play this music, in which I always find something new. Four movements full of the composer’s characteristic strength: a pleasure to the fingers and to the ears!

Let’s listen now to the first movement of In the Mists.

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Mozart has left us 20 sonatas for piano, of which the most famous are certainly, the A Major Kv 331 and its “Turkish march”, as well as the one said to be “easy”, in C Major Kv 545. Easy? Not really… Mozart’s work is for me one of most difficult, requiring an absolutely perfect and natural playing, as well as an extraordinary subtility. For a pianist, playing Mozart means to bare his own soul.

This sonata Kv 330 is the tenth of the composer and has notably been immortalized by a certain Vladimir Horowitz. Fascinating, this sonata has turned me on since I was a kid, I used to listen to Horowitz with my tape player I carried everywhere in the house. Next tuesday, my biggest wish would be to be up to this piece, and once again reveal to the public the Master’s genius.

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At this time, John Cage was an extremely controversial character in the music world and taught experimental composition in New-York. In this musical piece dating from 1959, Cage uses 34 different instruments, all in relation with water (for example: the bathtub, a toy fish, a pressure-cooker…). The score shows a plan explaining the placement of instruments with a timeline of three pages including descriptions and a pictographic notation indicating the occurrence of events.

Two things to note: contrary to the original version, Cage smacks and tosses radios instead of simply turning them on and off. Also note the ambiguity of the behavior towards Cage: at the same time, the regular game show is cancelled to let him play the whole piece, but is treated as a kind of weird.

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What it has to do with what I want to tell you today? Well I’d like to introduce you to David Christoffel, author of Assimix, Ma newsletter du dimanche (My sunday’s newsletter) and “other epistolarities especially electronic” as he says himself. Today, his Solfiage has caught my attention. (Click on the link so you can listen to it on Arte Radio.)

“In order to learn a new piece, musicians and classical singers practice the solfiage. To solfy, it’s to sing the melody by naming the notes: C, D, E… David solfied for us an extract of Antonin Dvorak’s ’New World Symphony’.”

The result? I love it and from now on, I can’t listen to Dvorak anymore quite the same way…
Thanks for having renewed my experience of a symphony I’ve heard a million times.

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I prefer it to the B minor one. More concise, more tense, the sonata opus 35 is a work I perform with great pleasure: I always find something new in it. Each time, I feel like rediscovering it, seeing it from another point of view. Even the slow movement, the famous funeral march, which everyone knows, I love playing it, I like to play with it, because it is particularly suited to this music.

It’s one of my favorite work. I think it also likes me: this sonata never played me tricks.

What about you? How this Chopin’s opus 35 talks to you? Does it give you this impression of permanent novelty?

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