Video Essay #1 - About the 10 Hardest Piano Pieces
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- Опубліковано 17 вер 2024
- In a new series called "Video Essays that noone asked for" I explain, how the term "difficulty" works in a musical context and give a list of 10 hard piano pieces.
List of recordings and pieces used:
Vinheteiro - Top 10 Most Difficult Piano Pieces
• Top 10 Most Difficult ...
Xenakis - Pithoprakta
• Iannis Xenakis - Pitho...
Kleinlosen - Tönend bewegt
• Adrian Kleinlosen - .....
Messiaen - Vingt Regards
• Olivier Messiaen - Vin...
Strawinsky/Agosti - Firebird
• Stravinsky/Agosti - Th...
Reger - Variations and Fugue op. 81
• Reger: Variations and ...
Godowsky - Passacaglia
• Godowsky: Passacaglia ...
Vine - Piano Sonata
• Carl Vine - Piano Sona...
Liszt - Piano Sonata in b minor
• Liszt: Sonata in B Min...
Liszt - Reminescences de Don Juan
• Liszt: Réminiscences d...
Rachmaninoff - Sonata in B flat Minor (Hamelin)
• Hamelin plays Rachmani...
Ravel - Gaspard de la Nuit
• Pogorelich plays Ravel...
Prokofiev - Piano Concerto No. 2
• Prokofiev Piano Concer...
Ginastera - Piano Concerto op. 28
• Video
It could be possible that he knows his audience isn’t well educated in deeper repertoire so he only included those that people would be familiar with
It’s an entertainment channel and I doubt that he ACTUALLY thought these were the most difficult pieces
@@Chris-xs3vu I also think so, he's a great pianist but he knows that no one would watch the video if he would actually play really hard pieces, so he plays famous pieces that the viewers might know so that they are entertained.
Famous pieces? How's that?
Before today not at all familiar with the Balakirev, the Ginastera or even the Prokofiev 2nd!
Oh. I see. There seem to be among us those who did not go beyond the initial list of titles which Julian Gunkel dismisses. Well, friends, you missed a tour de force of great music.
Or he actually thinks this because he hasn't looked past the familiar repertoire ... let me tell you that many actual pianists are not aware of the enormous repertoire Liszt has to offer that is generally musically much more interesting to listen to and more beautiful but they aren't super famous and perhaps less 'cool' to perform from a showmanship point of view but those do not make Liszt as superficial as pianists make him seem to be when only performing the Hungarian Rhapsody Nr. 2, La Campanella and his piano concertos and totentanz. Liszt wrote well over a thousand pieces ...
@@noahweber3228 Or....he was unable to play them, himself. Would take a LOT of practicing.
Well done, finaly someone with a good and realistic top 10, my congrats
I saw a video about “top 100 most difficult pieces” and almost none of the “most difficult pieces” from other youtubers got into the list
@@Chris-xs3vu that would be Caleb Hu correct?
Caleb Hu is the only one who did a good job in my humble opinion, especially in the Piano Concerto edition.
My problems with the video:
technical difficulty will override feeling since the "feeling" is more subjective than getting the notes played right. Only if the piece gives you guidelines (which are usually very vague as to how hard/soft to play, etc) does that matter
Yes, Caleb's video is excellent: ua-cam.com/video/pTWg-jHXOdU/v-deo.html
The vid from Vinheteiro is definitely aimed at beginner musicians or none musicians, most experienced musicians would realize that that list was likely a charade for views picked from popularly known pieces that Vin already plays so he didn't have to struggle learning something actually nuts, rather than an objective look at difficult pieces. And difficulty really shouldn't be the goal of music, Satie's music was praised by virtuosic contemporaries we consider some of the best keyboard player ever to live. And despite the music's technical ease, playing them as Chopin would for instance is not at all possible for just anyone.
Thank you for your video, I quite like some of your choices, and fully agree that a definitive hardest list is just not possible.
He can't play something actually nuts. You can see the struggle when he tries to perform whole pieces seriously (Hungarian Rhapsody n. 2). He is a deeent pianist, but not next to professionals.
@@makaan699 yeah, and when someone say that he plays without emotion, he says that "anyone can know what he is feeling while playing" but we know that there is more then it
@@makaan699 90
You can play twinkle twinkle little star in a “high level” by reharmonization or adding interpretations
thought this was pretty obvious
Hardest Pieces that would draw a crowd and DROP JAWS
A) Hamelin-Paganini -La Campanella
B) Liszt, Chopin, Pixis, Czerny, Thalberg, Herz, Bellini-Hexameron
C) Godowsky-Strauss - Kunstlerleben
D) Rosenthal-Strauss - Variations on Strauss themes
E) Jentsch -Concert Etude no. 6
F) Chopin-Godowsky - 53 Etudes
G). Alkan - Concerto for Solo piano
H). Rachmaninoff - Sonata 1
I). Sorabji - 100 Transcendental Etudes
J). Stanchinsky - Etude in B major
K). Vladigerov - Preludes Exotiques
L). Cziffra-Verdi - Fantasy on the Anvil chorus
M). Stravinsky - Shrovetide Fair
N). Albeniz - Iberia Suite
O). Liszt - Fantasy on Lucrezia Borgia, Norma Fantasy, 12 Grande Etudes
P). Liszt- Hungarian Rhapsodies 6,9,13,15,19 and 12
Q) Liszt-Horowitz - Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2!!!!
R) Kapustin-Eight Etudes op. 40, Sonatas 1,2
S) Grainger -Jutish Melody, In Dahomey aka Cakewalk Smasher
T ) Sorabji - Fantasy Espagnole, Pastiche on the Hindu Merchant’s theme from Sadko, Sonata Archimajicom, Opus Clavicembalicum, Le Jardin Parfum , Gulistan
U) Ravel-Sorabji - Rhapsodie Espagnole
V) Scriabin - Vers la Flamme, Sonata-Fantasy no. 2, Fantasy op. 28
W) Rachmaninoff - Moment Musicaux op.16
X) Dohnanyi - Six Concert Etudes op.28
Y) Liszt-Volodos-Mendelssohn-Wedding March Variations
Z) Bizet-Horowitz -Carmen Variations
AA) Horowitz -Danse Excentrique
And the most amazing keyboard works ever written IMHO which while listening to I almost drove my car off the road:
BB). Charles Valentin Alkan - Grande Sonata, Les Mains Reunies op.76 mvt. III
CC). Pennario - Midnight on the Cliffs
Is Hexameron that hard? And Scriabin's fantasie? Idk. Also the rest are great choices, maybe just add Gaspard de la Nuit or Islamey, lol
@@CalamityInAction I absolutely **GUARANTEE** not only would the intricate passage work give you nightmares but also the stamina required. How many pros have you seen perform Hexameron in full? The Liszt variation would be incredibly tiring where he has octave-arpeggios in the left hand and chords for the right. Then an avalanche of fast notes for the herz, complicated syncopated rhythms for the Pixis (the most catchy imho), Czerny’s is again the height of bravura with runs in tenths(!) arpeggios up down the keyboard, then the Thalberg with a bit of everything and then you get a bit of a breather technically with the Chopin.
As for The Scriabin op.28 have you tried it? The chords are huge, he requires the three hand technique at the coda. But in all fairness this is a step down technically NOT musically from the likes of the Alkan Concerto and Sorabji but it JUST plain SOUNDS amazing once again imho. The beautiful main melody could be a pop hit
And I didn’t mention Islamey or Gaspard because they were already included in the original vid...k?
May I recommend Hamelin's Etudes to you?
@@RozarSmacco Ok I think you’re right about the pieces (10th arpeggios :0)
Also yeah the last 2 were near the end
I was about to talk some mad shit, but refrained as soon as I saw Sorabji on the list.
Classically trained pianist here. Good video. I think part of the disconnect between perceived and actual difficulty can come from the fact that listeners who don't play aren't aware of the insane levels of control and detail that can be strived for. A great example piece I like to show people is the Chopin C minor nocturne Op. 48, No. 1, because the part that sounds hard is actually what I find to be the easiest part of the piece. The beginning requires maturity and control to do right, and then you have to voice the choral sotto voce section correctly, and then you get some fireworks which are, like I said, the easiest part...and then finally you get the double-time section which still frustrates me to this day, and I feel I have never truly played to my satisfaction. So, the part that makes people go 'wow' is the part that really requires the least skill to do well!
Well said. Taking as another example The Art of Fugue by Bach, a non experienced listener could think that it's somewhat on the easier side since there's no crazy fast passage with huge jumps and so on, but the maturity needed to even understand it and the voicing technique required is absolutely insane.
I agree having played op 48 n1 myself. The last part was hard technically but is quite easy to make sound good. The first part required constant attention
Man, that choral section of Op. 48 No. 1 gave me fits when I learned it. It’s the voicing and feeling of the section combined with the difficulty of getting the rolls and pedaling right that makes it so tough.
“Except this bit of fuckery here”
This is so out of place 🤣
Hahaha, I loved it, it was honest and blunt. I was caught by surprise, and went looking for this section right away, haha.
I loved it when he said that
i think so i missed it when he said it, time stamp?
@@qalaphyll watch it between 2:18 and 2:28. Sounds really fun as the rest of the video essay is correct and formal (it's perfect, actually).
@@marcosbabu oh thank you!
Prokofiev Piano Concerto no. 2 is my absolute favorite piece of music ever! I have probably listened to it over 50 times and I just discovered it a year ago. Such a good composer Prokofiev was!
I really agree with this, i found it and all of a sudden it was my favorite piece for a couple of months. It still is amazing but you know how it is when you've listened to it so many times you know the whole thing by heart, its just not the same experience anymore.
@@specialperson335 Yes I have the problem that I listen to pieces to many times when I discover something I really like. But the concerto 2 cadenza never gets old to me...
I love that piece! It's my favorite Piano Concerto.
Thank you. There has been a “technical fetiche”, “faster means better” “music machine” that isolates one aspect of playing, towering it over all the others. The same happens within “singing lessons” and the strive for “belting”, the obsession to reach high notes (The Voice’s curse).
Well, you _could_ limit your listening to Billie Eilish and avoid all that.
Gosh, I really got goosebumps when the orchestra comes in in the Prokofiev concerto.
Who does not though, it's unbelievable. Also funny is his sense of humour - the same brutal theme of orchestra return in brass instruments is also the very opening theme played pianissimo on strings pizziccato.
@@geuros literally first thing in the concerto is the same theme on clarinet.
@@specialperson335 yes, together with pizzicato of strings, I don't understand your comment.
@@geuros was just being nit-picky. The clarinet is more noticable in the beginning so the person you replied to might notice easier if i add that it is mainly on the clarinet with also pizz unisono.
@@specialperson335 Well, there are five concerti. You're probably talking about #3.
Finally, someone that gives Prokofiev’s 2nd the credit it deserves. There are some parts that sound like a four hands piano concerto.
I completely agree
In my top 5 pieces ever.
100% with you.
Brilliant compilation. I just cannot get over the fact that there actually are pianists who can play those excruciatingly difficult pieces.
Why hasn't this video blown up yet
Sorabji in all of the list xD
@@AsrielKujo :'>
@@AsrielKujo sorabji is garbage
@@stravinskyfan i don't know if you are sarcastic but ok xD
@@stravinskyfan erm ok lmao
You really speak for all of us whenever pianists like us see channels and people making lists of the “hardest piano pieces”, only for them to be composed completely of Liszt and Chopin pieces. Thanks for giving a voice against the new growing bias for Liszt and Chopin (they definitely aren’t bad composers, but their liking has started smothering other ingenious composers who I’d say deserve to be on the same podium if not higher).
Never disrespect chopin like that again. His piano pieces may not be the hardest of all hard but he is in my opinion the greatest composer that ever lived and undeniably top 3. There's a reason why he is talked about so much.
@@troll707 The reason he is talked about so much is because his music is easily digestible and short so a lot of people not familiar with classical music enjoy him. But a lot of people that are familiar with classical music will usually have moved on from Chopin to other composers.
@@orb3796I disagree. Chopin's music is adored because of the emotions and feelings his pieces convey. I don't think it has anything to do with his music being "easy to digest". Chopin may not be the most technically demanding composer but interpretation wise he's not exactly easy. The old saying "You haven't played a Chopin piece right unless you've made someone cry" holds true to date. Many people play Chopin but not many play Chopin well...
And as far as people "moving on to other composer's" Chopin's music is still a standard in the recital repertory. People always move on the other composers. It's called building your repertoire...
this was very interesting. I like how you didnt say that his video is 100% wrong, and that you just basically just expanded on what he had to say and went more in depth
Thank you very much for analyzing different versions of "hard"! And also thank you very much for looking beyond Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninoff!
Not beyond Liszt cuz he has Paganini etude 4 Overall in this list
@Linny Ching s.140*
@@franzliszt4883 You know paganini etude 4 is the hardest piano song when none other than Piano Jesus says so
"Franz Liszt" stop faking being Franz Liszt! Satan stop faking being God!
God greeting.
@@floriankurz4169 dude its a joke
I'm here for that Prokofiev second piano concerto! It's one of those pieces that is not just hard for the sake of being hard. It's a piece of art! It's a monument, a masterpiece!
Also, good video!
What I appreciate about what you did here is that it’s clear you weren’t doing it for the likes. You were genuine in your desire to educate. Otherwise, why include the sheet music right? But that is exactly what makes this legit. That is what matters to me as an amateur-but-active-again pianist. Thank YOU for pushing yourself - I learned so much. Bravo and all the best to you. 👌👏
26:45 every time the orchestra returns in Prokofiev’s 2nd Piano Concerto an earthquake is started.
this concerto may or may not be the hardest, im not even a pianist to judge, but i can tell its one of the most enjoyable things in classical music
absolutely true
I enjoy the cadenza before it even more. Some of the best moments of any classical music i've heard.
Does anybody know who performed this?
When I saw Vinheteiro’s video I thought he was clickbaiting, I didn’t realize that those were actually what he considered the most difficult it.
It's probably not, but he's an entertainer
Always had a problem with Lord Vinheteiro's most difficult lists. Even I can struggle my way through Polonaise Op53.
In fact, a lot of LV's videos are repetitive. He plays the same things over and over and over again. Loved his channel when I first found it but got bored of it now I just check it out every once in a while and he's still playing the same stuff. I also think he just ran out of ideas for videos he used to feel more creative with them back in the day.
ANYWAY, I'm about half way through this now and enjoying it very much. Thank you!
Generally, most "Top 10 Hardest Pieces" type videos are top 10 hardest FAMOUS pieces. Go to Rousseau's video for hardest piano pieces, and the description says "Although recognizable, the pieces in this compilation aren't actually the most difficult - but I've made another 'Top 10' list for you that contains some pieces which would be impossible to have on UA-cam in video form."
Lord V's videos feel bland, repetitive, and low effort, yet he's one of if not the most popular piano youtuber
These pieces go on to my bucket list as soon as i master bach’s minuet in G. What a great essay, thank you!
This is the best video I’ve ever seen done on this topic. Finally a good video from a professional point of view that realizes technicality isn’t the only thing that makes a piece difficult. As a piano player myself I was frustrated at vinheteiro’s video that he got away with so many (comparatively) easy pieces and people were just blindly believing him, so I’m glad that you talked about that and stated that there isn’t actually an overall factual top 10 hardest piano pieces list, this video should be the first thing that pops up when people search “Top 10 hardest piano pieces”. Great job! I really enjoyed watching this!
This video gave me new pieces to listen to, and was entertaining all around.
Thank you for exposing me to some new pieces, and for including Liszt's B minor Sonata, which (in my very humble opinion) is one of the greatest works for solo piano ever written.
I don’t know why this video came up on my recommended, but it is a great watch.
My list would consist of a few pieces by Alkan and Mereaux namely their etudes.
Edit- just got to the Prokofiev concerto and got goosebumps just when you said I would :))
Alkan's Concerto, "Symphony" and Sonata are great pieces as well as being unbelievably difficult.
Thanks for this video. I really role my eyes when I see "top ten piano pieces" And the list is just "Hungarian Rhapsody No. whatever, Flight of the Bumblebee, Fantasie Impromptu"
Rant time: Fantasie Impromptu sounds really impressive, but it's really not that hard, at least it really isn't deserving of being considered anywhere close to the "hardest piano piece". It's really just a bunch of Chopin-isms that shouldn't be that hard to learn for most piano students who are familiar with his work. The fast 4:3 polyrhythm may seem daunting to many, but slow and deliberate practice of it will eventually result in your fingers just being able to effortlessly breeze through it. It’s definitely an advanced piece but it has nothing on anything you choose here and countless others.
Concerning that I mastered that piece a little under 2 months, and started Rachmaninov’s Etude Tablaux Op. 39 No. 7 and Op. 33 No. 2 around the same time, and fact it’s been at least 2 and a half months later and I haven’t even got to the end of the Op. 39 piece and currently struggling to memorize (wrap up of the Op. 33 Etude) I whole heartily agree with your opinion about the Fantasie Impromtu.
It's not even in the top 20 hardest by Chopin IMO. all ballades, sonatas and scherzos, many of the etudes, some of the harder preludes,... Are all much more difficult
yeah, there isn’t a lot of technical challenges to the piece. The main difficulty for me is the polyrhythm.
When I was a teenager, i read it in 3 months.. when i got on youtube and saw it in these hardest piano lists, i was baffled.. im learning ravel’s la valse and after 3 months, i haven’t even gotten past the third page..
Feels like watching a documentary. Superb and informative.
Even though I know I’m listening to real performances I can’t convince myself some of these are humanly possible.
Great list. Of course there's no such thing as "most difficult piano pieces", because it's not precisely measurable. But I would add to the difficulty definition this: "it should also sound like real music, not like a rabid cat jumping on the keyboard". I could go right now at the piano and "write" the most difficult piece ever. I can be even the longest piece ever, because I could call some friend to take shifts. It would sound like a fucking shit, but I would just pretend it's an expression of my view of the Cosmos, which transcends any mortal boundaries, an emotional roller caused by the dark immensity that surrounds us while at the same time eludes us. Of course in reality is just some fucking junk for pretentious imbeciles.
Vinheteiro's list does not contain the hardest pieces by far, but he's not to be taken seriously. His channel is for entertainment purposes, that's why it's so successful compared to some other real piano channels.
Very well said! There's a lot of comments on this video, that I didn't consider when I put the list together. I'm very happy that this has become a platform for exchanging thoughts on the topic.
I think the hardest one might be liszt/paganini etude 4, mereaux or alkan pieces
@@blackhole3407 Liszt Paganini etude no.4 is absolutely playable, the piece doesn't have to be played at the speed many people think; it shouldn't be played at the speed of the original paganini caprice (in that case it would be literally impossible, absolutely no one could play it at that pace), as the piece loses many nuaces and melodic details if so. Mereaux etudes are technically hard, but they don't present any true musical/interpretative challenges. As for Alkan, he has some truly outstanding and difficulty pieces, but they're completely blown away by other composers' works, such as:
Feinberg's 3rd, 6th, 7th and 8th sonatas, preludes op.15
many piano works by Messiaen (Catalogue d'oiseaux, Visions de l'Amen, 20 Regards etc.)
Sorabji's colossal piano sonatas and piano symphonies
Roslavets' piano sonatas and etudes
Boulez' piano sonatas
Ligeti's etudes and the piano concerto
basically all piano works by Finnissy
Furtwangler's Piano concerto
Reger's piano concerto
Godowsky's piano sonata and his transcriptions of the Chopin etudes
Nemtin's 1st Piano sonata
Sabaneyev's Passacaglia and Fugue and the 2nd Piano trio
Ornstein's Piano Concerto and 5th, 7th, 8th sonatas
and many others...
Mosotti, who are you to define what sounds like "real music"? I'm pretty sure you couldn't go at the piano and write "the most difficult piece ever" because you'd have to consider importatnt factors that composers clearly have in mind when writing such pieces, such as playability, structural complexity, duration and all of that stuff, not even considering other parameters that go into the act of composing music... And also bear in mind that most of those pieces aren't even written for difficulty for it's own sake. Many people think most "modern music" sounds like a cat on the keyboard (many people thought that of some of Liszt' works in his time!), yet many other people enjoy it unironically without any kind of pretentiousness; it's just a matter of exposure to more complex and denser sounds... it takes a lot of time to do so, but it's extremely rewarding to discover new composers, new sounds, new music. Personally, I can't stand Mozart but I like many composers whose music is considered by lot of people to be just random noise: Rautavaara, Sorabji, Ligeti, Messiaen, Berg, Tishchenko... yet I still love to old classics such as Beethoven, Liszt et alia. I can see why some people might consider such music to be just pretentious noise, but it's unculturate and ignorant to claim it as such most of the time.
@@scriabinismydog2439 Damn.. I know only sorabji from your list, im going to check those out. I already picked for me pretty unknown composers. For clarity- i thought of le preux for alkan and the old version of liszt etude no.4. Also its hard to call finnissy pieces "music"
14 octaves per second? Nobody tell Wim Winters, but do tell Ling Ling about the new challenge.
You mean 7 octaves per second? :D :D
@@alexandertaylor7316 Yup! lol
@@pejomarkovic28 Woh, why are you not practising?
@@TheReficul he's not writing with his hands...
Shut
Always nice to see Prokofiev 2 get some love. Great video!
Have a feeling the only people watching this have been playing piano for 6+ years so they get the idea that playing precise/effective dynamics can be harder than technical feats - atonal music is typically technically difficult to play but far less 'inpressive' to an audience and other junk like that - feels like most non-pianists would never care. A sad thought but it's what comes to mind. That being said - great video - well put
I play the violin, but i still found this intriguing
That you say of atonal music applies to a lot of counterpoint too.
I play flamenco guitar lol. Never played piano. I didn't understand some of what he talked about but I enjoyed learning about new peices.
@@bigmomma3265 yeah they were really great pieces - you're probably with music theory a bit so I'm sure plenty of this makes sense but some things may just be specific to piano
i heard Gaspard de la nuit in 2006 because of youtube and I was mad because I had been listening to piano music for almost 20 years at that point and i had never heard of it. it's a crushingly beautiful piece and pushed Ravel over the top as my favorite composer. (that and the 2nd movement of his concerto played by Michelangeli)
I find Bach’s Goldberg Variations to be challenging.
Very much appreciate your selection of the Firebird Suite piano arrangement on your list!
My room where I have just listened to this is bursting with happiness. Thank you!
these are great picks for curious people to discover deeper parts piano repertoire, Ginastera Piano Concerto 1 is nutty
I think a decent option for an entry for piece “K” would be the Alkan concerto for solo piano.
Good to see Carl Vine got a mention. Met him at Melbourne Conservatorium the day his Enchanted Loom Symphony was premiered by MSO. What a guy!
I'm so glad you added Prokofiev, and his 2nd wasn't the only concerto that made think becoming a pianist would be HARD.
Vinteheiro focused more in entertainment so that is the reason why he perfomed difficult piece but also famous so it's fimiliar to the audience ear
More video essays, please. I enjoy your insights coming from a more casual (but still obviously educated and informed) point of view than a lot of common practice related videos
fun fact: no one has ever played chop stix perfectly. their rhythm has always been off, their dynamics uneven, the instrument's tuning off
No piece can be played correctly. Not even midis can play them perfectly, because the piano may be slightly slightly slightly out of tune, and the rhythm may be off by 0.00002 seconds. Their dynamics are somewhat even though.
@@thenotsookayguy Yeah, if MIDIs were perfect the universe would implode, either that or BLM would take over the universe in the parallel universe that such a phenomenon would invariably cause.
This is a very in depths video about the difficulty of these technical pieces, and to an untrained ear it doesn’t sound melodious at all and not enjoyable , that’s why I love Gaspard de la nuit a mix of technical difficulty but so beautiful as it it the best translation from text to music in my opinion
You are pianist?
@@filliiiii7 yes
Mozart said it's easier to play at a fast tempo anyone can hide their flaws. Interpretation is always the most difficult thing.
That's a fact. I don't play piano anymore, but as my old band director once said, "Going slow exposes everything."
I’m so glad someone pointed this out, because a lot of these people don’t look deep enough in classical music, and they don’t realize how hard concert pianists work.
Excellent selection, you broke down what makes a piece difficult very similarly to Adam Neely's video and managed to perfectly apply it to the context of solo or accompanied piano.
It's nice to see some diversity of song selection that doesn't include an over abundance of the typical Chopin or Liszt pieces. Sure they're hard but many people already know them and thus have the advantage of knowing what it should sound like. So seeing more unfamiliar works is nice.
Personal opinion, I would say Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concerto is easily one of the hardest as well. Maybe that's my personal bias for how much I love the whole thing but hey I think it still deserves a mention.
Nonetheless, great vid
As he said, these are subjective nominations. But maybe he could be talked into making a “top 100”? Loved this, all of it.
*Sorabji has entered the chat*
Also Godowsky 20 minute colossus while Sorabji here laughing with the beautiful 8 hour and 30 minutes (which i listened to all in one time) variations on the theme of Dies Irae
h
@User Delete Sorabji is a lot more enjoyable, he's just harder to understand
@User Delete facs (when u said they have different styles)
One of the best pieces ever written for solo piano, except the fugues-those are fucking abysmal.
@@toothlesstoe yea, he wrote better fugues than those in the Sequenza Cyclica
I think I had an outer body experience when you mentioned the "fuckery" in Beethoven's Piano Sonata. LMAO!!!
Prokofiev piano concerto nr. 2 is incredible and one of my favorite pieces of all time. Glad to see it get recognition even on youtube.
I really appreciated this, shows that piano is a extremely diverse instrument with a skill ceiling that is not often ventured
Dude, you have so much potential on youtube
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@@klaus2541 "só quero deitar, dormir e morrer, zzzzz" KKKKKKKKKK
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Thank you for such a good job in explaining what many people don't understand!
The Goldberg variations by Bach should be in any top list to perform that piece in its entirety, correctly, hand crossing toccatas at high tempi, and the sheer length and intellectual endurance required...it’s monumental
gnegnegne
Wow this got recommended to me out of nowhere. Great video, would have put many pieces you mentioned on my top 10 too. (I was so happy to see Carl Vine on this list, his first piano sonata is so incredible)
To say that a piece of music is "accessible" is much like saying a dish at a restaurant is "delicious." The Most Difficult Dish to Cook might contain rock-hard onions that MUST be sliced paper-thin with a Chinese cleaver and have to be fried such that one edge of the onion is carmelised and translucent, the other edge is crispy, and the middle is crunchy and "fresh." But it won't matter one bit if the dish is hard to COOK if nobody wants to EAT it. Some of the examples you gave at the beginning of the video fit this description (for me, anyway): genuinely brutal to play, but who---except for scholarly musicians---wants to listen to them?
I would go with the Strauss/Godowsky waltzes, specifically "Artist's Life," and the Wagner/Liszt "Tannhauser Overture" as being my own candidates for the Hardest Piano Pieces because the melodies are accessible/delicious enough that even amateur concertgoers can tell what the music is supposed to "taste" like, especially as they are based on already famous orchestral pieces. The listener can tell---even if they are not musicians---that the pianist is having a rough time trying to make the music sound like music.
When playing the "Artist's Life," even as great a pianist as Earl Wild sounds like he's sweating. When playing the "Tannhauser," one can hear the stress in every version I've heard---Moisevitch, Cziffra, and Friedman, each in their own way, ALMOST succeeds. (Yes, I'm a stinker; I know...)
The intellectual question you ask, and illustrate with music, is my kind of enjoyment! Certainly I enjoy Vinheteiro too, but I've subscribed to your channel on the strength of this video :)
I agree completely. I do enjoy a nice melody and I heard very few in these exceedingly hard pieces. Which is the point of the video really. Not they are necessarily something you'd want to listen too. Just damn difficult!
I don't have any apreciation of difficult music for the sake of being difficult.
But I really admire the people with the persrverance to get to be able to play this.
I'm without words.
I like having longer yt videos play at 1.5x speed, but i forgot it was on when the liszt pieces were played and thought that Liszt was even more on crack then i believed
Another measure for something being hard is how many (great) pianists have attempted to play something, but failed. Ogdon with Clavicembalisticum (Sorabji). Many would consider it 5 hours of insanity. I believe only two have ever recorded it in full (with navy, many mistakes) and some 5 to 10 have played parts publicly.
Great video, I like that you went beyond the mere technical challenges in considering something hard. Ever heard of that piece by a Dutch composer that's basically a repetition of the same theme, but it's to be played over the course of 24 hours. A few years ago it was finally performed in full, live, by a dozen pianists over 24 hours in Amsterdam.
And then there's that piece that's being played in a church in Germany, which has tempo indication of "as slow as possible". Every couple of months or years a note is played, and I believe it's gonna be finished in the 22nd century. That piece isn't technically challenging, but it's extremely hard to play as you have to live longer than 100 years to play it in full.
The beginning of the video had me worried because I do not like that guy. But his list got roasted in the first minute so it's all good.
Excellent.
The only drawback was recommending it to my 92 year old Aunt Nora, who was curious about 2:25.
“Oh,” I explained, ‘“I think he said ‘Thackeray’ - it’s an analogue to literary complexity.”
😬
well Lang Lang's playing is creepy no matter where is he looking :D also, Vinheteiro I believe knows more and is aware of pieces like Gaspard de la Nuit. However his channel is more into popularisation of classical music or making it cool, rather than for a few selected connoiseurs, for which I don't blame him.
My lis(z)t of top 10 difficult pieces would definitely include Prokofiev 2nd concerto, Prokofiev's 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th piano sonatas, Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata, Rachmaninov 3rd concerto etc...
@@emperorjimmu9941 just skimmed through this and I understood that you didn't understand what I wrote. Did you noticed that I actually have no problems with what Vin does?
@@geuros From what I understand he wasn't saying that you have a problem with Vin. Everything he said is only his opinion towards Vin. In fact, he was typing this long comment exactly because you don't have a problem with him and because of your statement that "Vin helps popularised western classical music".
@Gary Allen true
GREAT COMPILATION!! Really glad to see that the Reger Bach Variations made this list. I'm learning them now as we speak (one of my many pandemic assignments) and I can certainly vouch for the fact of its extreme difficulty.
The Ginastera is ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL! I think Liszt's 'Reminiscence de Norma' must rank alongside these pieces. I just don't know how it is possible to play them!
Thank you Julian for your invaluable contribution- one of the few "top 10" lists I've ever enjoyed.
I do have my obligatory "ya missed one": F.Busoni's, Fantasia Contrappuntistica. My teacher, the late Jacob Maxin (New England Conservatory) put this piece on the map. It's a monster.
Even the name is hard
Exhibit I, literally gave me goosebumps just like he said
Edit: 2 months and prokofiev's violin concerto no2 and piano concerto 2 are now some of my favourite pieces of music ever
Vinheteiro is nothing more than an intermediate pianist with a lack of classical training and his choice of difficult pieces reflects this.
I'd think that he just chose hard pieces based on their popularity and the title was a bit of clickbait for commercial reasons. If an video has unknown repertoire most of the audience would get bored and left the video half. Did you stay in the 18th century or why don't you know anything about marketing?
@@julianherrera5666 "dId YoU sTaY iN tHe 18tH cEnTuRy" Bro you think you're smarter if you drop a shitty roast? The problem is that it's not even that hard. "iT's JuSt ClIcKbAiT fOr MoNeY" like that's literally the problem. And it's not just a bit of clickbait. It's off the chart. And there are so many ways for you to capitalize your channel, you can use memes to popularise your channel, you can do commentary videos on popular music stuff, just check out Twosetviolin, they literally pull a middle finger to the mainstream pieces and television shows and still get popular among both musicians and non-musicians, but he decides that "Yep, let's sell my soul to the algorithm god to gain more money by creating and reinforcing the stereotype that these fast mainstream pieces are what makes western classical pianists great" like dude you're the kind of guy who defends Ali-A, Morgz and Jaystation for selling their souls to make shitty content for money. Except those people just make shitty content that could be at least ultimately harmless but Vin's top 10 most difficult stuff is just truly despicable and disrespectful to all the pianists out there practicing their whole life polishing and mastering their skills just to know that their values depend on whether they can press all the notes of Moonlight Sonata 3rd Mvm fast. I mean if you have to sell your soul that's fine, I understand you gotta eat, but don't drag the whole western classical community along with you to this whole thing when you can literally just play trending video games and yell at the screen and become a better version of Ali-A. And if you think Vin's just holding back his skills, check out his "with emotion vs without emotion" video. The only difference between "with emotion" and "without emotion" in that video is literally just body movements. Aidan F was right when he says Vin is an intermediate pianist who lacks training. Even Brett, a violinist from Twosetviolin, played piano with more emotion when he was 8yo than Vin.
@@tommywong7748 Mucho texto, caballero. Que flojera leer tanto texto en inglés y más de un chino gringo. Perdiste tu tiempo escribiendo tanta pendejada porque no leí ni un párrafo de esa guevonada
@@julianherrera5666 Cuz it's cooler to tell people that "Oh I don't have enough brain capacity to comprehend longer comments bcuz my brain is too smooth" amirite? Idgaf if you didn't read it, it's my right to execute my freedom of speech. Live in China if you don't like it.
"Arguing with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. It'll just knock over all the pieces, shit on board, and strut about like it's won anyway." Now I know what it means.
@@tommywong7748 Le das mucha importancia a asuntos muy banales como lo que haga Vinheteiro con su canal. Ahora ve corriendo a Google translate a ver si entiendes, chinito
Sorabji symphonic variations for piano that's 9 hours long no pianist had ever done a full version also all the chopin godowsky etudes are insane
Weak, Satie vexations is more than 24 hours long
@@theduckypianist3109 and there is no complete recording
@@gautambose Actually, there are two recordings on YT, both by pianist Nicolas Horvath. I remember reading a couple of his blog posts about how he prepared for a few performances (for the 24h version on YT, I think he had to not eat for 2-3 days and stop drinking water the day before the performance). Igor Levit also did a livestream of the whole thing a few months ago, although he did take a few breaks throughout the performance.
@@ArielMagno91 cool didn't know that
@@theduckypianist3109 Even though the technical demands of Vexations are already easy to be met if you've been playing for a couple of months - perseverance and stamina are some often disregarded aspects of virtuosity
Great list! Seeing how you very much talk that technical difficulty does not mean total difficulty is something I value much! I love your list, learning of some pieces that are genius! I love it!
Stravinsky"s Petrushka for solo piano was so hard that Stravinsky himself confessed that he couldn't play it.
He wrote this for Anton Rubinstein supposedly
He wrote it for Chuck Norris. Chuck found it insultingly easy so never played it.
@Gary Allen so sorry it was arthur rubinstein
Really interesting, thanks for posting this excellent analysis. Great to see those two Liszt pieces and the Ravel. I am amazed that anyone could even write those down, much less play them.
Finally!!!!! Someone who gets it!
Well done! My most favorite pieces to play, Liszt's Sonata and Rachmaninov's Sonata 2.
In any case, assembling a list of the most complex piano pieces and not to mention Liszt or Rachmaninov, that should be criminal...
This applies to all instruments. Technical difficulties are not the only parameter that should be considered when cataloguing a piece. For example in clarinet there are some pieces that are not that difficult technically talking but musically talking they demand lots of knowledge and know-how
"Difficult" is indeed a difficult word to define in terms of pianism. One famous young pianist of the present day (whom I will not name here) has a phenomenal technique which has enabled a mastery of virtually the whole of the piano repertoire. Yet, sometimes, this same pianist makes mistakes at just that point when the music grows relatively easier -- I suspect because the pianist then becomes a bit bored and thus loses, in some degree, an otherwise superlative concentration. Still, a consolation for all of the pianist's many fans is the recognition that the pianist is human, after all. And thus, the ability to make some mistakes gives us all some sense of great solidarity with the pianist.
in addition to these, i'd suggest maybe giving saint-saens two sets of 6 etudes; they're really amazingly difficult but also a brilliant cyclic work
This is a really good video, a great list.
As you said, the difficulty is a subjective thing, but as you showed, the point it's not about the pieces (I mean, you, literally, could put whatever you want in your list) but the main point it's the reasons and arguments you give to put this or another work in the list, and that thing it's something that almost any other video does, they just put the pieces they think are the hardest and when you watch it you could agree or not, and at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, because they don't give a reason, it looks like "Hey, see how fast the people could play a bunch of notes, it's doesn't really matter if the makes music with the instrument, just play fast as possible". And, yes, the pieces in the list have a lot of notes, arpeggios, octaves, nines, tenths, jumps and whatever kinds technical difficulties, but the point is the music, not just robotic and fast crap, and those pieces in the video show that, it's not about if you can just play the notes but you can understand what you play and makes that the listener can understand too.
A great video.
Check out Busoni's hour long piano concerto, with chorus at the end, with chorus at the end
,With chorus at the end
, with chorus at the end
Oh yeah that's a magnificent piece. Once I saw a live performance of it with Hamelin playing in Vienna and I realized a very strange thing: It has a chorus at the end!!! Did anyone else notice?
With end at the chorus
If solid tempo is your problem, then Chopin is a challenge. He wanted perfect left hand timing. Played Bach as exercise for that.
If you ever played for dancers, and been able to maintain eye contact, you'll know that they'll give you angry looks when you're off beat. Many music pieces are dances - Mazurka is a folk dance from the Polish province Mazur, syncopated to the 2nd or 3rd beat. This also means you are too fast when playing Wang-bang fast and dancing people couldn't keep up any more.
Debates on tempo - difficulty - rage on in musicologist academia. We now know that Van Beethoven read metronome speed from the wrong side of the weight. And that makes sense and his music more playable.
I disagree with your statement that Chopin is challenging. Around the Intermediate or early Advanced level, pianists usually are able to get a feeling for a piece when they play them. Whenever I play one of his Mazurkas, tempo becomes second nature and the dance of the piece takes over. Beethoven sonatas are different since they aren’t really just a dance. Beethoven was much stricter than Chopin, and his sonatas (as I have completed two thus far (Pathetique and No. 5)) have less of that “dance” kind of feeling. While they certainly are not the hardest pieces, it’s hard to compare Chopins Mazurkas to be around the same general difficulty.
@@derekkoch8777 - I made several points, as to Chopin, if solid tempo I'd your problem ... then . Your points do neither counter nor complement mine. Maybe I wasn't clear enough
vientherto is a guy who i believe is trying to appeal to the people who watch A.G.T. Fantasy impromptu is only a grade 8 in ABRSM standards.
The majority I've never heard of. Great list.
I've always thought the 2nd movement of Prokofiev's second concerto seems harder. It contains some mind-boggling leaps, all while you have to play in constant unison 16th notes with both hands in a ridiculous tempo without rubato. And there is not a single break during the two minute runtime of that movement. The cadenza is pretty insane too, though, but at least you can use tasteful rubato to make it a bit less insane. I nevertheless really enjoyed your video!
Bravo for listing Xenakis! It’s the first thing I thought of! 🤘
Haha me too! Fellow Xenakis Fan
'Except of this piece of fuckery yeah..' bum prask subscribed.
This is gonna be good xD
this was a really great video and seems like a very accurate list of hardest piano pieces! especially liked that i almost didn‘t know any of these before
me playing piano for like a year watching this 🧍♂️
Find middle C on the piano. Strike it and keep it down while you count to four. Congratulations, you have just played the easiest piano piece ever. My very own melody in C, Opus 1, #1.
10 most difficult WELL KNOWN classical piano pieces then?
Thought the same thing
Thank you for making such a good video. Always hate to see UA-cam 'pianist' making those videos and telling everyone fantasie impromptu or moonlight 3rd is difficult🙄. I don't think any of them can really play and understand the music of the true difficult pieces. Or else there's no way they still choose to make those video.
Pieces such as rach3 (or maybe just ossia cadenza), rach sonta2, or even little red riding hood are never mentioned. Even when it comes to Liszt they make people thinks that la campanella is difficult while there are transcendental etudes (feux follets, mazeppa), sonata in b minor, Reminiscences de Don Juan/ Lucrzia Borgia..., Spanish fantasy and s464/9, etc. Hope to see less misleading videos by these 'pro' pianist 😢
Funny to see the Vine crop up here! It's sometimes known these days for "not being as bad as it looks" 😂 it's off even performed at college level. Besides that, I agree completely with your thoughts on difficulty, it's all far too subjective, and the music that should probably be considered most difficult is often hideously inaccessible. Of the pieces you picked I'd only really consider the Liszt Sonata, the Ravel, and the Rachmaninoff and the Prokofiev of any long-lasting worth.
Also, another great point from the video: "greatest" lists of various types really do need to narrow the genre enough to be useful/interesting
Brahms's Paganini Variations belong on the list among tonal music.
Dude I really wish this guy kept making more videos. I love his voice and video style. The way he is, just everything I want from a UA-cam channel haha.
No Sorabji in this list? Come on. My dentist can play Islamey. (no joke)
How does that relate?
He mean his dentist is a pianist
But sorabji wrote the hardest peices ever because of the time
Indeed! I once saw Geoffrey Madge play Sorabji's Opus clavicembalisticum - an extremely difficult and extremely long piece. It took Madge years to master it, the composer himself gave his permission to perform it. Quite a thing back then, since Sorabji had always stated that no one could play his music as he had intended it.
@@nightmarekingprimalaspid6133 That's actually debatable - there are many pieces or composers which would actually rival his place towards the top of the list
My mentality as a musician: Dude... You sound like one of those scary youtubers with their scary voices showing scary things. 😱
30:00 how did a goat get into the concert hall?
Totally warranted reaction to be honest
🤣🤣🤣🤣 I totally wish it was me
Spectacular choices of pre-eminent piano passage “fuckeries”! I couldn’t imagine playing the Ginastera (well, for a million reasons) without that audience member yelping at the last chord. Priceless! And thank you!! You almost made me forget about this damned plague!
Alkan: Concerto for Solo Piano. So we then need to increase this list to the top 11 most difficult piano pieces instead... ;)
@Hermod Nitter definitely
You totally missed the whole point of the video...
@@prammar1951 oh yes, you are correct, I TOTALLY missed the whole point, and you obviously totally missed how to behave. I wonder which is worse...
Incredible video