Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Repertoire List

Just moved to California about 2 months ago, Have plans for continuing school here in Santa Rosa this Fall, but I haven't established myself with a new piano teacher yet.

I wanted to share my repertoire list with you guys to see what I'm lacking in my repertoire and gather some ideas for pieces to be working on next (This is not a formal repertoire list, just a basic idea of what I've worked on in the past few years.)

Bach – P&F from book 1, d minor & e minor, Toccata in g minor

Balakirev – Toccata

Chopin – Nocturne b-flat minor op. 9 no. 1, Nocturne g minor op. 37 no. 1, Nocturne in B Major op. 32 no. 1, Ballade no. 2, Preludes 1-4

Haydn – Sonata in Ab Major, HOB XVI/43, Sonata in E minor, HOB XVI/34

Liszt – Mephisto Waltz no. 1, Ricordanza etude no. 9

Liszt-Bach – Fantasy and Fugue in g minor

Medtner – Tale in g minor op. 48 no.2, Tale in e minor op. 51 no. 2, 2 Tales op. 14, Tale in e minor op. 34 no. 2, Sonata Reminiscenza

Shostakovich – 12 Preludes op. 34

Tchaikovsky - Dumka

I have no Beethoven, no Brahms, no Scarlatti, no Schumann, no Schubert, no Mozart...etc.! And I'm not sure why I have so many g minor, e minor pieces!

You're obviously missing some Beethoven!

You're also missing more Bach... much more Bach.

And you're missing almost anything to do with more recent works (contemporary somehow)...

Since you said it yourself, you already know the answer to your question: Grab the Beethoven sonatas, and start studying!

These are at a fairly wide variety of difficulty levels, but may be interesting:

Schubert Sonata D. 784
Schumann Papillons
Debussy Suite Bergamasque
Ravel Sonatine
Prokofiev Sarcasms
Lees Toccata
Griffes Sonata
Granados Spanish Dances
Yi Ba Ban
Ibert Histoires

Thank you so much! Yes, I have a basic understanding of what I'm missing ^__~
Suggestions are helpful nonetheless!

I agree with more Bach (Try some WTCII)
Mozart, K. 310, 333 or 576
Chopin Etudes (definitely need some of these)
Beethoven and Schubert Sonatas of course
Chopin Scherzo

Just a note, before Bruce posts the same thing pretty much...

It's very difficult, if not impossible, to offer suggestions of exact works if we don't know you. We don't even know what you like apart from Gm and Em and romantic works. This is not enough to offer some further suggestions. This is why I didn't offer any exact works.

The best thing you could do would be to start listening to works in youtube (or any other website like that) and pick those you like. You are advanced enough to understand if something IS doable by your own technique or not.

Certainly more Bach, you need some Beethoven& Mozart etc. for Schubert you could try his impromptus and a sonata.

You certainly could stretch is as well; Many more composers like Scarlitti, Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev etc which you could take a look at

I don't get the question.

You're already aware that some major composers are not on your repertoire list or only there with a small number of compositions. But unless you are preparing for some kind of audition with certain requirements, nothing is "missing" unless you're concerned, for pedagogical or other reasons, about having a broad selection of composers and periods. And you already know which composers are "missing" in that sense.

Assuming you're an amateur you have the luxury of playing whatever you like. If you think you want to play more Beethoven, choose a Beethoven Sonata or other appropriate level Beethoven work. Conversely, if you don't want to play more Bach, why would you do so just because an anonymous PW poster said to?

If you are unfamiliar with piano repertoire:
"The best thing you could do would be to start listening to works in youtube (or any other website like that) and pick those you like. You are advanced enough to understand if something IS doable by your own technique or not."

I think you try and tackle a Bach Partita or French Suite

How about a few more modern things. Joplin for instance? Boogie woogie? THere is even some pop music that's worth trying on piano.

Joplin died in 1917.

While you do have Haydn, I think Mozart offers some unique difficulties that you may want to explore if you're aiming to be more well-rounded in your repertoire.

Try Mozart's K.283 and K.331 (first movement is a theme & variations which are gorgeous, 3rd mvt is of course the Ronda alla Turca that everyone knows).

For Beethoven, some good starters are Op. 10 No. 2 and Op. 2 No. 1.

I also 2nd the idea of doing more Bach or Scarlatti (which is a lot of fun). Listening to rep on youtube is such a great asset that we have to find new music, and there's so much out there you will definitely be inspired to pick up something new.

Looks like some excellent suggestions. On a random side note: it's too bad your focus isn't jazz; I've read pianist and author Mark Levine teaches at CSU Sonoma.

I'm getting the idea to work on some sonatas. I could do a Schubert sonata, maybe 2 Scarlatti sonatas, a Beethoven sonata, and a Mozart sonata. After getting some sonatas under way, I might branch off to some of the other stuff that was suggested, like Prokofiev, Debussy, Rachmaninoff. Thanks everyone for the suggestions

Okay, after doing some listening, I've decided which pieces I'd like to work on.

Schubert - A minor sonata, D. 537,
Beethoven - sonata no. 6 F Major, op. 10, no.2,
Mozart - b-flat Major sonata no.13, K333,
Bach - prelude and fugue in F# Major, WTC bk 1, no. 13

I think these will give much more variety to my repertoire, as well as being a first step towards expanding my repertoire even further. Am I on the right track with this?
If anyone has played any of these pieces, I would love to hear any feedback/general advice about the piece(s), if possible

How much practice time do you have daily? I can't tell if you plan to be working on three Sonatas at a time, or whether you plan to work on only one at a time. Of course, we are all different in our approaches, but I certainly wouldn't work on three Sonatas (even one movement only) at a time.

Note that the Mozart dates from 1783, the Beethoven from 1796, and the Schubert from 1817; working on all three at once - or even consecutively - doesn't give you much of a time spread, although it can be argued that there is some stylistic differences between the Mozart on the one hand and the Beethoven and Schubert on the other. However, if it's variety you're working towards, I would question working on the suggested Schubert and Beethoven.

If I were working on a Sonata movement at the moment along with a Bach Prelude and Fugue, I would choose a shorter work or two to be studying at the same time from distinctly different time periods.

Regards,

It's wonderful repertoire, but unless your repertoire was lacking German masters between 1722-1822, I don't know how much variety it would add.

Yay! Medtner! More Medtner!

You need more classical period repertoire. How about some Mozart piano sonatas? Also, check out the Schubert Impromptus, both opuses.

What? He already has a Mozart sonata and a piece by Schubert.

To mrferguson12:

As other posters have suggested, your list is overloaded with classical sonatas. 3 out of 4 pieces are from the same 50-year time period. I would recommend getting rid of 1 or 2 sonatas and adding in a couple Romantic or 20th century pieces. You already have quite a lot of candidates from your initial list, all of which which you decided against:



Even choosing just one of those and getting rid of, say, the Schubert, would make for a much more balanced repertoire.