Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner The TEAR JERKER, The PRESTIGIOUS and The POWERFUL

Now of course it all depends on what your definition of "is" is. *Rolls eyes*

Haven't had much time to check these forums due to all the practicing but here's a simple question and although potentially you can make many pieces to all of these what are your preferences?

Name three composers for the piano (apparently you have to state the obvious) in the classical/Romantic era and name 3 works that best display Romantic/tear-jerker, Prestige & Noble and Power/Might. For instance since all you guys listen to is Chopin...

Chopin:
Tear Jerker- Etude op. 10, No.3

Prestigious- Heroic Polonaise op. 53

Raw Power & Might- Piano Sonata No.2

Prokofiev? Ravel? Schumann's? Rach? Liszt? Beethoven?

Feel free to add another emotion like grief, sadness etc

I notice a loophole: You didn't ask for piano pieces.

Schubert:
Tear-jerker: Gretchen am Spinnrade.
Prestige & Noble: Symphonie Nr.9 "Great"
Power & Might: Mirjam's Siegesgesang

If we try to find piano pieces:
Tear-jerker: Still Gretchen am Spinnrade.
Prestige: Impromptu op.90/4.
Power & Might: Sonata D958 or D960.

Using that loophole: I listened to most of Max Bruch's violin concerto #3 on the way home from my lesson yesterday. It was beautiful but one of the saddest things I've ever heard.

Rachmaninoff:

Tear Jerker: Parts of 3rd concerto op 30 (I could probably substitute dozens of pieces for this one)

Prestigious: 2nd concerto op 18 (I guess - you probably should have gone into more detail about what these things mean... I just picked it because it's well-known)

Powerful: Paganini Rhapsody op 43 (self-explanatory)

Sorry about picking all piano + orchestra pieces.

Chopin (completely different from the OP... )

Tear Jerker: 4th Ballade or 3rd Sonata (oh, I could list these for ages)

Prestigious: Revolutionary Etude 10/12 (again, could substitute a lot of different pieces here)

Powerful: Maybe 28/24? Can't decide between several different pieces for this one.

By the way - what is the point of this thread, if you don't mind my asking?

(Not trying to be insulting, just curious. )

Of course this is a piano forum, Polyphonist, but does your musical world extend at all beyond what has been written for the piano? Do you listen to anything else?

All of your above examples are not 'tear jerkers' to me, with the exception of Rachmaninov 2.

This is of course your thread so feel free to ignore my suggestion but what about adding more categories of feeling? It just occurred to me since a lot of my favorite pieces are more evocative of "wild" or "coming undone" or "strange" or "quiet and reflective." There's probably a more catchy name for those feelings than that. For some reason I'm frequently not as drawn to mighty and colossal things. Anyway, I'm not very good at these threads of categorizing things, so I'll "take my answer off the air" as they say on NPR.

...which I didn't even list as one.


Yes.


Yes, it does, as a matter of fact. I'm not as musically illiterate as you seem to think, argerichfan.

I assumed the OP to be talking about piano works, since this thread is on a forum called "Pianist Corner". So I limited my candidates to solo piano works, or pieces for piano and orchestra.


So, we have different musical tastes. Does that mean we can't get along at all?

Chopin's 4th Ballade, in my opinion, is one of the most profound works ever written. The Largo of the 3rd Sonata also falls into this category.

The Rachmaninoff Third is perhaps my favorite work of all time. I'm not going to get into why this is on this thread, as that would most likely hijack the thread. If you want to know, go look at the other forums on which the piece is being discussed.

If these pieces aren't "Tear Jerkers" for you, pray tell me, which ones are? (Excluding works without a piano in them.)

Hi All,

My picks for Brahms:

Tearjerker - Intermezzo in A Op. 118 #2 OR Intermezzo in C# minor Op. 117 #3
Prestige/Noble - Piano Concerto 2
Power/Might - Piano Concerto 1

Avoiding single movements from sonatas and symphonies (of which there are even better examples):

1) Mahler's Symphony No.9 and Mozart's Ave verum corpus. Piano: Mozart's Rondo in A minor, K 511

2) Elgar's Symphony No.1 - and his piano transcription of Nimrod (marked nobilmente - though not in the orchestral score).

3) Tchaikovsky's Marche slave, Op.31. Piano: Prokofiev's Suggestion diabolique, Op.4/4

Polyphonist, to address your points:

I do not consider you 'musically illiterate', begone with that. I think the 4th Chopin Ballade one of Chopin's greatest works (why did Busoni rate it the weakest?), it just has never moved me in the way that, apparently, it has for you. My vote for Chopin goes to the Barcarolle. (Oh dear, it destroys me, no contest.)

Our musical tastes are delightfully different, and I truly apologize if I cannot share your exalted opinion of Rachmaninov 3. As per another topic, I think Saint-Saëns 5 a better piece of music, it makes its point -and comes to a glorious climax- with sentiment, but without sentimentality.

You challenge me to come up with tear jerkers, piano only. (So I cannot mention Wagner?) My musical world is mainly organ and church music, not relevant here, but I can share a few moments from my past.

I did acid once, and per chance happened to hear the slow movement of the Brahms Op 5. Not very trendy to talk about, but I heard things there which I have never forgotten. It penetrated my mind, and then the Eb minor Scherzo came along.

The variations from Beethoven's Op 109. It came at a moment in my life wherein I needed consolation, and I just felt the kind hand of Beethoven on my shoulder. Tears that I will never forget.

Argherichfan -

Thanks for your post (above) that puts your "choices" in a personal context. So much more interesting and meaningful to read than the usual superficial babble on threads like this - and it certainly makes me want to seriously think about "why" certain works mean so much to me as well.

Many thanks for your post. I am headed to France on Monday for about a month. I will be by myself, but I will take the opportunity to examine some aspects of my life -I may not even speak any English- which have become somewhat complacent these days living in the US. French Catholicism is so dynamic, and of course this will not fail to have its influence.

Lucky guy. I have no doubt that you'll have a wonderful experience - and I look forward to hearing about the highlights of the trip upon your return. Hopefully you'll have a chance to visit some of the great cathedrals and hear a couple of live organ recitals while you're there.

Liszt:
tearjerker: sonata
prestige/noble: sonata
power/might: sonata

I was going to do that for Rach and Opus 30, but decided not to.

You could also do it for Beethoven and Opus 106.

You could probably do it for any composer, come to think of it. Most every great composer has those works.

Moreover, one man's "tearjerker" is another man's "repose"; one man's "power" is another man's "bombast" which makes the entire exercise somewhat futile, I think.

Regards,

Of course; the object is not to evaluate the quality of the works or make fun of other people's choices, but to share the pieces that you are passionate about. Who knows, maybe someone will read your post and listen to a piece you listed that they've never heard before, and then share your love for it.

Scriabin

Tearjerker: Sonata # 3, 3rd movement: easily one of the most tender and achingly beautiful piano pieces of all time

Prestige/noble: Piano Concerto, 3rd movement

Power and might: Prometheus: The Poem of Fire