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Liszt was the inventor of the piano rectal.

Are you sure?

Positive.

Okay folks, we now have the list of performers:
Polyphonist
Tim Adrianson
Pover
doctor S
FSO
Vid
MikeN
ec

From the suggested list of pieces so far, what do you think about using counterpoint as a way to tie the recital together? Several people have suggested Bach and Bach derivatives. Tim, I don't know specific works by the composers you mentioned in detail but I wonder if one might be a good 20th-21st c. contrapuntal work?
And ec, Chopin is underrated as a master of counterpoint...

Part of why I thought of this recital idea was that I've noticed an interesting obsession with concert programming, choosing repertoire/order in this forum. I thought this would be a way to use it productively. It's OK if it isn't everyone's cup of tea. It would be nice if hecklers would at least keep their comments short so that those trying to plan don't have to scroll through pages of comments that are just anti-this-recital.

(Caution: Unorthodox idea ahead. Click at your own risk.)

Rotfl, what is it with me and the typos today. I swear I proofread before I post. Thanks for the reference Mark.

On other notes, I haven't any ideas of what to submit as I'm not learning anything that fits within the time limit. Yet, I want to learn something new for this. So whatever is needed to make the recital work better, let me know and I'll learn it.

Have been (re)working the following, one (or more?) of which could be foisted on the world (wide web) in a month with a semblance of competency:

Chopin Etudes Op 10, No 1 Cmaj, 3 Emaj, 4 c#min, 5 Gbmaj, 8 Fmaj, 9 fmin, 12 cmin
Op 25, No 20 Dbmaj, No 24 cmin

Chopin Preludes Op 28, No 1 Cmaj, No 3 G maj, #10 c#min

Chopin Scherzo Op 39 No 3

Debussy Reflets dans L'eau

Grieg Lyric Piece Op 57, No 2 Gade

Rachmaninoff Preludes Op 23, No 2 Bbmaj, No 4 Dmaj

Scarlatti Sonatas A maj K38 L391, Dmaj K33 L424

Better to deepen some furrows dug 45 years ago, than try to plow concrete.

Heather, I've got two 21st century works that directly "fill the bill" for a contrapuntal "theme". One is entitled "13 Ways of Looking at the Goldberg", which is a composite of variations submitted by 13 different composers on the famous Goldberg aria. I'll choose 4 - 5 from that set, most likely Higdon, Foss, jazz pianist Fred Hersch, Bolcom, and maybe Fred Lerdahl. This was a project undertaken and sponsored by the Gilmore Keyboard Festival several years ago.

The other is another work of Hersch entitled "24 Variations on a Bach Chorale". I won't play all the variations -- just the ones that most directly fit the contrapuntal theme.

OK, my plans are set! Now I've got a lot of work to do!

Tim these sound like great ideas.
We do not know yet if everyone is on board with the contrapuntal theme though.

This sounds like a terrific idea but now that I've finally calmed down from the stress of having a deadline, I think I'd find another deadline about as enjoyable as piano rectal.

I look forward to the performances, though!

Am I getting this, the piece(s) must be contrapuntal? Does anything on my list above from 3 AM this morning qualify? 'Could possibly do the Bach-Petri chorale prelude transcription "I step Before Thy Throne, Lord" or the Bach-Petri "Sheep May Safely Graze" from the Birthday Contata, or the Bach-Petri "Three Minuets", which would be "new". If it must be Bach: Preludes and Fugues No. VIII F# Major and/or No. XV G Major, or the D Major Toccata are less new.

But I am getting old..."new" Bach might be harder than polishing a Chopin etude.

I like the idea of ALTERNATING BACH WITH 19th c. AND LATER PIECES, but I'm not enough of a musicologist to know whether any particular "modern" piece provides sufficient thematic veneration. Does it have to say "contrapuntal" in the title?

I can't drop out: you need a doctor for a proper piano rectal.

No. I think I can be a good judge of that. The point is...which 19/20th century works to pick??? There are so many. It might be interesting to make the later works fugues or canons - Schumann, Reger, Shostakovich, etc. I'll be happy to contribute a Schumann fugue from Opus 72.

Well, I actually meant for the theme of the recital to be counterpoint, with examples from Bach and from the later periods.

Yes -- I misunderstood (as I see from looking back).

Here's another, even more specialized idea - have a recital featuring only fugues and canons, alternating Bach with Romantic/contemporary composers (as before). Perhaps even feature some pieces from before Bach - Renaissance and Early Baroque stuff. We can call the recital "The Evolution of the Fugue."

I like this idea too.

I do think that if we use some sort of a theme, it shouldn't be that every piece must fit the theme exactly (we've all been to concerts like that, it's like listening to an encyclopedia!) but that we use the theme to tie the concert together.

Since doctor S gave a long list of repertoire let me use that as an example. The Chopin prelude Op. 28 no. 1 has some very strong contrapuntal characteristics and maybe a resemblance to the first Bach prelude from WTC. But it's odd to only play one of the Op. 28. So perhaps doctor S would choose to play the three selections from Op. 28, which form a nice unit, with no. 1 tying in nicely to an overall contrapuntal theme.

Or if we use alternation then doctor S might contribute a lot of the 19th-early 20th c. portion of the program (Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Debussy).

Or if we use fugues and canons, then maybe we place three massive fugues/canons at the beginning, middle and end of the program, but the other selections are things that would contrast nicely against fugues... like doctor S's Grieg, Rachmaninoff and Scarlatti.

Heather, of the three options you've provided, I tend to gravitate to the "alternation" idea -- only because this seems to me to be the best natural "fit" for the choices thst the entrants have provided. That is to say, enough people have said that they want to play Bach as a first choice to make the alternation idea "work" easily. So that would be my vote -- but let's see if the others "weigh in".

Don't know about that. I like the idea of works from different periods, but in the same contrapuntal vein, rather than some Bach alternating with unrelated late Romantic things.

There are plenty of fugues and canons from the Romantic era - far more than enough to fill up half a recital.

Just speaking from the periphery ....seems to me it's way better to have the more flexible guideline -- especially for the first go-around and in view of some of the concerns that have been expressed. You want to make it easier for people to participate and to participate comfortably, not harder. (BTW that's why I misunderstood it before. I didn't imagine there was any thought to be as exclusionary or restrictive as that would be.)