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It does seem odd that people are arguing harder for Scarlatti than Ludwig Van. It terms of composing for piano Beethoven was decades ahead of his contemporaries and even ahead of the piano makers. While his EARLY compositional style was derivative of Haydn, his piano writing was not and as he developed as a composer he went far beyond what anyone previously had conceived. I'm not a big fan of much Beethoven (there's a lot of angry music) but I'm well aware of how revolutionary his composing was. We start the Romantic period with middle Beethoven, and everyone that followed copied him. That's the definition of influential and original.

Just look at what Beethoven does with the sustain pedal, in the first movement of op.27/2, and the first movement of op.31/2, and the Adagio introduction to the last section of op.110.

-J

It was Haydn.......I think.....

What does he do with the sustain pedal in the first movement of op.31/2?

Maybe he's referring to the little cadenzette at the recap?

For sure.

And BTW, people nowadays sometimes screw that up by thinking all they need to do is just put their foot down and play away.

Maybe that worked on the pianos of Beethoven's time, or maybe on some but not all of them. (Dunno, I've played fortepianos but never tried that passage. Gotta do it next time.)

But on modern pianos, fuhgeddaboudit. I don't at all mean ignoring the pedaling, but that you need to use your ear and be a little creative in how you put down and hold the pedal.

(And similarly in Jason's other two examples.)

P.S. to Parks: Nice job on what you called that passage.
I sure wouldn't have thought of that.

I've heard some performances where they just hold the pedal down. That passage really becomes something else then!

Personally I've tried to be more subtle with it.

Thanks!

One of Beethoven's many great innovations is his ordering of events, putting things in odd places.



Yes, good!

When I held down the pedal the entire time for my teacher, he said to me 'You are very brave to do that.' It can be done, but it's not to be taken fro granted. Now, I do it the way you described it above.

Good point about op. 31/2.

Also you could add the rondo of op. 53. A remarkable moment -so typical of Beethoven's genius- but some pianists are more daring than others. I performed the sonata as a student, and if I had it to do over again... well I was young and a bit wary of blurring the tonic and dominant.

You might be able to do it the 'brave' way on a modern piano (some modern pianos) by adjusting the dynamics of the notes carefully. It would be a challenge, and it might force you to shape the phrase differently than how you'd really like to (and I doubt if it could be worth it), but it could be possible.

P.S. re the last mvt of the Waldstein (as per Argerichfan's post above): I think what I just described would usually be very possible for there, especially if you play the low octave 'C' quite firmly and then make the upper melody soft in relation to that (and the accompaniment figure of the R.H. even softer).

I think Beethoven, who was an admirer of Clementi's music, was inspired by Clementi's use of the sustain pedal. There are some pedal indications in Clementi that last for quite a number of measures, and to me, they are clearly the predecessors of some of Beethoven's "wash of sound" pedal effects.

JS Bach
Chopin
Franck
Debussy
Bartok

Would be my picks.. since it's not strictly "piano" but "keyboard."

Yes, he he certainly was original as well!

Which just makes it even more impossible to name just 5...

How do we even define and measure "originality" well enough to make such a list?

There are several composers from every era I can recognize even if I have not heard the specific piece before. Definitely more than 5.

Actually very much! If his two major triptychs for piano don't break a lot of new ground (masterpieces just the same), his utterly profound organ works are the greatest after Bach. (No 'IMO' necessary here, ask any organist.) His works directly inspired the greatest flowering in history for the instrument, going through Widor and Vierne, reaching an apogee with Dupre and Messiaen. All of their works would be inconceivable without Franck's pioneering efforts.

Interestingly, when Franck first played his 'Prelude, Fugue & Variation' at St. Sulpice, a certain composer by the name of Bizet was there and remarked to Franck: 'Your piece was exquisite. I did not know that you were a composer.'

Thanks - that's interesting to know.

From the Winchester Cathedral website:

The first organ of which any detailed record exists was built in Winchester Cathedral in the 10th century. It was a huge machine with 400 pipes, which needed two men to play it and 70 men to blow it, and its sound could be heard throughout the city.

Had heard about that when visiting Winchester several years ago, and I do wonder what the music must have sounded like, and who the composers were. Certainly given Winchester's importance in English history, and the fact that the cathedral has always attracted the cream of British church musicians, I can only imagine the glory of their music programme centuries ago, most of it as lost to us as the bones in any sarcophagus in the quire.

And farther back, the organ (water-powered hydraulis) was invented by the Greeks and adopted by the Romans (metal "keyboard" levers, stadium music); composers were not church people...one rumor suggests the Roman organ was initially eschewed in churches because it had accompanied Christian martyrdoms. The Roman organ became pneumatic and survived longer in Constantinople; reputedly Byzantine emperor Constantius sent an organ to Pepin the Short, King of the Franks, along with a Venetian organ builder in 757. Church organs appeared after 900AD.

I'm still a bit shocked that not a single composer from after the second world war has been brought up!

(Though I mentioned Lachenmann, as well as Cage previously....).

My only complaint with him is that he wrote so very little for piano

Just need to play arrangements then...

I'm struggling to think of who we could nominate.

Ginastera merely aped Bartok's late style (particularly the Mikrokosmos). Other than a few standouts like Op. 87, Shostakovich's piano works are among his weakest. Copland could qualify, but he already had his signature style in the 1920's.

Ligeti probably does deserve a mention; he said that he did not play the piano that well, but obviously he knew enough about the instrument to create interesting new problems for the pianist to solve in his Etudes. There's really no other music quite like it.. other composers wrote music with mathematical rigor, but in Ligeti's music the math itself seems to spring to life.