Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments. Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
Just listen to the electrifying roar of that initial octave....
For many years I made the mistake of trying to do the same. Actually until just about last week.
My pick: Chopin's 4th Ballade. My first teacher in college did that. Of course you need to have quite some stuff for the rest of the program, if you're starting with Chopin's 4th Ballade. And he did.
That "electrifying roar" is more likely due to primitive recording techniques than to anything else, as subsequent listening to the recording should show. Certainly, there is no dynamic marking for that opening octave that would indicate anything of the kind, and the indication f - and it's only f followed by a (hairpin) dimuendo - doesn't come until the fourth beat.
I went to a performance once where this was programmed first, followed by a Mozart Sonata. The performer mentioned a friend of his did this, and he admired the audacity of it but never dared to do it until now. I have to say the first few bars of the Mozart Sonata were a little more aggressive than they should have been.
I went to a performance once where this was programmed first, followed by a Mozart Sonata. The performer mentioned a friend of his did this, and he admired the audacity of it but never dared to do it until now. I have to say the first few bars of the Mozart Sonata were a little more aggressive than they should have been.
I can't remember the name of the pianist, but the concert opener was the Cziffra Flight of the Bumblebee etude, which he nailed...not a bad attention getter
I think the first transcendental etude opens up the whole set really well. or the first paganini etude can open just about any Liszt concert. But I remember watching a video in which Marc Andre Hamelin opened his part of an all Liszt recital with Apparitions 1 and I am not sure if he intended this, but it sort of implied he just popped up it also worked really well as an introduction. does the intro have to be loud?
Possibly my favorite recital opening: on a college campus, a pianist timed the beginning of the recital, the Saint-Saëns-Liszt Danse Macabre, to coincide with the chiming of the bell tower on the hour.
Possibly my favorite recital opening: on a college campus, a pianist timed the beginning of the recital, the Saint-Saëns-Liszt Danse Macabre, to coincide with the chiming of the bell tower on the hour.
I think one should work off one's rage (at the audience's coughing/talking/sneezing/sweet unwrapping/popcorn chomping - and of course, one's own inadequacy as a pianist) in the opening number:
