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I just started Mozart Concerto in E-flat, No. 14, K. 449

There's a version for piano + string quartet, so I might even get to play it with a little ensemble some time!

Rachmaninoff prelude in G minor (polishing it up, but other wise pretty much done. Will probably start working on either his elegie or gavotte in d major after)

Chopin's nocturne in c minor (my favorite nocturne and im making excellent progress if i do say so myself.) I want to get some of his etudes under my belt before i tackle some of his bigger stuff like ballades, scherzos, and polonaises.

Bach's Italian Concerto. Progress is slow considering im not exactly a huge fan of bach, practicing this is like torture, but im determined to finish it.

Going to start work on Liszt's 7th hungarian rhapsody soon.

I might be doing Rhapsody in Blue (original concerto version) next semester. Anyone who's already played it with the orchestra want to give any advice on what to look out for in this piece?

Everybodies working on some nice stuff right now!!! We need more recordings posted!

It's alot of fun to play, and way easier than it seems. Besides the endurance aspect, the technique is fairly straight foward. I've always been very accurate with octaves though, so I guess it was right up my alley. The last two pages are pretty crazy too. I was surprised how fast I picked up the first couple of pages though.
I wondered why Alkan didn't write it in C (F Lydian). I guess they were scared of modes. I'm also sort of working on Alkan's G minor Barcarolle; great piece, good for sight reading.

I'm definatly going to take a look at it! It sounds like fun to play.

I'm working on Prelude in G Minor.

Hi Matt - I'm working on Schumann's beautiful Traümerei... currently struggling with the fermata chord in bar (measure) 21

Bach-Liszt prelude and fugue a-minor;
Bach prelude and fugue no.7 WTC II;
Beethoven - Appassionata (All 3 mvts);
Liszt - Transcedental etude no.10;
Chopin - polonaise-fantasie;
Prokofiev - sonata no.7 (All 3 mvts);
Rachmaninov - piano concerto no.2.

It's a program for a competition I will be performing at.
I'm really happy that my teacher told me I will play Rachmaninov because it is really a concert I always loved so much!

Only one new piece that I'm sticking with at the moment. Chopin's F minor Fantasy.

Also as time and energy permit, I've been reading through various keyboard sonatas by Scarlatti, C.P.E. Bach, Haydn, and Clementi for a maybe performance on the clavichord. I'm trying to get some ideas for the program, but I haven't decided which ones to choose yet.

John

Beethoven Sonata Op.2 No.1
Chopin - Mazurka Op.67 No.4
Liszt - Bagatelle sans tonalite
Bach - Fugue No.8 WTC1

Some of these are hanging there since God knows when.

Don't know about the "working" part. Does near-daily playing through at half-speed with no hope of ever getting up to full speed count? If so, then I'm working on:

Michalowski - Etude (arrangement of the Weber C major sonata perpetual motion finale)
Lyapunov - TEs 2 (Ronde des Fantomes) and 9 (Aeolian Harp)
Chopin - op. 10, nos. 1, 4, 5
Medtner - Skaski op 8, no. 2; op 34, no. 2; op. 51, no. 1

Then there are the things that are going at approximately three-quarter's speed:

- Moscheles - op. 70 studies 1, 13, and 14
- Moszkowski - op. 72 studies 1, 2, and 6 (hooray, these don't have MM indications so I can pretend I'll eventually get them up to presentable speed)
- Moszkowski - op. 91 studies, about 15 out of the twenty.
- Hummel - op. 13 Sonata
- Prokofiev - Scherzo, op. 12, no. 12 (anybody know of an edition with fingering? the double-note stuff is kind of horrifying)

And a few things that might be close to a real tempo:

- Clementi - Sonata op. 25, no. 2
- Beethoven - Sonata op.14, no. 2
- Debussy - Deux Arabesques (these are pieces I struggled with as a kid and never mastered, and revisiting them now over four decades later is a sort of pleasurable vindication of having kept slogging away all these years; I think they may actually be getting close to not too embarassing)
- Leighton - Sonatina no. 2 (I promised someone I'd learn and record this for them, and it's turned out harder than I expected)
- Chopin - Barcarolle (I'm probably deluding myself here)

And there's a ton of stuff that gets read through at whim.

As a newbie here, that listing is probably as good a way to introduce myself as any.

wr

You've got a full plate here, wr. I used to pile on the work before, but now I concentrate my energy on getting a handful of pieces up to a sucessfull level rather than push a little bit on so much. You might want to consider this as you'll see your progress will increase dramatically.

John

I think you are overdoing it too. and you said you practise the pieces by playing through half-speed? that is not called practising at all and you will be simply stuck or hardly move at all.

i'm working on 9 pieces at once, ppl call me crazy and you are working on wayy more.

just change the way you practise and work on fewer pieces and you will progress much faster

"A Reel" from "Four Irish Dances." Composed by Villiers-Stanford, freely arranged by Percy Grainger. Very impressive when played at the indicated breakneck tempo! (I'm not there yet!)

It is one of those pieces that sounds even harder than it is.

The other 3 pieces in the set are very well written too.

Bach Partita no. 1
Mozart Sonata in c minor K. 457 or 457...Can't remember.
Chopin Op. 10 nos. 1 and 2
Rachmaninoff Sonata no. 1
Moskowski Etude in d minor (octaves)
Prokofiev Concerto no. 2

All that I can remember whilst watching Pink Panther.

my playing has gone from bad to worse from lack of practice so for now I'm working on pieces I used to be able to play.

Since I will likely have people over for Christmas I am thinking I will learn Waltz for Debby by Bill Evans. It's accessable and not too long. I can't play anything much more than 4 pages these days.

Some months ago, I ended up with a contract job in downtown Seattle. My friend (he is the much stronger player and used to be my teacher many years ago) and I decided to play duets once every two weeks at lunch time, as we did about 10 years ago when we both worked in downtown Seattle. I play secondo. So, after figuring out the program and practicing one additional time, the pieces have to be ready for performance. This has quickly made my playing improve, because the pieces have to be ready anad there are a defined number of them every two weeks. My partner says I am improving every time we play together. So, we have performed some Dvorak (Slavonic Dances), Brahms (Hungarian Dances), Faure (Dolly), Debussy (Petit Suite), Bizet, Mozart, Moskowski (Spanish Dances and Polish Dances). At some point, someone asked me to play solo and I realized that I have no solo pieces ready since I have concentrated on the duet repertory for some years now. In trying out pianos I go into stores and play the Secondo and guess what--people come up and think it is beautiful and don't even know the other half is missing!!!! The point being, that a discrete number of pieces, practiced intensively and out of fear, improves playing in my case, like nothing else!

Which one?

Wow! That is A LOT of music. Have fun!