Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Size of repertoire

BTW, since we the participants are piano students, and the subject is repertoire, I don't think it's pendantic to point out one another's mistakes.

First of all, I would like to say that I, jgoo, not jodi, posted the note about the Sonata K.#'s. Don't feel bad about it. Anyway, it is K.545 that I play, the one in C. That means that my Casio Book made a miss-print by calling it K.331.

If anyone remembers,I posted a perfect repertoire post a while back in which I was discussing updating my repertoire.Anyways,that is pretty much completed now,but some things I think are useful to remember is generaly,unless you are a concert pianist, you should memorize things that you enjoy.Do not memorize things just for the sake of trying to build a repertoire.Small or great I do not think it matters as long as that is what you are comfortable with.There are some piece which I believe every pianist should know,however.Of course,the more experienced a pianist you are the more people expect out of you.Over time, I have accumulated far to many things in my repertoire to list here(in all styles),and I'm not a show-off kind of person but perhaps I will post my repertoire when I have more time.That one principle of building a repertoire which you enjoy will help you to not just create good repertoire but keep it,as well.

[ September 27, 2001: Message edited by: SethW ]

I really don't have much time to practice- almost none at all! My repertoire is;

Beethoven: Hammerklavier Sonatina
Bach: Goldberg Variations(I usually transpose to F-sharp major to make it challenging)
Brahms:Paganini Variations Books 1,2,AND 3
Chopin: 27 Etudes(always played without any intermission}
Chopin-Godovsky: 53 Etudes(I take a 5-minute break half way through)
Boulez: Sonata #2(I don't like it that much and neither does the audience but it only took a few hours to master)
Scarlatti: 555 Sonatas(played in Longo or Kirkpatrick order at the audience's request)
Concerti: Due to limited time I only keep the Rach 3, Brahms 2, and Busoni in my "ready to perform on a moment's notice" repertoire
I one gave an all- toccata recital consisting of the Khachaturian, Schumann(played in D major), Ravel, Debussey, Prokofiev, all the Bach Toccatas, all the Bach-Busoni Toccatas, with the Weber Perpetuum Mobile as an encore.

very impressive... haha I kind of like the Boulez #2...

Pianoloverus,

Thanks for the chuckle I'm curious where you found book 3 of Brahms Paganini variations? Most people don't even know they exist

I was surprised to see that you don't play both books of Bach's WTC in all keys. Or is that just not in your current repertoire? Something you might try with the Boulez Sonata is to transpose it to a different key, or even many different keys. It can really help the audience experience.

Ok, now removing tongue from cheek...

Ryan

Beethoven Sonatas: Pathetique, Appassionata-all mvmts-various other sonatas, Fur Elise (of course)

Chopin: Etudes: Op 10,#1, Op 25,#11
Polonaises: Op 26,#1, Op 53, Op 40,#1
Nocturnes: most of them
Waltzes: all of them
Ballades: #1, #3
Scherzi: #2
various preludes
piano sonata #2

Brahms: Rhapsodies Op 79, #1,#2

Bach: Preludes & Fugues book I WTC #9, #21, #11

Debussy: L'isle joyeuse

Schubert: Impromptu, Op. 90,#4

Schumann: Novellette, Op.21, Concerto in Am

Liszt: Hung. Rhap. #2, Transcendental Etude #8, Liebestraum, Consolation #3

Mozart: sonatas (various)

Bloch: "Waves" from Poems of the Sea

maybe others too I can't think of at the moment--

I am so happy; I just want you all to know. I didn’t like your recommendations very much to not study too many pieces at once, but decided to leave most of my to-be-repertoire alone and focus on Chopin. I especially love the nocturne op.post. E flat major (BI 108) and was playing it rather well, if I say so myself. Then a couple of days ago I thought: this first page is really simple, so why don’t I try to play it from memory. And lo and behold, the same evening I could do it!! And it took me only three other evenings to memorize the other two pages. This is amazing as I was very very bad at learning things by heart. So now I know what to do: play a piece over and over again till I can do it almost perfectly, and only then will I start memorizing it.
So I am very grateful indeed for your advice. It feels better to have one piece perfectly in memory than sixty-odd in bad shape.
Thank you all! Thea

The important thing is that repertoire should be determined by the things you enjoy. Size is directly related to this. I do not believe in building a large repertoire just for the sake of showing off or to prove pianistic skill (it does not.)If you are in a rush to build this enormous repertoire as quickly as possible it could have dire results on a persons appreciation of music. Generally, the repertoire pieces I keep are pieces that I would want to play, should I stumble on a piano. Unfortunately, these lists can be pretty large. Over time, however, pieces will began to stick in your head and you sort of accumulate things.

The repertoire that I seriously worked on and 'nailed down' are 14 full-length recitals. The playing time of each ranges from 70-90 minutes. No repetition of any selections across the programs. All programs memorized. Four of these programs were dedicated to one single composer, namely, Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart & Chopin. That was decades ago. Today I can't play any of them so I'll not list them individually.

Today my actively repertoire is "Memory" by Andrew Lloyd-Weber. Oh well...

AndrewG

btw, the BI 108 is in C minor and not E flat major...

Oops, Magnezium, I didn't know that having three flats can mean more than one key. Never had a piano teacher. I mostly try to remember the pieces by their opus numbers. I wish they'd given all these posthumus opuses numbers, much easier.
Thanks, Thea