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In Reply to: RE: We all have our quirks and foibles, and mine is... posted by John Marks on September 11, 2014 at 14:22:18
Part of the reason for that (speaking from the amateur side) is that a good amount of Schumann is easily playable by ordinary people. Not so for most of the other major romantics, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, etc.
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I'd say that overall, the average technical difficulty of Schumann's piano music is quite a bit higher than Schubert's. Of course, there are exceptions, such as "Album for the Young" and a few other items on Schumann's side. And of course there are more difficult works by Schubert too (such as the outer movements of the C-minor Sonata). But, on average, I'd say Schumann is much harder.
A prime victim of "amateurs playing Schubert" is the final piano Sonata (B-flat major), which is musically profound, but technically not that difficult. I OD'd with amateur performances of this sonata, with the pianist playing while looking up to heaven for guidance as he/she unravels the otherworldly mysteries of Schubert's suffering (in the second movement) or the childlike joy of the last movement. Not only is the music itself profound, but the amateurs think their performances add an even deeper layer of insight and illumination. Blecch!
No, I wasn't counting Schubert. And for me the ultimate in easy to play but hard to play well for any instrument is always Mozart. I pity you if you spend your days listening to even advanced students playing Mozart.
"Too easy for amateurs, too hard for professionals."
# # #
I will be shocked--SHOCKED! if it turns out not to be original to him.
Maestro Goldovsky was as far as I know the only Schnabel student who would every now and then play the piano using a grapefruit held in his left hand.
It can be done, as long as what you want is boogie-woogie.
ATB,
jm
"Too easy for children, too difficult for adults" is the way I remember that line, though your version works just as well. Funny, a quick google search, which is definitive scholarly research (not), shows an attribution to Schnabel himself.
It's just too easy to put great lines and famous people together. Even Yogi Berra had to concede (and he actually did say this, I saw him interviewed), "I never really said most of the things I said."
Boris Goldovsky had dreams of piano stardom but when he knocked on the door of the Curtis Institute as a refugee from Hitler, he was told that the only opening was for an opera coach, and so he assured them that opera was his first love, and promptly went back to his new digs and asked his mother to tell him all he needed to know about opera.
He went on to put on the US premieres of Peter Grimes and of Idomeneo.
ATB,
jm
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