Does anyone know how much piano music a typical professional classical recitalist can play from memory? i.e. If they started playing now how many hours later would they run out of things to play?

Anyone out there making a living playing the classical repertoire - please let us know?

And what kind of range is there?

What is the smallest repertoire that anyone has made a living with (in the pop World Scott MacKenzie is still living off the income from 'If You are Going to San Francisco' - 3 minutes!),

... and what is the biggest (I once attended a master class given by Christopher Elton, and it seemed that he knew the entire classical repertoire - everything by Bach, Beethoven , Chopin, Liszt, ... by heart ... and could demonstrate snippets from anything at will)

Grrrrrrrrrrr!

I know - don't you just hate them

I'll be interested to read replies on this thread. I'd like to know what the standard amount of repertoire is. If there is a standard.

I also attended a masterclass by Elton - wish he was my teacher!

Lots of artists have their own websites which detail their repertoire - you need look no further than one of today's most accomplished artists, Angela Hewitt for her solo repertoire here:

http://www.angelahewitt.com/repertoire.php...toire_type_id=3

and orchestral repertoire here:

http://www.angelahewitt.com/repertoire.php...toire_type_id=1

Edward

Looking at some websites of concert pianists, most of them seem to be able to play a fair few pieces by each of the main composers, like bach, mozart, beehtoven, chopin etc.
Most of them seem to be able to play most of the mozart and beehtoven piano concertos and sonatas etc, or another composers works.
It is slightly irratating they manage to play so many pieces to such a high standard, and play them perfectly!:)

Jacob.

Ah yes, but this ability didn't just float down from heaven - it's the result of countless hours of unremitting toil on their part. I know I would never have had the dedication to do as they have done, so I don't find the fruits of their labours irritating - just amazing!

Agreed !

i looked at the list and was like
then i realised that half the pieces on the list are actually whole collections, so was like

HI Tom.

I suspect the answer varies from player to player. I remember a story about one such who is reputed to have been asked about a certain piece of music (I think by Liszt). He replied that he had never played it, only read the score once in a music shop about 20 years before. On the strength of that single reading 20 years before he was able to play it when asked. I know I couldn't do this, but I do believe that there are a few people who can. I suspect they are rare, even among professionals.

More mundanely it probably depends how they were taught: Charles Rosen in his book "Piano Notes" said:

"When I was sixteen I could sight-read a Chopin Nocturne once and then play it by heart. I hasten to add that this experience is not unusual for young pianists. What is more significant, I can quickly recall almost every work that I learned before I was twenty."

He goes on to say, re sight reading, that "It would only take about eight hours to read through all the Schubert Sonatas - less if you skip the repeats - and about another five to become acquainted with everything else he wrote for the solo piano: the equally great repertory of Schubert for one piano four hands would take only a little longer, but it needs a friend as enthusiastic as oneself . . . In about six months of sight reading for three hours a day, one could go through most of the keyboard music of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms. Another few months and one can add Haydn, Debussy and Ravel. Another hour and a quarter would suffice for all of Schoenbergs's piano music and an hour and a half will get you through Stravinsky . . . with ten minutes each for the solo piano works of Anton von Webern and Alban Berg. For a pianist who begins to play at the age of four, not to have done all this by the age of twenty is to create a handicap that will last for the rest of life."

So, I guess most of us are handicapped in that way!

I play around 380-400 pieces, most of them between one and five pages long, by Schumann, Chopin, Grieg, Scriabin, Debussy and other Romantic composers. But I am always looking for more obscure repertoire such as Catoire, Stojowski, Medtner, Severac, Kapustin....there is so much out there that's off the beaten track, and quite often ignored -even by many top pianists. The thing is, i have only memorised about ten pieces All the others are a combination of memory and needing the score in front of me, sometimes i call this 'half memory', but i just don't have the knack of remembering music. For those who can remember so much music in their repertoire, i envy them...but in a nice way.

Infinite.

I've read four of Rosen's books - they are very interesting - but he is rather an elitist, perpetuating the view that there is an elite of gifted performers and that you have to be born into it, rather than achieve excellence through hard work and intelligent application.

Maybe he is right, but I hope not!

As for the man's playing. His musical knowledge is vast. His technical ability is phenomenal. I suspect he could play better as a child than I ever will. But have you heard his version of Beethoven Op 106? He takes it at the metronome speed marked by Beethoven (most performers take it anything from slightly to much slower) and meticulously observes every tiny detail of the score.

... Yet it sounds awful!

It is almost unlistenable-to