When I returned to serious work at classical piano after years of playing popular music, Blues, and (horror) occasionally not at all, I knew pretty much what I wanted to do. Play some Bach Preludes and Fugues better, learn a few more Mozart and Beethoven sonatas, maybe add another show-off piece by Liszt, Have a proper go at Chopin's Etudes (Op 10 at least), and maybe learn something more recent, like some more Debussy Preludes!

But once I got started I realized that Haydn is up there with Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, maybe even above them (so that is another 50+ Sonatas), then I discovered Scarlatti (550-600 of the things), the incomparable Scriabin (10 sonatas, countless Preludes, Poemes, Mazurkas, Impromptus, Etudes, a Concerto), someone pointed me in the direction of Mompou, my teacher put me onto Moszkowski, I hear Rossini's Music piano music at a recital, then Prokofiev started to make sense. A bit more digging and I rather liked Glinka, and his contemporary compatriots, Borodin, Cui, Balakirev, Rimsky Korsakov, so maybe the modern Russians are good too? ... yup Rachmaninov - awesome - and Shostakovich - but also Alexandrov, Ryabov, Agafonnikov, all great, there seems no end to them.

Then I found that Grieg is actually a musical giant, not just a minor composer of one Concerto and a few pretty tunes. That led me to listening and sight-reading yet more widely: so I "discovered" Reger, Medtner, Alkan, Dvorjak, Albeniz, Granados, Chabrier ... also that Clementi and Gurlitt and Kullak and Czerny wrote some really nice music as well as studies and children's pieces.

So what about earlier composers. Yes, ... Rameau, Daquin, Couperin, Telemann, Purcell, Handel, or further back, Byrd, Gibbons, they are all FANTASTIC, and they are just the most famous ones.

Well I thought at least I don't care much for Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky's piano works ... but just to make sure I listened to a few, then a few more, then as many as I could find on CD ... and they are fantastic too ... and I am beginning to get Ravel too ..

I want to play it all. And there are hundreds and hundreds more "minor" composers and I'll bet they have all produced piano works of great beauty. (I have even produced a couple of nice tunes myself).

Er did I mention Gershwin, the other Bachs, De Falla, Benjamin Britten, Mendelsohn, Poulenc, Faure, MacDowell, Henselt, Martinu, Szymanovski, Barber, Ligeti, ...

But unless I break all know records of human longevity I shall never play more than a tiny fraction of 1% of our wonderful heritage of piano repertoire. I mean, you could spend a whole lifetime on Beethoven's 32 Sonatas. Barring accidents I expect to have between 20 and 45 years left on this planet. I need 500!

Does anyone else have this problem?

Work, work, work, work, ...

I haven't got to that stage with playing yet because I'm severely limited by my current ability as to what I can play but I do have that problem about *listening* to music... I can never decide whether to listen to classical, jazz or swing - I like them all - and I've often thought that life isn't long enough to listen to everything I want to listen to...

... not to mention books I want to read...

Steady on, Mad Tom! If you rush at everything like that you'll be worn out in 10 years, let alone 45!

The main thing is to enjoy playing the pieces you choose, not to collect every possible bit of piano repertoire. If it turns into a "Only 20 years to go and 5 million pieces to learn" thing, there'll be too much pressure for you to enjoy any of it to the full. It's like people trying to visit every major city in Europe in a fortnight - you can never really enjoy any of it properly when it's so rushed.

Be content to pick one or two real favourites from each composer's output, and enjoy them to the utmost. From all the advice you've given others, I know you do this anyway, so am surprised at the tone of your latest post!

When not engaged with more boring studious stuff I am falling asleep over a book called 'Ageless body, timeless mind' by Deepak Chopra (or something like that.)

His thesis appears to be that ageing is a learnt thing, and if you channel your awareness properly then you will not decline mentally or physically. Nice idea! (I don't quite understand how it is that numskulls who never learn anything else in their lives still learn how to age)
The point is that just like a well exercised muscle does not deteriorate or wear out, neither will your body or brain.
So the answer may be to keep on with the piano and as long as you keep brain and faculties limbered up, you will live to be 500 after all.

Mel

Just prioritize Tom. Do the ones you can play that you like the most. If some are still beyond you, wait until they are not, then play them.
Bev.

On the road to virtuosity it's clear that you're enjoying the journey but I think it might be even more enjoyable if you had some short, long and intermediate ideas of where you're going on the journey. Just because there is such a huge potential repertoire is no reason to act like the shipwrecked sailor from AA Milne's poem, who had so many things he wanted to do he couldn't make up his mind what to do first and ended up basking on a beach until he was saved (I know you won't do this though!).

What do you want to have achieved by . . .
. . . this time tomorrow?
. . . this time next week?
. . . three months time?
. . . next year?
. . . 3 years time?
. . . 5 years time?
. . . 10 years time?

While you are achieving your goals inevitably the goalposts will move (and your goals may change from time to time). Inevitably, also, you will develop side-goals. If one of these side-goals is to play through everything you can lay your hands on, ever written by any remotely famous composer, great. Just don't let it divert you from the main path . . . wherever you decide that to be.

My immediate goal is to have played through my three grade 8 pieces ironing out the trouble spots from Yesterdays lesson, such as the terraced dynamics towards the end of the Bach Fugue and the semiquaver sections and ornaments from the Mozart.

My short term goal is to pass Grade 8 next month.

My intermediate goals are a Performance Diploma, an entry in the Yamaha competition and possibly an LRSM.

Long term goals are to be able to play the Chopin Etudes & Ballades, the Liszt Paganini etude "La Campanella" and the Schumann Etudes Symphonique, to concert standard in each case.

Inevitably along the way I will have to learn a lot of repertoire that I had never considered before I started on this path. I have every intention of enjoying it as much as possible - for instance your post didn't mention John Ireland & I think he was a genius too!

It may be that my goals change along the way, but for the last year the long term goal has remained solid.

Good luck learning everything, though.

Well several voices of sanity there - though I still feel like a guest in one of those restaurants where you could eat ANYTHING on the menu (but obviously not EVERYTHING from the menu). Choosing from a host of attractive options has never been my strong point. Jusk ask anyone that has ever seem me dithering about in a completely won position at Chess.

I like the idea of different goals at different times ahead. I filled them in, but I am not going to bore you with them ... apart from this one:

. . . 3 years time? A Bosendorfer 170 (please)

Realistic goal or idealistic dream? I thought you were talking about a Yamaha with the silent mechanism (a C2LS)? The price difference is about £10k and the Bosendorfer won't be silent.

Well, if I wasn't married I'd have one NOW!

Of course that is the sensible and practical option.

Actually the price diference is more like £25k

No. It makes the most beautiful sound in the world (Still better than a Fazioli)

Yes, but it won't get you meals in bed and soothe your fevered brow when you're feeling poorly! I bet in days gone by your fiancee's voice made the most beautiful sound in the world!!

This is very sensible advice (as is similar advice from others) but it really is not easy to follow. And it does not get any easier. I have just discovered the piano works of Sibelius and Villa-Lobos and they are both magnificent - beyond anything I had expected.

I drew up a shortlist of 12 works I must learn before I die - and it turned out to have nothing new from Scarlatti, Beethoven, Mozart, or Haydn, or Debussy, or Rachmaninoff on it (they are all in the reserve list!)

It was all Albeniz, Busoni, Chabrier, Grieg, Mompou, Prokofiev, Schubert, Scriabin, Szymanovsky ... and now Sibelius and Villa-Lobos! But I did find room for Bach's Goldberg variations.

A very good choice

I can never decide either, which is why I know the first half of so many pieces but not the second...

Maybe for the next concert I could just stick them all together and make a medley?!

Excellent idea

I often just do one movement of something in a mixed lunchtime recital programme