If a magic fairy suddenly appeared and granted you the ability to learn and play 1 piece perfectly (no matter how difficult or complicated) what would you choose and why?

Menuet Antique by Ravel. Just because I love it and my hands won't cope with it.

Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique. I had to study this for O-level, so first played through it forty years ago! I've tried again from time to time over the years, but I can never get the first movement to sound how I'd like it to (and the other two are far from perfect too!).

The Well Tempered Clavier
If that doesnt count as a piece
either, the fast movement from Moonlight Sonata, or Ah! Vous Dirai-je maman,

The Wanderer Fantasia

Rachmaninov 2nd piano concerto

Rachmaninov 3rd concerto

Gosh, what a question! Of course if you could play one really difficult piece perfectly then you would automatically have acquired at least some of the necessary skills to play a lot of other music as well (if not absolutely perfectly then certainly well enough for any normal mortal). With this in mind I wondered whether I should pick a really difficult piece which may not be a favourite but which would endow me with the skills to play my favourites. Or I could pick a favourite which is also notoriously difficult:

La Campanella by Liszt fits the bill, I'll have that please!

Scriabins 5th Sonata.

I am with bevpiano - Rach 3. I performed this wretched concerto without being properly in control of it. I would love to have mastery over it, but that is never going to happen.

Unless anybody knows a bribeable magic fairy, that is.

It would have to be Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum not that I like it much, but because if I could play that I could play anything - the Goldberg variations, late Beethoven sonatas, Chopin's Ballades, anything by Liszt, Rachmaninoff concertos, Scriabin Sonatas and Etudes, anything of Prokofiev's - etc. etc.

Impossible to pin it down to one ... anything by Liszt and Chopin, as my hands just don't seem big enough sometimes!

Beethoven Sonata 29 in B flat major, Op. 106

*dreams*

Mole

That would be on my short list, or the whole of his Sonatine.

Rach 3 - and if I had to choose, it'd be the Allegro ma non Tanto.

The Cadenza Ossia is everything that is right in the world. It is all the pain and beauty and anger and happiness I have ever felt tearing away at my heart with a piano string (or many!)....i love it!

The 2nd or 3rd Rachmaninov Concerto, or maybe the 1st Tchaikovsky piano concerto. I don't know if the Tchaikovsky is more difficult than the rachmaninov or not, but I love it!

Jacob.

I think the fairy would be bored hanging around waiting for me to decide

I'll go for Liszt's hungarian rhapsody no.2. It's not a very original choice but I don't think I'd get tired of playing it... or get tired of telling people I could play it (which I most certainly would do if I could!)

I wish I could play the piano properly

If I could pick one piece, for me it'd be Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (no, not the clarinet bit at the beginning... )

toss up between Rachmaninoff 3rd Concerto and Ravel Scarbo.

think id pick the Rachmaninoff though, as I already play Scarbo and im willing to put the time and effort into developing my performance of it as the years go by. Rachmaninoff I doubt ill ever get the chance to study in that much depth.

Well - seeing as I don't usually do 'flashy', it would have to be something by Liszt. The sonata!

Either Chopin's Polonnaises (one at random) or Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No 3, I think it is, or, curiously enough, the piano part in Tscaikowsky's Trio for violin, cello and piano (1st mov't.)

Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit

I would have to say Beethoven moonlight sonata 3rd movt. only because I've been practicing it for ages and it would be nice to have finished it. Plus I love playing it, especially when I'm in a moody poos

Dear bevpiano,

If you ever get anywhere with this wretchedly wonderful work please tell me how you did it!

As I was making good progress with Rach 2, I thought I would start work on No 3 as well. It is fantastically, horrendously, unbelievably difficult. I will practice a passage for a couple of hours every day for a week, and at the end of the each session be able to sort-of play it. Then next day it is as though I had never seen it. Aaaargh. This has never happened before.

My reverence for Horowitz and Argerich has gone through the roof, and I am in awe of anyone that can even get through it - never mind play it as well as those two.

Now where is that magic fairy ... or do I have to sell my soul to the devil?

Les Adieux Sonata..Beethoven.

Or Le Tombeau de Couperin..Ravel

[quote name='Robodoc' date='Mar 29 2009, 11:50 PM' post='808899'
La Campanella by Liszt fits the bill, I'll have that please!
[/quote]

What a difficult choice! It would either be the above or Beethoven appassionata or Moonlight sonata (all movements). I know its more than one choice but I just cannot decide!

I love the 3rd Beethoven pf concerto - far superior to the 5th in my opinion so would be very pleased if I could play that! So many pieces have sections in them that challenge. You start off playing some approachable Chopin for example then on page three it goes off like a fire cracker!
I did manage to scrabble through the 3rd Ballade a few years ago so wouldn't mind getting that going again.
L'Isle Joyeaux is one of my all time favourites to listen to but the score................!!!!!!!!!!!!

That would be on my short list, or the whole of his (Ravel) Sonatine. How interesting. I spent almost three terms learning this after taking grade 8 and decided, as it took me so long, I would concentrate on the organ. On the latter instrument I got a performer's diploma - on the former instrument I would not have got one!

The Rachmaninov 3rd was the first piano concerto I ever heard live. It was Gina Bachaur (excuse my spelling Gina) at the RFH, so this would indeed be on my list. It has ever after remained my favourite of the Rachmaninov concertos, and that's saying something because every one of the four is marvellous. I'm also with barryclari on the Gershwin. I bought the score once and could hardly get started. Perhaps Barry you would show me how to do the clarinet slide at the opening. Gershwin wrote it as a quick semi-quaver glissando, but the clarinetist in Paul Whiteman's orchestra at the time couldn't play the semi-tones quickly so he did the slide. The rest is history.

Ok, so you guys have already chosen a number of my favourites, so I shall have to go for Cesar Franck's 'Symphonic Variations'

That's all true!

If/when our paths cross, I'll show you, but the secret is in sliding the fingers off the holes of the clarinet, coupled with very minor lip changes.

Try playing B, and then gradually slide the index finger off the hole. Eventually you'll smear the two notes together. Then try it from A, slide finger 2 off, then just as finger 2 leaves its hole, slide the index finger off its hole. You may have to make minor changes in your bottom lip at this stage. Then do it from G, F etc., til you reach D. If you can do a complete smear from D to C, you're there!

Sorry everyone for the off-topicness!

One piece for the magic fairy to grant me the ability to play perfectly....?

The Art of Fugue, by J S Bach....

oh yes, bring it on, Glenn Gould....


denmark

Chopin's Nocturne in E Minor Op.72 #1

I adore that piece and have been tempted to try learning just a little of it, but don't want to frustrate myself!

EDIT: I just accidentally ordered the sheet music for it. If I can play the first 8 bars or so that will be nice

Either

Wilhelm Kempf's transcription for piano of Sinfonia from Cantata "Wir Danken Dir, Gott, Wir Danken Dir" BWV 029, JS Bach (here played by Angela Hewitt)

or

Rachmaninoff's Etude Op. 39 No. 6 "Little Red Riding Hood" (here played by Valentina Lisitsa)

I'd love to be able to play Franz Liszt - Un Sospiro.
Marc-André Hamelin plays it beautifully: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLHU2ES51uw...feature=related

Is there something going on between you and the divine Valentina - that we should all know about ??

I'm with those voting for the 3rd movement of the Moonlight Sonata. It's going to have to be a pretty powerful magical fairy though If I get a second rate fairy, I'll settle for the 2nd movement.

If only....

According to her YouTube channel she's recording the Rach concerti - there's a snippet of No 1 here that's tantalising in the extreme.

I am, I confess, a huge fan of hers - she makes what to me is intergalactically difficult seem risibly easy (it started when I was given the DVD of her playing the Chopin Etudes) and yet plays Fur Elise as an encore (along with, it's true, La Campanella!)