Awesomest Music You'll Hear Today

This is the first of a series on awesome piano music.

Before you think 'oh, this is about boring old classical music' and navigate away -- wait. This blog post is for you. Context below, or else skip straight to the videos at the bottom.

So, context:

As a kid, I was forced to play the piano. I got pretty good but I never really fell in love with the music I played. Having returned to it after some years off, I've been falling in love in a big way. And I'm realizing a lot of it has to do with the repertoire that was foisted on me when I was younger.

You all know them. You may even dread them. Mozart. Bach. Haydn. Handel. These guys wrote works of towering genius -- but many of those works aren't very accessible. You have to work at enjoying them. A lot of their genius is quite cerebral -- structure, clever use of counterpoint, etc, etc. This fascinating book by Arthur Loesser suggests that this was largely intentional, driven by an elitist European culture that valued logic over emotion.

Logic over emotion. And we use these works to get kids to fall in love with music! Sure, for some exceptional kids it does the trick, but for the most part it's crossed messages. It just doesn't work very well.

Cue the Romantics, who put aside the focus on logic and got busy feeling things instead. Chopin. Liszt. Grieg. Debussy. Ravel. Rachmaninov. These guys really figured out how to tug at your heart. They'll get you to fall in love with their music even if you don't want to. It's the sort of stuff that can make you cry listening to it, and not just because you're sad. (Not all of these are strictly speaking Romantics, I know -- but they were all informed by Romanticism)

Of course, I was aware of these composers growing up, but I didn't actually know their music very well or get to play much of it. I think if I had, my attitude to the piano might have been very different.

In these posts I'll highlight some of the most awesome, emotionally intense, beautiful Romantic pieces for those of you who, like me until recently, aren't familiar with them.

Today, I'll start with a few pieces by Liszt. Sit back, put on your headphones, and give these a listen (unlike with most pop music, listening to this music in the background while doing something else won't be very effective).

1. Harmonies du Soir (Transcendental Etude No. 11, "Evening Harmonies"). A study in harmony and musical color. One of the most beautiful pieces I've ever played.



2. Feux Follets (Transcendental Etude No. 5, "Will O' the Wisp"). Sviatoslav Richter's recording is appropriately haunting. This is also one of Liszt's hardest pieces, which is saying something.



3. Sonata in B Minor. A long-form masterpiece, performed by Martha Argerich. Sweeps me away every time.



4. Mephisto Waltz. If a piece has 'Mephisto' in the title, you know you're in for a ride. Based on an episode from Lenau's Faust in which the devil plays a jig. Richter called this one of the two hardest pieces in the piano literature (along with Scriabin's 5th Sonata). This performance by William Kapell is old so you'll hear some crackling, but it's very effective.



P.s. For all you classical music fans -- yes, I do enjoy Bach, Mozart et al. And yes, some of the sweeping statements and generalizations I've made re. the Classical vs Romantic periods are simplistic. I'm taking the helicopter view here.

P.p.s. Everyone knows Chopin, of course -- but often people know Chopin's music without even realizing it's Chopin.