Violent piano pieces.?

Question

What are some really loud, violent, hardcore, piano pieces that sound really mad like youre letting out anger. Like this one: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ibo8Oiv_LbY

Answer 1

Violence is always comparative in absolute terms, and relative as regards context, so it's easy to overlook how violent Bach, let's say, can be in for instance his grinding dissonances in the Matthew Passion, or in just about any one of his major fugues, or Scarlatti's physical and harmonic aggression in any number of his sonatas. Even if their period perhaps doen't offer an immediate association with 'violence' it doesn't mean it's not there.

Chopin's imagination could be extremely violent -- the Scherzo from his Second Sonata op.35 being one of the most overt and sustained examples of all -- as for instance in the third Scherzo op.39 (excerpt sample):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/wma-pop-up/B000001GQJ001001/ref=mu_sam_wma_001_001/102-4811261-3032122

Lisztian examples are legion, but here's one not from his 'showpieces' but a quotation from the climax to his towering masterpiece, the Sonata in b-minor:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/wma-pop-up/B000001GQJ001017/ref=mu_sam_wma_001_017/102-4811261-3032122

Prokofieff is animalistic, with a biting sence of 'nasty' humour, here in his Toccata op. 11:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/wma-pop-up/B000001GQJ001004/ref=mu_sam_wma_001_004/102-4811261-3032122

Bartòk, certainly as fine a pianist as Prokofieff, views a similar idea completely differently in his Allegro Barbaro:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/wma-pop-up/B000006O33001018/ref=mu_sam_wma_001_018/102-4811261-3032122

and yet differently again in the finale to his Dance Suite:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/wma-pop-up/B000006O33001025/ref=mu_sam_wma_001_025/102-4811261-3032122

Once you get started, you could go on for ever, but maybe something will strike you in the end: it's hardly ever simply about actual anger really...

Answer 2

Baga Yaga-Mussorsky
Pathique Sonata-Beethoven

Answer 3

I don't know so much about piano, but a great orchestral piece is Death and Transfiguration I think by Strauss. The piece is about himself dying and the battles of death. The piece opens in a very mysterious manor, you can hear a betting heart growing weaker and weaker. Then out of no ware you can hear his fighting for his life you can hear everything he fells, he travels through his whole life you can hear the different stages, youth, mid life and finally you hear him die. The beating heart stops you can hear the drops pf sweat rolling across his eyebrows and the fear is his eyes as he loose the ultimate battle. Then you hears huge beams of light and you hear him transfiguring into his after life. It's amazing you need to find and listen to a copy.

Answer 4

Everyone listens to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, have you every heard the third movement, that's about as violent as you can get, I love it, when someone comes in to my house and I have it on they said wow what's that, they have no idea that it's the third movement of the Moonlight, go on youtube and type in Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, third movement. I hope this is the type of music that you mean !

Answer 5

Prokofiev Tocatta -- opus 11
Prokofiev 7th Piano Sonata -- op 87 (I think)
Liszt -- Mephisto Waltz
Brahms Rhapsodies op 79

Hope you get it out of your system.