Are there any good, classical piano pieces out there? If so, then who are they by?

Question

I like the powerful ones, not the happy, bright ones. Powerful.
mmm....

Answer 1

In my youth, I was a concert pianist who played the USA, Europe and Japan to name a few. I am now a Neo-Classical composer of considerable influence. The traditional Classical genre using Classical broadly as most do has thousands of pieces. Chopin was the premier piano composer , as virtually everything he composed was for solo piano excepting the two piano concerti. Franz Liszt was the greatest pianist of the 19th century and the best of all time perhaps until some of the moderns like Rachmaninoff, another virtuoso composer came along.

Here are some of the most powerful pieces in the piano literature (no cutesy pieces here).

Franz List:
Mazeppa, from the Transcendental Etudes
Totentanz: piano and orchestra
L'Orage (the Storm)
Mephisto Waltz
Robert Schumann:
In der Nacht, from the Fantasiestucke
Brahms:
Rhaspsody in G minor

Frederic Chopin
Prelude no 8 in F# minor
Prelude no 24
Etude 23 "Winter Wind"
Etude 24 "Ocean--my favorite"
Nocturne in Gb Major

Rachmaninoff
Elegy
Piano Concerto no 2

Beethoven
Hammerklavier Sonata
The "Appassionata" Sonata
Mozart
Fantasy and Fugue in C Major.

This is just the tip of the ice berg. I know these because I played them in concert.

Among my own pieces my Stylistic Etude in Db Major has the most furious and passionate double octave run in piano literature. My three pieces Folly, Fantasy in F# minor and Etude in B Major have a reputation as the toughest pieces ever composed. Check out the website //www.musicofthegods.com with over five hours of free MP3 (WMA) downloads, two piano concerti, two mini concerti. You'll love my fiendish fugue duet in the Devil's Apprentice Part I, or the Stylistic Etude in C minor known as "The Storm" because it was written in the middle of a furious thunderstorm.

This is the tip of the iceberg. I could rattle off hundreds of very powerful piano pieces, if you, like me tire of overplayed sickeningly sentimental pieces.... In fact, piano music comprises about 10X the music for all the other solo instruments put together!

Answer 2

Don't listen to these pretentious pricks above. I hate it when people like try and put classical music on a pedalstool so that they can feel unique and decandent. It's one of the reasons why so many people don't even give classical music a second look because so many twats assocaite themselves with it. Shame really.

I asked the very same question when I first started playing the piano about 2 years ago. One of my favorite pieces is Rachmaninov's Piano Conerto #3 which can incredibly powerful at times, especially the 3rd movement. Franz List's Hungarian Rhapsody #2 is also great for getting mooded up. As for chopin, Ballade #1 is awesome is his Scherzo #3. Strictly speaking Vivaldi's 4 seasons isn't piano, but it's damned good (watch old boy :) )

Answer 3

Hard to say what you would find powerful -- very often happy and bright music can also be extremely powerful, so that statement puzzles me.......

However, I will make some suggestions:

Beethoven Pathetique Sonata Opus13 in c minor
Prokofiev Sonata #7 (one of his War Sonatas)
Chopin Ballades -- No 1 in gminor, number 4 in f minor
Chopin Revolutionary Etude (opus 10 #12)
Rachmanninof Sonata #2

I can on like this for quite a while -- suppose you listen to a couple of those and see if I'm getting near the mark, OK?

Answer 4

I love Beethoven too! It's really hard for me to decide what's the best classical piano piece, but currently for me it'd be between Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata Third Movement and Chopin's Heroic Polonaise. Both are challenging, but very rewarding, and I'm currently working on them. Cheers!(:

Answer 5

as you say mmm. You sound like you are looking for a five minute answer to a question that has taken 300 years to pose. Get over yourself and start to explore the rich world of piano music. There is no short answer to this question.

Answer 6

Miss I am a collector of Classical music. I have almost every major name during the early Centuries wthin my personal collection. Stravosky I have in a leather case with all twelve
78 speed vinyl records. Yes classical is inspirational.

Answer 7

Not to sound rude, but I really found this question to be rather ehhmmm, "air-headed"........Of course there are tons of great classical piano pieces written over the past 300 years. You asked this question as if there's barely anything good, and as a classical pianist, I found that offensive.

Answer 8

How about the Titanic Suite!

Answer 9

The Nocturnes-Chopin-very dark and pretty