romantic music period
Who do you think is the great pianist from the Classical, Baroque and Romantic periods?
I’ve been getting into classical music (used generically, not as period reference) lately and I’ve been told that it is sometimes best to start with the piano sonatas and move up to the string quarters, concertos, symphonies.
So, if you would, who do you think are the best keyboardists from the above period and their best works?
The piano didn’t appear until the Baroque was about ended. The organ and the harpsicord were the dominant keyboard instruments, and Bach the leading composer.
The cult of “The Great Pianist” was not really begun in the Classical Period either, a period lasting only a few decades. For adventure and the unexpected, I prefer the music of Haydn to the rather cute, almost commercial prettiness of Mozart, but both wrote really skillfully for this new instrument.
Liszt was the famed showman-pianist of the Romantic era, but he lived much too early for there to be a recording of him.
These days, of course, ‘Great Pianists” play the music of other people, rarely music they have personally composed.
Rachmaninoff is an exception, and I imagine there would be some remastered performances of his in existence.
There are a lot of people who will assert that the wife of Robert Schumman is the “Greatest Pianist” of the Romantic Era. Clara was her name.
She is reputed to have had really good taste, a strong respect for composers (unlike Liszt who often ‘improved’ their music by playing it in octaves, very fast, etc.), exquisite tone, and a fluid technique. Her father was a famed teacher of Piano.
Personally, I prefer the late romantic piano music of Debussy to most others. Beethoven and Brahms often excite me. [ If I long for confectionary, Chopin occasionally satisfies.]
With these composers, one doesn’t constantly get the idea that Piano Playing is merely an Olympic event.
Cheers.
L1 – Musical Devices and the Romantic Period
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