FSM # 28: Piano virtuoso
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I love the piano. Always have. I still blame my parents for not “forcing” me to take piano lessons when I was a kid (well, they wouldn’t have to force me, actually, since I’ve always loved to fool around on the piano). If they had, I would probably have received the proper education and knowhow to pursue a career as a musician or composer.
Anyway, I bought SHINE a couple of days ago, and liked it a lot, although the snippets from the various classical pieces were a bit too brief. It wetted my appetite for more.
So I wonder:
What are some classical pieces or film scores that really showcase brilliant and virtuoso piano playing?
25 years later. SHINE has apparently left my collection. But I’m still very much into this thing. So that hasn’t changed.
I don’t know SHINE, I never saw the film, but I seem to remember that it was based on Rachmaninov’s famous 3rd piano concerto. If you want an excellent rendition of those concertos by the colourful Yuja Wang, this:
I don’t know if I ever saw SHINE. But I have a compilation with film score related “piano concertos”:
https://www.discogs.com/de/release/14859418-Philip-Fowke-RT%C3%89-Concert-Orchestra-Proinns%C3%ADas-%C3%93-Duinn-WARSCHAUER-KONZERT-Gro%C3%9Fe-Klavierkonzerte-AOf course the Addinsell and Herrman are classics that appear everywhere and the other ones possible a bit of a stretch 😉
I have to give a shout-out to Patrick Doyle’s EAST-OEST, with exuberant piano solos by maybe the greatest pianist on the planet, Emmanuel Ax.
I don’t know if you can call them virtuosic, necessarily, but I’m an absolute sucker for John Williams’ piano-driven scores, like THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST, STANLEY & IRIS, SABRINA etc. I believe it’s Randy Kerber who dons the keys for most of these? Ironically, I’m not that thrilled with his piano concert pieces. And of course I absolutely DIG his own piano playing on countless albums in the 50s and 60s. I did a thread on that on JWFAN once, and I will re-post it here at some point.
Hmm, the piano… I have to admit it’s never been among my favourite instruments. At least not when it’s used as a solo instrument. I’m not sure why, but I’m having trouble getting emotionally involved by it. I like it when it adds its color and ambience to an ensemble, be it an orchestral piece or pop music. When my wind orchestra plays larger works, there is often a piano part, and it’s always wonderful when the pianist joins our rehearsals. But things like piano sonatas or concertos rarely do much for me.
The only explanation I have for this is that with the piano, after you’ve hit the key you can’t really shape the tone the way you can with a wind or string instrument, making it, to me, less expressive. Of course, for a piano player, much of the artistry lies in how you hit the key: softly, loudly, gently or with attack etc. But somehow that doesn’t seem to be enough for me.
This is apparently a personal defect on my part, considering all the supposedly great piano music that’s out there. 😉
To get a little more on topic: I definitely enjoy the piano’s contributions in the quiet, low-key Williams scores you mentioned, Thor, as well as things like A PATCH OF BLUE (Goldsmith) and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (Bernstein). And of course it can be used in more hard-hitting ways as well, almost like percussion instrument (which is what it is, strictly speaking), like Goldsmith did in PLANET OF THE APES. I probably have many others in my collection that I can’t think of right now.
The only explanation I have for this is that with the piano, after you’ve hit the key you can’t really shape the tone the way you can with a wind or string instrument, making it, to me, less expressive.
That’s an interesting take on it. I suppose my attraction isn’t so much the tone or sound itself, but the many layers that a polyphonic instrument allows. It should please you, however, that woodwinds come in at second after piano (if I have to be specific, then maybe oboe slightly ahead of your clarinet, but love the whole group).
It should please you, however, that woodwinds come in at second after piano (if I have to be specific, then maybe oboe slightly ahead of your clarinet, but love the whole group).
That’s good to hear. 🙂 The clarinet (obviously 😉 ) and oboe are among my favourites, too, along with the French horn, trumpet, and cello. Those would be my top five.
I have no problem with the piano (and I also love the classic Rhodes/Wurlitzer e-piano sounds). Not sure if I have any real favourite (orchestra) instrument but I always liked the cello for its “voice like” timbre.
Film music is generally (no rules without exception, obviously) by its very nature not very “virtuosic”, as that type of (solo or multi) instrumental writing tends to be a showcase, a “wow!” flash, very expressive, that demonstrates the superb mastery of an instrument and by its very nature so draws attention to itself, something that film music is (usually) not supposed to do.
I have a lot of solo instrumental music, and love Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, or many other solo piano works, but I can’t think of a lot of solo passages in film scores. However, John Williams has at times beautifully integrated the piano into his scoring, like for example MONSIGNOR, which is why I always hoped he’d write a piano concerto one day.
The only explanation I have for this is that with the piano, after you’ve hit the key you can’t really shape the tone the way you can with a wind or string instrument, making it, to me, less expressive. Of course, for a piano player, much of the artistry lies in how you hit the key: softly, loudly, gently or with attack etc. But somehow that doesn’t seem to be enough for me.
This.
Piano is my main instrument, and while I love the piano for what it can do, this encapsulates what it cannot do. If you hit a note on an instrument where you control how it sustains, you can shape and refine the pitch and tone. But once you plunk a note on a piano, that’s it. It’s out there. You live with the sound you produced, or you quickly try to correct it by plunking a different note.
However, you can play chords and many different notes at once, something a violin or brass or woodwind instrument cannot do.
That’s why all these instruments exist for a reason. 🙂Can’t a violin (or any string instrument) actually play more than one note with some advanced technique? 😉
The guitar maybe combines a bit both worlds as you can control the note and also play chords.
It’s not too late, Thor. My 85 year old father-in-law is taking lessons, although he told me last time we saw him that he didn’t practice enough.
And there’s the problem. I, like a lot of people, would love to play the piano (or keyboard of some kind – who has the space for a grand, or even an upright?) but I probably couldn’t keep up the work required.
I do love the sound of the piano. Some favourite works:
Rachmaninov, 2nd piano concerto. Modernist and magnificently melodious, everyone loves this.
Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues. Quirky, more personal than the symphonies.
Ifukube, Ritmica Ostinata. A 21-minute marathon for a pianist with fingers of steel, I can’t recommend this enough, especially if all you know of Ifukube is the Godzilla music.If you’re looking for film scores heavily featuring the piano, Morricone’s The Legend of 1900 may be for you, although not all the piano stuff is by Ennio.
Can’t a violin (or any string instrument) actually play more than one note with some advanced technique? 😉
Yeah, ok, let’s get the violin get away with it… but not a flute. 🙂
But once you plunk a note on a piano, that’s it. It’s out there. You live with the sound you produced, or you quickly try to correct it by plunking a different note.
With the pedals you have some influence on the tone after pushing the key. But I think, when you are busy to properly pronounce a five-voice fugue properly on the piano the last thing you worry about is what you could do in addition to all these tones that you have just created.
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