The Most Difficult Piano Pieces of All Time (Ft. Sophie)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 พ.ค. 2024
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S N A P C H A T: Brettybang | Eddy.Chen - เพลง
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Sophie: The 40 hours won’t help
Ling Ling: *sweats profusely*
*classically panics*
600th like
@@SM-zt5ml there isnt even 600 likes yet 💀💀
@Hamza Mzali ew contemporary
What he’s playing is an insult to contemporary music
brett’s camera quality is C R I S P
YES! But why is it always Eddy struggling to stay in focus?
@@geegeelyn When they make videos together, Brett is usually the one who takes care of all the technical aspects. Last time they were apart because of quarantine, Eddy himself said that he couldn't function without Brett... 😄
I couldn’t that video, could you link it?
10% camera, 90% lighting.
Ikr that is smooth af
Sophie pronouncing all the composers' names authentically is so satisfying.
especially after so many people now call Chopin as chop him
She completely butchered Balakirev though.
@@justsomerandomguy7693 shopaign?
she pronounced them all in HER accent.
@@justsomerandomguy7693 How is it supposed to be pronounced? I pronounce show-pan
Sophie is spot on. As the great Artur Schnabel put it: “Mozart piano sonatas are too easy for children and too difficult for adults.”
Compare other pianists with Gulda, he is the only pianist who understands that music.
Absolutely. My litte brother is learning Fur Elise right now and I made it a point to have him hear how Lang Lang played it. There's a world of difference between playing the right notes/rhythm and the musicality involved in playing it well: voicing, dynamic contrast, texture, tempo change.
@@TheGuyCalledXrubato is generally not a great idea in Beethoven, though
@@fh854 Rubato is a great idea no matter what composer you're playing, it just happens to varying degrees.
Video: The most DIFFICULT piano pieces of ALL TIME
TH-cam: Here's a Simply Piano ad so you can learn to play them ALL
Nice one!
Very realistic one 😭😭
@Hamza Mzali Spammer
oof that just happened to me when clicking on the video and this comment was just like predicted the future
Lmao
Violin gang is finally recognizing our suffering piano gang 😭
Yeee
I play both violin and piano, I already new
I know :'( haha
@Ultra Legendary Master Take a look at the fugue in Shostakovich's Prelude and Fugue No. 15, in D flat major. It will blow your mind, it was a nightmare to memorize haha
Yes
Brett: cracks a joke.
Sophie: no.
Haha!
She's absolutely spot on about simple, soft pieces can sometimes be harder than faster, flashier pieces. The sensitivity required can be super difficult and unforgiving. Just playing the third of a chord slightly too loud can be a glaring mistake, and any small mistake you make in such passages gets shouted from the rooftops.
yea I agree, when I'm playing moonlight sonata (1st movement), any mistake in pacing will leave a sour taste in my mouth.
@@LC5234 any time I play a bass chord too loud or too soft feels like a glaring error
@@LC5234 The voicing in that piece is so hard
The Chaconne is the embodiment of that, though it also has technically demanding parts especially the ending. It also sounds amazing on the piano, listen to Helene Grimaud play it
7:36: “What about someone with small hands, what do they do?”
Suffer, Eddy, suffer
True on every instrument though
Me and Sophie: synchronized deep sigh of pain
as someone with small hands, yes
@Gísiu Wolf same ;-; my hands are not big but my piano teacher always says I have a good stretch and I was able to reach an octave since I was seven
@@shiragoldmusic שלוםםםם
Huh, I actually do miss Sophie Oui Oui.
We need her to play blindfolded again.
Me too.
I would love for her and sister to do the Ling Ling workout together, with both the violin and piano ! 😀
'blindfolded', 'play' you filthy boi
@@PB-cb7ht Γαμώ, beat me to it
@@alexandero9936 might wanna edit out the swears. The twoset bots will get you. Twoset viewers are fragile
Martha Argerich is 80 and is still playing Ravel concertos! She's such an amazing pianist.
She’s the best
I have played Liszt’s “Der Erlkönig” and the repetitive octave are no joke. I thought I had developed carpal tunnel syndrome afterwards, and had to take a break in learning it because the tension and pain it caused! One of my all time favorite Liszt pieces along with the Paganini transcriptions.
Wow, seriously....
Bro Liszt is no joke, it must’ve been so hard
Wish I could play pieces like that though, bur sadly I can only reach an octave by stretching my hands to the max and using the edge of the keys, not really possible to 'relax' the hand when it comes only reach the notes when it's at the max stretch lmao XD have to stick less octavey pieces
@Jannis Glueck For me, I struggle with tension while playing fast or repetitive passages. I didn’t have formal lessons for most of secondary school until college and developed a lot of poor technique I had to relearn.
@@zelementsllp4938 and then.. ernst’s der erlkonig for violin 😭
I got a similar practicing a transcendental etude. No 6 and 11 killed my hands. Tried no 12 but caused too much pain so I had to stop. No 3 causes me no technical troubles, I just quit it because I got too frustrated trying to produce the sound I wanted from it.
"The beginning is extremely simple, and therefore it's really difficult"
Sophie Oui Oui - 2021
th-cam.com/video/rCQ0x5gN1fM/w-d-xo.html🎹🎹🎹
That's the case with a lot of difficult pieces lol, they lure you into this false sense of security before mangling your self-esteem entirely.
@@sarabensouda7422 Spammer Hamza
@@saro2991 so that makes him a spammer too right?
@@fevre_dream8542 Winter Wind relates to this comment
Sophie's selection tells us how mature she is as a pianist and a musician.
Definitely. It's funny how many Liszt pieces could be in the 'most difficult.' Totentanz solo piano version, to name one.
I honestly thought she will make a generic Mazeppa reference but this is on a different level entirely.
For me it was very weird she didn't put any pieces by prokofiev, rachmaninoff, stravinsky or scriabin in. There is also sorabji, barber etc. But those are not mainstream so doesn't surprise me that they are missing
@@hugod327 She mentions the names of Prok and Rach, though. Her personal preferences may also have been factored into her list, which is totally ok. And if I'm not wrong, Barber is more popular in the U.S. than in Europe, where Sophie is located in. He was American, after all. Sorabji and Alkan are for...the gods🙃
@@clairepianist I am from germany tho and I know of barber. But yes you are right
Brett reacting to the pieces being played: 🤓
Meanwhile Eddy: 🤯
Top 5 Most difficult pieces from me, an enlightened post-virtuoso:
5: Jingle Bells
4: Three Blind Mice
3: Dog's Waltz
2: Chopsticks
1: Cage 4'33"
These are all easy apart from 4:33 which is a masterpiece but Chopins dog waltz doesn’t deserve to be in the same list as chopsticks
@@tryinganna9883 Apparently Chopin's Minute waltz is also called the Dog Waltz? I meant this: /watch?v=HtPi1j3fK_Q
@@jamesrockybullin5250 yea he wrote is for his gf at the time, when they took a walk into the park she saw a dog and said to Chopin himself “if I had your talent I’d write a song about that dog” and the dog was meant to have been a small dog hence the name a lot of the composers have hilarious stories to their music, Handel used to throw shit and shout at the violinists when they would tune up shit like that
@@tryinganna9883 Daym, do you have a source that he wrote the Dog waltz? When I googled it, it said the composer was unknown.
Tough choices
of COURSE Liszt gets his own whole category. why wouldn't he.
th-cam.com/video/rCQ0x5gN1fM/w-d-xo.html🎹
More like he gets his own Liszt
@@sarabensouda7422 Spammer
And they didn't even put his sonata in b minor.... that is what I would consider the hardest liszt piece. Just look at the presto movement 😂 just listening to the whole piece made me lose confidence
@@user-qp1yg2bu1m I was shouting Don Juan across the screen lmao
Then the second one I was shouting SONATA and it becomes some random piece I’ve never heard 😂
"in response Ravel wanted to compose a piece that's even more difficult" - I'm so disappointed nobody made a "wow, that's some massive ravelry" pun 😢
Indeed! Ha, ha, ha, ha!
I didn't!
@Hamza Mzali I hate you
@@pe-peron8441 Just report his crap as spam; he's spamming this entire comments section.
@Hamza Mzali Spammer
1. Lang Lang plays Franz Liszt: Réminiscences de Don Juan (on themes from Mozart's Don Giovanni)
2. Yuja Wang plays Schubert/Liszt : Erlkönig
3. Grigory Sokolov plays Beethoven - Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major "Hammerklavier" Op. 106
4. Arcadi Volodos plays Schubert Piano Sonata D.894 - video 2000
5. Ivo Pogorelich ..Balakiriev - Islamey ..Carnegie Hall, 1992 ..
6. Martha Argerich | Ravel -Gaspard de la nuit: Scarbo (1980)
7. Grigory Sokolov - Bach - Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
8. Yefim Bronfman: Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30
9. Mitsuko Uchida - Beethoven - Piano Concerto No 4 in G major, Op 58
As a pianist I am happy she chose those pieces (and also if I wasn't a pianist haha). Often people think being technically good and being able to play very fast pieces is everything but once you've achieved that, you still need the emotional level (and much more) and that's way harder. In my opinion, that's the reason why there are only a few really really good pianists. Horowitz once said: "violin is hard at the beginning but gets easier over the years. Piano is easy to start with but gets harder over the years."
I think that there is a truth in that but for violin goes the same as piano; technique isn't everything. They're both absolutely beautiful instruments!
Sophie said really good things, thank you Sophie!
Edit: adjusted some grammatically wrong sentences and corrected my spelling.
Beautifully said. Also technique, not technic
@@dariusmite1562 Oh man, I knew there was something off..haha
Edit: adjusted it.
Feel like for some cases and pieces, technicality is the beginning and understanding and emotion is the finish
@@yorkzie7593 True true
twoset: *invites Sophie*
pianists (and everyone else) liked that
yes especially us piano players ☺️
R u talking bout simps my friend is one
@Franz Liszt bruh
Brett moving so much I can feel editor-san's "frame! 😠"
yes😂
Timestamp please?
@@cke900 Pretty much the entire video ? 😅
It was quarantine, he was just excited to be part of something 🤣
@@cke900 8:30 for example
I love the way Sophie articulates her sentences
So much better than pretty much any list I've seen. It's clear Sophie put a lot of thought into this, as these lists usually boil down to whatever the most virtuosic pieces the poster can play are, with maybe 1 or 2 pieces outside their repertoire. It's clear that Sophie is equally familiar with all the pieces has and has not learned and picked carefully from both. All and all, fantastic video! As a pianist (albeit strictly a hobbyist) I really enjoyed this!
The most difficult piece for piano is Fur Elise. The challenging part is to play it in a concert setting without the audience laughing.
Yeah I’ve played for 6 years and still haven’t mastered it.
@@notmusictheory74 Uhhh I think they're making fun of fur elise because it's so overplayed ;)
I once saw the video of Valentina Lisitsa playing Für Elise as a second encore (at a concert in Seoul). The audience laughed at first when they recognized the piece, then hushed when they heard what she was doing with it. She made it lush and emotional. Unexpectedly gorgeous.
@@plainmarienc Yes. Playing it isn't a problem, but making the audience moved is a completely different story.
@@plainmarienc fun fact fur Elise is used as a school bell in Korea in some schools
I love how she made different categories for different kinds of difficulties. It's not just a list but she really explored all the variety that's in piano music
Absolutely
@Hamza Mzali 😆
@Hamza Mzali Spammer
Its not a simple list but a Liszt ...sorry
@@kestrel3509 I was waiting for someone to tell that joke ahahah
I love this kind of nerdy music content so much. Please make more of this conversational video with your music friends.
High praise to Sophie for the selections and commentary. Insightful, even-handed, immune to critical pettiness, personally voiced yet without ego, eminently practical. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.
"Liszt was a rockstar..."
- Len Bee 🐝
LMAOOO
🤣🤣🤣🤣
@Hamza Mzali Spammer
LMFAOOOOOOO
And liszt can play 400 notes
(i wrote this reply at 420 likes lol)
i always like it when they’re on “music nerd” mode. it’s so interesting to hear their opinions about music for someone like me, a non musician. just to see them being excited and super in the zone, it’s just sooo precious to me 🥰
th-cam.com/video/rCQ0x5gN1fM/w-d-xo.html
Sophie is such a quality musician with thoughtful commentary. I learn new things every video she's in. Thank you Sophie!
Very clever video, and an excellent message! One of my piano teachers used to say that the less notes, the more difficult, because you can't hide anywhere. I see it present all along the video, very happy to see not only loud and flashy pieces, as opposed to many other videos about the same topic
"What about someone with small hands, what do they do?"
We nod, then smile, and accept defeat with happy tears, Eddy. :')
Yes, happy tears. Very happy tears. :')
So true 😭 I have very small hands(I can’t even play an octave) and so it’s hard for me to play difficult pieces.
Yes happy tears only! :)
@Hamza Mzali Spammer
@@xlilyx3396 But these pieces are not so difficult for people with big hands. ANYTHING well played is difficult to do.
Unpopular opinion, but I think smaller hands actually have some advantages in certain kinds of music because we can play between the black keys a lot easier than people with big hands. Yuja doesn't have big hands and is a tiny person, but she has zero problem playing most music, and I wonder if some of that is because her small hands allow her to be more agile. If you look closely, you can tell that she has to roll a lot of intervals and when she has to play loud octaves, she often hits extra notes.
Brett is becoming a vampire.
@Hamza Mzali Spammer
@@aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah What an asshole. Even spamming isn't getting you noticed by anyone who appreciates music.
Sophie has a lovely way of talking about music. Her description of the Beethoven concerto immediately made and made my enjoy the clip more than I ever would have before.
Plus she has a magnificent couch.
It’s always so nice to see Sophie. Love these videos with her.
Sophie's voice is so relaxing i can listen to her all day for meditating.
yes we need Sophie asmr
@Hamza Mzali Spammer
@@pvandck spammer
Oui oui
It’s always very eye-opening to listen to musicians explaining the level of difficulties about music. For me, as a non-musician and mere listener, I wouldn’t possibly understand this without such explanation. Love this sort of video:)
@Hamza Mzali 😆
@Hamza Mzali shut up
@Hamza Mzali Spammer
Same here.
While I may be a self-taught cellist, I don't have the professional upbringing and knowledge that these people have. And since I am currently planning out and writing a slice-of-life webcomic about a music uni, it requires tons of research, and videos like these are a big eye-opener to the ins and outs of music education, musicality, theory and many others even down to its history. So yeah, I'm with you on that. And I'm more than grateful for having discovered Twoset's channel.
Yep, true.
This was so fun to watch. It reminded me of how much I used to love experiencing music at your age. Good luck with all your careers!
Balakirev: *writes Islamey*
Ravel: *writes Gaspard de la Nuit*
Alkan: “Hold my champagne”
Ah! It's the long-running TH-cam-evangelist of Alkan -- OrangeSodaKing, himself! Thanks for always repping the most underrated composer in all of classical music!
Sorabji:Hold my 336 pages of Opus Archimagicum
Lumbye: Thanks, I'll use your champagne as an instrument.
@@EliteKnightHelm I will, with huge pleasure
First thing I notice:
Brett, either you’ve mastered lighting or you are positively GLOWINGGGGG✨
(And I suck at piano octaves, as a piano-viola student with tiny and inflexible hands ;-;)
So do I blame quarantine or credit it
That man is a vampire now
#teampianoviola XD
^ a terrible player who keeps on promoting himself 😅
He is absolutely glowing and he's so good-looking that i forgot to press the like button...
0:30 "That's terrible."
"It's really funny though."
Gave me "Oh no! Anyway," vibes.
“Oh she passed away? Ok”
@Hamza Mzali Spammer
I’m so glad that they finally got to listen to some Ravel piano pieces. They have such a unique and identifiable sound to them, and although not my favorite sounding are some of my favorite pieces to play and listen to
Great video! Loved Sophie's picks for each category
Brett's camera quality make him looked like he's in a K-pop MV Lmao
Completely off topic. Why are they suddenly in quarantine? Isn't the world kind of back opening...almost back to 'normal ' with some restrictions ?
@@brendamiller5785 Australia has not enacted overall shutdowns - they close and strictly quarantine by the state when they have outbreaks. So probably some of the Eastern states have an outbreak, and so they're shut down for a few weeks.
@@brendamiller5785 i'm late but they were quarantined because they went back to australia from singapore, and anyone traveling to australia must quarantine for two weeks
Pieces:
1. Liszt - Réminiscences de Don Juan, S.418 - 2:40
2. Schubert/Liszt - Erlkönig - 4:52
3. Beethoven - Piano Sonata No.29 in B-flat Major, "Hammerklavier" - 6:46
4. Schubert - Piano Sonata No.18 in G Major, D.894 - 9:06
5. Balakirev - Islamey - 11:09
6. Ravel - Gaspard de la nuit (Scarbo) - 12:12
7. Bach - Goldberg Variations - 15:49
8. Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No.3 (Cadenza) - 17:33
9. Beethoven - Piano Concerto No.4 in G Major, Op.58 - 20:34
Hope this helps...😄
Thanks very much!
no Sorabji, Ligeti, Finnissy... so, what are we talking about?
@@null8295 The pieces are mainly earlier than those composers, and because this is a "classical" music channel they stayed away from atonal pieces.
@@InfluxDecline I was sarcastic, however the title says "The Most Difficult Piano Pieces OF ALL TIME" which is clickbait then.
Cziffra. Anything.
12:25 Ravel just invented the vibrato for piano.
Sophie, you have a gift! I was impressed with your natural, inspiring and fun way of conveying the story behind every piece you've captured here. Keep doing this, you'll eventually capture a large audience, I'm sure of it.
The "simple" pieces often means your tiniest lack of precision, time-wise or strength-wise or both, will stand out like a pimple in a beauty contest.
Even as an intermediate player I felt crazy having so much trouble on simple pieces... Every note has to be masterfully played or it sounds awful. There's playing the notes and then thinking about how they're played.
It's like bowling vs. golf. Golf you're having to navigate ridiculous terrains, hit all sorts of different kinds of shots, spins, etc. and pros make mistakes but noobs would be making mistakes on practically every shot. In bowling you're just doing the same thing over and over and over again, but between the super challenging oil patterns they give pros and being ever so slightly off can totally ruin the game and hand you a loss. Noobs might string together a couple strikes on simple oil patterns but aren't getting 230+ game after game after game on all sorts of different oil patterns. Definitely different kinds of challenging - golf on the surface looks way more challenging but they're really both equally challenging.
@@planetary-rendez-vous I'm learning Mozart's Fantasia in D Minor, and I'm finding the Presto cadenzas easier than the Adagio and Allegretto parts
Fun Fact: Sophie is an established violinist who is playing on a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin lent by The Österreichische Nationalbank. Hilary Hahn is also playing on Vuillaume violins
th-cam.com/video/rCQ0x5gN1fM/w-d-xo.html🎹🎹🎹
@@sarabensouda7422 Spammer
This Sophie??
@@santyr6499 No, it’s Sophie oui oui
@@santyr6499 yup. She plays violin and piano equally well.
The three of you make a perfect team. All so young, and yet with such brilliant original thoughts. Fascinating videos!
thank you guys, this list is really thought through. it gave me some ideas about what to learn next :)
Fun fact. The version of La Campanella that is played today is literally a DUMBED DOWN version of the original. Liszt himself acknowledged that it was virtually unplayable (except for him, of course) and did a transcription to make it "simpler".
I really wish I could have heard Liszt playing in his prime - every other pianist and composer who witnessed said it was unparalleled and mind blowing to watch him
th-cam.com/video/rCQ0x5gN1fM/w-d-xo.html🎹🎹🎹
Thanks for this extra bit of information!
This reminds me of a story: Balakirev played 'Islamey' for Liszt, he wanted to get his opinion, and after hearing the piece once, Liszt went to the piano and played it right back to Balikirev perfectly. The man was just insanely gifted.
I'm honestly so glad that "La Campanella" was nowhere near this video. It's reached such a meme status on the Internet, but I don't think it really belongs on that list of insanely difficult piano works. I think it's more like Chopin's Op. 10 No. 1 where yes, it's fucking hard and requires a lot of specialized practice, but it's kind of a spammy, one-dimensional study (they're études, not concert pieces!) that if you really dedicate yourself to learning exactly those techniques in those pieces, you can actually learn to sound pretty decent at them without being a particularly good pianist. I've actually heard poor pianists sound pretty good at those études, like people with only 2-3 years experience sound competent. Meanwhile, they would sound terrible trying to play something technically much simpler like "Clair de Lune" because "Clair de Lune" actually requires you to listen, not just hit the correct buttons at the right time.
@@mbvglider Well said! A beautifully played Claire de la Lune can be heavenly
As pianist I love this! I can spend an entire hour's lesson on 4 measures and regular people have no idea the amount of effort it takes to make it sound easy. Thank you Sophie!
@Hamza Mzali I like your playing and touch; but please, stop spamming the comment section with your videos.
been watching this numerous times and cant get enough of it!! hope there would be more twoset + sophie contents coming up!! 💕💕💕
You guys are so much fun. Sophie, Chloe, Hilary, too. Thanks
Her point about Mozart slow movements is another way of saying that some musicians aren’t very musical, no matter how skilled they are as technicians of their instrument.
th-cam.com/video/rCQ0x5gN1fM/w-d-xo.html🎹🎹🎹
@@sarabensouda7422 Spammer
You are so right. There are "Technicians", and there are "Musicians". The best are both.
THIS! And people are favoring so much the "technicians", I don't know why. Ideally, a musician is both, but I'd take a musician that is very musical but not too good with technique over a great technician with no musicality. Music is meant to express something and make you feel emotions. What's the point of great technique if we don't feel a thing?
Lang Lang?
Can we please just appreciate how she describes these things in her second language? I can't even explain that in my mother tongue ..
Yes! If I didn't know, I probably wouldn't even notice that it's her second language.
Are you sure it's not her third or fourth language?
I don't even can😂
@Mark Wang German. She is from Austria.
Hi ! Yes I agree with you I’m the same as you 😂😂😭
Ps: we say “I can’t even explain” and no “I don’t even can explain”
Because there are 2 auxiliary verbs in your sentence 😇☺️
Thanks you guys, thanks Sophie, what a wonderful piece of entertainment! To make this kind of programme at all amusing, you have to be so very musical, no I mean REALLY musical! Great interaction with that amazing girl. That's all for now, for I now have to play it all over again, over again, over again...
This has to be one the very best 2Set Violin videos ever ! And Hilary Hahn doesn't even feature. However Sophie Druml videos are always a cut above. Herein lies probably the most inspiring aspect of classical music for an audience or audio listener; that being a particularly difficult (or impossible !) piece of music for the soloist to play. You can tell the soloist is working hard and doesn't the audience or listener appreciate it ! Thank you 2Set & Sophie - ("Oui Oui" indeed, Sophie is not French !). What better video when we are in full lock down.
Not hearing the soloist is NOT the soloist’s fault, it’s the conductor’s fault for not keeping his orchestra “under” the solo instrument. There isn’t any excuse when you are presenting an amazing soloist with your orchestra to let them be drowned out by an over exuberant orchestra.
depends on the skill level of the soloist, but in professional orchestras, yes
Tbh kinda true but also kinda false. Piano concertos are not just red carpet for pianists, they're complex pieces where orchestra is as important as piano (talking about Rach3 rather than Chopin concerti).
So if there is "tutti" and FF in orchestra and you as a pianist have to play as well, orchestra can't play mf in order to have piano be heard. Well it can but the result is underwhelming anyways. Imagine Prokofiev's 2nd concerto, the return of the orchestra after the piano cadenza in the first movement. That's the mission impossible for pianist - loudest as you can, accent on every note (as written by the composer himself) and flushing-like sound of orchestra that can make the hall explode.
Piano concertos are written such that there are just enough musicians in the orchestra making just enough sound that if every musician is playing at the written dynamics and the piano is of concert quality, the piano should be heard to satisfactory levels by the audience. I doubt that professional orchestra musicians are massively messing up their dynamics, so I'm going to say that the pianist is most likely to be the weak link if I can't hear the piano.
+ the piano technician. The tuning work is vital both for the tone quality and sound.
usually concert conductors generally can adjust themselves as per the soloist choices... i noticed this in the chopin piano concerto no 1 ... where the orchestra kinda plays like a accompaniment in most of the cases and not having like a conversation with the soloist... but then i heard zimmerman's recording and he himself conducts it and makes it such that there is a active conversation between the soloist and the orchestra and not just a solo performance...
the same with Tchaikovsky piano concerto where the role is reversed as the main melody is carried by the orchestra and piano sometimes has to be the accompaniment .. piano concertos truly difficult in the sense that people think piano is a solo instrument but it really isnt ..
I'm glad Sophie included Beethoven 4. That opening is definitely not to be underestimated. I've studied the piece for a long time and still don't have it perfected. Mitsuko Uchida's performance, that Sophie played, IMO is the best, although Lang Lang also has a beautiful touch with the piece. It's worth listening to these versions to get some idea of what Sophie is talking about.
I'm also surprised they didn't mention the 2nd movement, it's intense as heck!
@Hamza Mzali Spammer
Zimmerman is the best I think
Arrau
Yes, the opening of Beethoven 4 is very hard to do well. Lee Luvisi said if you can really play the opening well, you’re probably good enough to play the rest of the concerto well.
Seriously enjoyed that and would live to hear more, because your explanation of what's happening made it so much more interesting. Thank you
Hi twoset ! I wanted to let you know that your work helps me to stay motivated despite the difficulty of violin learning. Thank you very much for that ! Go practice !
Me for the whole time: OMG THEIR SKINNN
BRETT I CANT WITH YOU
Yes y Brett's skin looks so white and shine y
So... a 23 minute long video about some of the most amazing pieces of the piano repertoire, featuring a wonderful pianist, and you're focusing on their skin ? 🤔
@@C4pt41nN3m0 _SOME_ TwoSet fans. Luckily, many of us care about the actual content...
@@MissTwoSetEncyclopedia I enjoyed the content while also admiring their fabulous skin the whole video✨
@@NoOne-hl2eo Glad to know their fabulous skin didn't prevent you from enjoying the music. Pretty sure Brett and Eddy would be disappointed to learn that their looks are so distracting that their followers can't focus on the content they're working hard to produce... 😘
Der Erlkönig giving nightmares to musicians all across the instruments.
th-cam.com/video/rCQ0x5gN1fM/w-d-xo.html🎹🎹
One answer to that - slow down and use the double beat metronome practice. Many pianos themselves won't even support such quick repeating notes, and certainly no piano will support it at the metronome mark using the single beat metronome practice advocated by Sousa. And many other pieces sound better in double beat than single beat even if they can technically support both.
@@johnb6723 double beat is used when you don’t want to admit that you aren’t good enough for correct tempo
even the poem can give you nightmares
I loved this video. Seeing musicians talk about music so passionately is great. And I LOVE the girl's voice -- her accent was so pleasing to listen to.
I know right? i actually googled her and she is German and Italian. Such an amazing accent
The Schubert d.894 at 9:06 gave me one of those 'musical moments' where it felt like everything stopped and all I felt was a love and appreciation for how beautiful music is and I cried. I haven't had that in a long long time and it felt so good. Thank you for that
So true!!!
You feel music!👍🏻
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
🙋🏻♂️
You can see the love and passion that Sophie has for the piano and for music.
@TheCartoon94 Dabs oui oui!
Other piano pieces that are considered to be some of the most difficult:
- Liszt: Sonata in B minor, Feux follets
- Beethoven: Diabelli Variations
- Beethoven/Liszt: Symphony No. 9
- Schubert: Wanderer Fantasy
- Schumann: Toccata
- Alkan: Le Preux, Concerto for Solo Piano
- Stravinsky: Trois mouvements de Petrouchka
- Scriabin: Sonata No. 5
- Ives: Concord Sonata
- Sorabji: Opus clavicembalisticum, Symphonic Variations, Sonata No. 3, Opus Archimagicum
- Any Mozart Concerto
- Brahms: Concerto No. 2
- Prokofiev: Concerto No. 2
- Bartok: Concerto No. 2
Ives- Concord Sonata
Surprised to see no Méreaux or Alkan on either list lol
Alkan le preux
Alkan Concerto for Solo Piano is another one I'd undoubtedly add
Also, Sorabji Opus Archimagicum and Sonata 3 are 2 of his hardest pieces and definitely harder than Opus Clavicembalisticum and Symphonic Variations.
to me rachmaninoff beautifully straddles the line between difficult and musical. there are so many pieces, especially by liszt, that are incredibly difficult, but really are more showy than they are pleasing to listen to. i dont know how rach does it, but almost all of his music is so much fun to listen to.
I don't enjoy overly the final long fugal movement in Beethoven's 'Hammerklavier' either. It's incredibly hard to perfom, but sounds like a flashy, extended technical exercise more than an actual part of the sonata. Beethoven himself was aware of this, and suggested that if performers wished they could just end the sonata on its third movement.
þere is no line
@@iainrobb2076 Where did you learn that about the Hammerklavier?
@@BRNRDNCK From the liner notes, if I remember, of the Alfred Brendel edition of the late piano sonatas.
if you think liszt is all flash, you clearly don't know liszt
I love her selection and explanation. It's a great peek into difficulties of playing a piano.
I'd just add Prokofiev's 2nd concerto to the list, it's the same category as Rach 3rd but even more difficult.
'But then again, you are Martha Argerich.'
'Yes, and she can do anything.'
- Yep. One of the M.A.-facets.
th-cam.com/video/rCQ0x5gN1fM/w-d-xo.html
Me : spends 2 hours on TH-cam
Me : OK I should practice
Twoset : *uploads*
Me: *What is it you want, Lingling?*
@Hamza Mzali Spammer
What a wonderful video and discussion about these pieces, really enjoyed hearing your reflections.
12:03 it's Brett and Eddie's synchronous head tilt, for me
As soon as she said repetative oktaves I knew the Erlkönig was on this list.
I suffered that piece too 🥲
Cant wait to see Brett and Eddy together after quarantine again
Wait, I'm confused. Why are they quarantined? Is one of them sick? Or is it a traveling precaution?
@@blankexpression34 They're travelling and have the obligation to stay in a quarantine hotel for a certain period of time after their international flight.
@@MissTwoSetEncyclopedia Ah okay
@@blankexpression34 returning to Australia-maybe for visa reasons. Have to quarantine x2 weeks. They got out a day or two ago, but so far they haven’t made a video together,. Must be enjoying family. And fresh air.
@@susanbryant6516 Mm okay. That's good that they've been able to see their families again
Listening to everyone explaining the difficulties and relating them to their instrument is so beautiful and cool about understanding each other's perspectives!
For the organ, one of the hardest pieces *I've played* (though I wouldn't consider it the hardest, that honor would probably go to Max Reger's B.A.C.H. with double pedal in quick succession) would be Duruflé's *Prélude, Adagio & Choral varié on the thème 'Veni Creator'* where similar to Liszt's passage that Lang Lang makes so easy to sound, the prelude in this piece is incredibly hard from both a musical and technical standpoint. It requires playing on 3 different manuals at some point (where your thumb needs to stick out on the bottom manual just to play another outcoming melody) and the worst part of it all is that, if played correctly, any audience would say that it should auditively be the easiest of the three segments, when in reality it's freakin hell to get it all together 😅 A fun challenge though, and really beautiful when you've got it all together.
Well, Reger's BACH pales in comparison to Sorabji's 3rd Organ Symphony, but it's still really crazy.
I attended a recital at the Eastman School in which the organist played that Reger. I was absolutely astounded. What an amazing piece.
@@MatthewChapmanSTL The Reger BACH piece is actually easier than his seven Chorale Fantasies. The Durufle piece is hell-on-wheels to both learn and play. It took me three years and eight months to learn. An absolute monster. But so sublime and both inspired and inspiring!
@@josephlindquist506 I remember attending an organ recital for a grad student I knew at college, and it was a Durufle piece, and there were singers in the balcony behind me. I remember being astounded at that piece, too. Was it perhaps the Veni Creator?
@@MatthewChapmanSTL Most likely. The piece is frequently presented with verses of the chant sung between the variations.
As a small handed pianist I appreciate so much what Sophie said regarding the repetitive octaves...I'm one of those who just can't do them. No matter how hard I practice. We average-female-hand-size pianists need an instrument that fit our hands!!!!
th-cam.com/video/rCQ0x5gN1fM/w-d-xo.html🎹🎹🎹
My hands have stayed the same size since I started playing as a kid (i.e. tiny - most 12-year olds have bigger hands than mine). Octaves+ were my bane but doing a bunch of stretching exercises (off and with the piano) and good rolling/angling techniques have helped tremendously. From a barely octave reach to a barely there 9 and a doable (slow) 10.
Also, there are custom pianos with narrower keys available. But I agree, repetitive octaves and insane stretches still make me cry...
Yes we do! And it exists. Steinway do a narrow-keys retrofit, if you pay them enough. If we demand it and talk about it enough, eventually the mass manufacturers will do it.
Play on period instruments, the keys are typically narrower than the Steinway type, the catch is you need to be more careful with your touch... can't apply as much upper arm strength on a period piano as one does on a Steinway
Yes. Hands are not too small. It’s the keys which are too large.
Watching Yuja is always so inspiring for me. She's a small person with small hands, but she just gets the most explosive sounds from the piano, and she does it all in high heels that leave her in pain at the end of every performance. I had been away from piano for almost two decades before I saw her play Prokofiev's Toccata and wanted to play piano again after seeing her. If you want to see someone in maximum state of flex, watch her "Scarbo." I swear, she plays it twice as fast as most people do. Her technique is simply otherworldly.
listening to her is a delight
I wouldn't be surprised if Yuja is Chinese for "flex" because she is a being borne to "flex" on us. Hahahaha
@@VaioletteWestover Her Chinese name is 羽佳 which means "beautiful wings" which kinda fits her tbh
She has huge hands!
@@liellavi5722 She doesn't, though. There are pictures of her hands online. Her hands are decently sized for a woman, but they're not huge by any metric. She can stretch for a 10th, but you can hear in music with many 10ths (like Schumann Piano Concerto) that she tends to stagger them. Her hands look about the same as mine, and I'm considered to have small hands.
I really enjoyed this video. Regardless of whether you agree with if they were the most difficult or not, I appreciated the thought and break down behind each piece. Lovely video!
What you didn't mention about the Erlkönig and what I find super hard while playing it: it's not only that you have to play repetitive octaves, but sometimes the melody interferes with the octaves by containing the same notes. So you have to manage to keep the octaves in the background while not losing the melody. What makes this especially hard is, that normally you would keep the melody with your pedal, but since the octaves hit the same note, you are not able to do that, otherwise it gets to loud...
it's hard to explain but it's a reaaal pain in the ass. The part that sophie showed is really one of the most harmless parts of the piece :D
Eddy: "What about someone with small hands? What do you do?"
Sophie: "Play violin."
^^ missed opportunity
th-cam.com/video/rCQ0x5gN1fM/w-d-xo.html🎹🎹🎹🎹
*sobs in tenths*
a bit weird seeing brett and eddy not in one room together
@Hamza Mzali Spammer
@@pvandck Hamza is a tone deaf idiot who thinks you can bludgeon an audience to form. But their "music" really sucks.
Awesome! Thank you, Sophie, for your insights.
I like how much time, thought, and effort Sophie put into this! You don't pay her enough! I always love Bret's reaction to amazing things! he just sits there and just exists, then he snaps back to reality and tries to say something meaning but just goes WHOOOOAAAAAAAAAA.
Here is the playlist for this episode with Sophie's selection of most difficult piano pieces of all times:
th-cam.com/play/PLQ7amm3tQ3eFJY61BggAbSIlWVDYKsGpu.html
This playlist is gonna be epic. Thank you Sophie for curating these pieces for us!
Thank you!
@@kavigollamudi Yes, I saw it too. I replaced it with another recording of Hammerklaviersonate also by Sokolov.
For pianists, you have to have mind control....even if you have it in muscle memory, you need to control your urge of speeding it up and pace yourself. Sometimes this is even harder than the fast Chopin repertoires. Piano Gang rocks!
true i found chopins winter etude difficult at first but then it became easier once the muscle memory kicked in ... i am no pro but i can atleast hit the notes and have the dynamics with my left.. but i really found difficult to master the tempest 3rd movement like the balance between my hands for me always never works.. maybe cause i dont practice the right way or maybe its my digital piano (cause me very broke college student). also chopins winter etude has a freedom of you can play it little slower and also not care too much about the dynamics as majority of the piece kinda repeats the first bars...hence these are etudes like meant for hining your skills not to show them off...
So true... For one of my graded pieces it was all semi quaver runs on the right hand so that got into my muscle memory and it took immense control not to speed it up and to keep it in time with the left hand which was accompanying with quavers and crotchets
I think that's true on all instruments. In some ways more difficult not to speed up on melodic instruments without accompaniment, as they don't have anything to hold them back except an inner sense of beat.
@@materdeimusicd.buckley2974 yep I agree with that also, because I also play saxophone and when a run is in my muscle memory it is incredibly hard to not speed up especially when playing without a metronome
Vielen Dank Sophie bei allen von Ihren Klavier Herstellungen!
I love the way she describes things. I LVOE that she speaks on how musicality on the piano is really about HOW you play the key a certain way and not just technique.
yo, you guys should review jazz music. like, actual jazz, and honestly too. i think that would make an entertaining video, and possibly even a series of people react well and you guys enjoy it.
Yes!!
Absolutely. As someone who plays piano but started with jazz rather than classical, I feel a lot of people don't remember the incredible jazz pieces at all. Classical music is lovely, but jazz is just so fun
@@michaelturner5093 Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum!
I'm glad she put in that Schubert Sonata -- it's good to remind people that "simple" can be really hard. It's why I like almost everything of Erik Satie: reduce the complexity and all you're left with is your interpretation of what is, on the surface, simple; technically simple and anything but straightforward. In particular what I love is that I can have 5 different performances of one set in my collection (2 by the same performer) and each is so different I can listen to one after another as different pieces of music rather than trying to compare each performance.
Seeing only a glimpse of those many subtleties is already marvelous, thank you Sophie :-)
Lingling: *finally a worthy opponent*
It’s over nine thousand
@Hamza Mzali shut up spammer
Also Ling Ling: *But I can play all of them at the same time*
That Rachmaninoff cadenza never fails to give me goosebumps
Same man
Beautiful interview. This will help with my technique. Thank you.
Sophie is great. She gave perfect insight on why these pieces are hard and what makes a piece hard. Loved it. :)
I’ve begun to learn violin in the past few months and I just wanted to thank TwoSet for always inspiring me. After watching their lively and enthusiastic content it gets me excited to practice and better my skills as a musician (even though my beginner tone still sounds like a dying goat) hahaaaa okay anyway love you guys and thank you again :)
Congratulations, keep it up ! 🤗
@@MissTwoSetEncyclopedia Thank you so much! Will do :)
@Hamza Mzali Sounds great!
@Hamza Mzali Spammer
Don't worry sounding like a dying animal for the first few years is normal😂 but then on it gets easier and easier (relatively)