# Which pieces are your favourite to PLAY?



## wolfgangamadeus (Feb 8, 2014)

Are the pieces you enjoy playing the same as the ones you enjoy listening to? For me this is NOT always the case. Some of my favourite pieces to play are not ones I'm particularly interested in listening to. For example I love playing Bach. It sits really well under the fingers and is a real pleasure to play, but I don't often listen to it. Here's me playing one of my favourites that I recorded last month.






Anyway I'd be interested to get your views on this


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

If I were a far better pianist, I'd certainly love to play virtuosic pieces by Liszt and Chopin, maybe even Alkan, Godowsky and other composer-pianists who were kind of nuts -- even though I almost never listen to their music these days if I ever did.


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

My favourite pieces to listen to are the sonatas of Beethoven and the contrapuntal works of Bach.

In contrast, my favourite piece to play is probably the first Gnossienne from Satie. I love the way that the slow and repetitive chord changes fit so well under my fingers.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

At the piano, I enjoy playing Bach and Chopin. I'm not playing very much lately, but whenever I do it, I greatly enjoy playing the gigue from the keyboard Partita Nº5 and the first Polonaise Op.26, pieces which I learned quite a time ago.

I listen to Bach regularly, I rarely listen to Chopin.


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## wolfgangamadeus (Feb 8, 2014)

Winterreisender said:


> In contrast, my favourite piece to play is probably the first Gnossienne from Satie.


Hey, I've just bought a book of Satie and was playing through the first Gnossiene about 10 minutes ago! I agree... a great one to play


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I definitely enjoy playing Baroque and Classical music much more than listening to Baroque and Classical. I do listen to it of course, but I definitely enjoy playing the Bach flute sonatas a lot more than I enjoy something I don't play, such as string-only chamber music. I get a lot of appreciation out of otherwise foreign or non-preferred pieces of music just by being made to play it. The Rachmaninoff Symphony No.2 was like that. Before then, I really didn't like it because I felt it overly-sentimental. However, after going through the rehearsal routine of playing things over and over again, I began looking at the piece as more than just a bunch of schmaltz, and I saw other positives like particular thematic material, cyclical forms, etc. The first movement is now my favorite movement of that work.

Depending on the part, Principal Flute part of Beethoven's orchestral pieces can be enjoyable, even therapeutic with the occasional soloistic straight-forward virtuosity. I've played so many things now by Beethoven that I go into a different mindset when performing him than the usual. But as everyone knows about my opinion _otherwise _of Beethoven...


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## wolfgangamadeus (Feb 8, 2014)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Depending on the part, Principal Flute part of Beethoven's orchestral pieces can be enjoyable, even therapeutic...


I get the same thing when playing Bach Goldberg Variations


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

As a piano player, I would agree with the original post and say Bach would be my favorite to play. I'm not greatly skilled so up to this point, I've stuck with his inventions. As for other composers, I know some relatively easier pieces by Chopin and Beethoven also but enjoy playing the Bach more. I guess I'm a sucker for the counterpoint.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Schubert & Gershwin*

Right now there are two pieces that I really enjoy playing.

Schubert _Unfinished Symphony_. I hesitate to mention this here. In another thread one of our more opinionated members is trying to make a case that any musical training or performance experience is worthless when it comes to appreciating music. Of course one does not need a PHD in chord progressions to appreciate music and be an effectivle listener. But to say that it is worthless is also bogus.

In order to try to make the point that performance experiences in some situations can help, I mentioned a recent experience with the Schubert _Unfinished Symphony_. For years I never could get the piece. Our community orchestra will be performing it in our next concert. As a result of rehearsing it, I gained a newfound appreciation for the work and I am having a great deal of pleasure playing it.

Although most of the members understood the point I was trying to make, my obeservation did not sit well with a few members.

Gershwin _Cuban Overture_. I also play the bassoon with a community band. We are doing a fantastic arrangement of the _Cuban Overture_ that is a real blast to play.


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Interesting that Bach has come up so much on this thread so far. I agree that it's much easier to appreciate Bach when one has studied his music in detail, which usually we do when learning to play it. Actually my favorite thing is to listen to several different excellent pianists perform music that I've studied. Including Bach for sure.

But I don't get quite as obsessive with music listening as with playing. I might listen to the same piece a few times a week, but I won't listen to a recording of the same piece for hours on end every day the way I do when playing... So my listening is more diverse and less repetitive. And of course I love listening to many things I can't play by myself, like orchestral and choral and chamber music.

Right now I'm obsessed with playing Schubert/D. 845 and Ravel/Tombeau de Couperin and the Bach A major fugue from book 1 of the WTK.


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## nightscape (Jun 22, 2013)

I'm terrible at the piano, but I like playing Debussy's "Girl with the Flaxen Hair", Grieg's "Notturno" and Schumann's "Träumerei".


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I was surprised to hear this expressed by a fellow pianist... something I had thought I might have been alone in thinking until he said, "Chopin is far more interesting to play than to listen to."


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I was once able to get through Beethoven's third piano concerto after a fashion. These days I realise that one can put on a recording of a great pianist who will play it infinitely better than I could imagine ever doing. So I'm afraid I do much more listening than playing these days.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Have Fun*



DavidA said:


> I was once able to get through Beethoven's third piano concerto after a fashion. These days I realise that one can put on a recording of a great pianist who will play it infinitely better than I could imagine ever doing. So I'm afraid I do much more listening than playing these days.


One of the purpose of playing is to have fun. Do you think our little community orchestra plays as well as Berlin? We are massacring the piece.


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## wolfgangamadeus (Feb 8, 2014)

arpeggio said:


> One of the purpose of playing is to have fun. Do you think our little community orchestra plays as well as Berlin? We are massacring the piece.


I agree. But I also sympathize with DavidA. I used to love the challenge of trying to get to grips with really difficult pieces and testing my technique (which was rarely up to it). Now I much prefer playing more simple pieces really well. I think you just go through phases...


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I find I often gain the most enjoyment out of pieces when I'm in the process of first learning them, so I like to look at my playing as a journey more than a destination. That said there is also a distinct satisfaction to be had from playing something well, so I relate to the OP's point about simple pieces.

At the moment my favorite pieces to play on guitar are:

Rodrigo - Tiento Antiguo
Bach - Allegro from BWV 1003
Bach - Bouree from BWV 996
Ravel - Prelude

On Piano:
The exercises in Bartok's Mikrokosmos Book I - very simple but that is where I'm at, and regardless of difficulty level/complexity I'm enjoying these pieces a lot.


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## nightscape (Jun 22, 2013)

Strangely enough, I didn't even mention guitar in my intial post, which is my primary instrument (the one I went to school for). I've been recently obsessed with getting better as a pianist that it didn't cross my mind!

My favorite guitar pieces to play are the Lauro waltzes.


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

Ok, as I said earlier in the post, my favorite composer to play is Bach. That was based on playing a few of his inventions. Now I'm going to amend that answer to a resounding BACH!!!. I've just started learning his fugue in c-major from WTC Book 1 and what a thrill this is. I've never learned a fugue and it's complexity makes it a blast to play. I've only got about 5 bars down so I know it'll get harder but nothing I don't think I can handle.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Mozart 20
Piano transcription of mozart 40


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

I play some guitar (I used to be a much better guitar player when I was a teenager...), so for me the most enjoyable pieces to play are:

Villa-Lobos: the five preludes and some etudes (the easier ones  from his 12 etudes collection).


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## worov (Oct 12, 2012)

On the piano :


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Schumann and Grieg piano concertos


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## musicrom (Dec 29, 2013)

I'm a terrible pianist, but Beethoven's Sonata Pathétique is really fun for me to (try to) play.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

I love playing Schubert Impromptus, John Ireland's Scenes for Children.
Chopin is great to play too. Some of the Nocturnes and occasionally I try and massacre Ballade No.1

I used to listen to these pieces. But when you spend hours upon hours mastering a piece you tend to know it backwards, sideways, and every ways. So it's a long time since I've bothered listening to them.


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