# Miniature pieces < 2 minutes



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

We've had a thread about very short pieces before. Some don't really like very short pieces, because there's too little time for something to develop. I myself am very fond of short, self-contained pieces and I think there's still time for something worthwhile to happen in even 1 or 2 minutes. Also, there is the play or repeat button.  Think of it as watching pictures instead of a movie.

Any suggestions for very short pieces? *Maximum 2 minutes performing time.*
(As for solo piano, I've heard everything by Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Scriabin)


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Pretty much most pieces by Anton von Webern are going to be less than 2 minutes easily. You ought to check it out.


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## SilverSurfer (Sep 13, 2014)

Short enough, 4 studies in less than 3'?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

This isn't exactly classical but vol, 1 of this collection (overseen by ex-Mott The Hoople keyboard player Morgan Fisher) contained some very pithy stuff:

















When vol. 1 was released there was a limited edition which contained lots of suitably miniature objects, such as a set of playing cards and a diary(!)


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Erik Satie is your man. The Avant-dernieres pensees, the 4 Ogives, the Carnet d'esquisses et de croquis and some of the Danses Gothiques. Also several lieder by Schubert (Heidenroslein, Seligkeit, Der Schiffer, Gondelfahrer, etc.) are 2 minutes or less in lenght.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

St. Matthew Passion (Matthäuspassion), for soloists, double chorus & double orchestra, BWV 244 (BC D3b): 50a. Recitative -Evangelist: Sie schrieen aber noch mehr is pretty short along with two other pieces.

Also Bach 2-Part Invention in F = 42 seconds.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Webern has already been mentioned, but also Schoenberg wrote fantastic miniatures.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Langgaard in 1917 composed a startling and eerie collection of brief miniatures called Insectarium, very ahead of its time and of absolute originality. I don't think I know anything similar.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Der Leiermann said:


> Erik Satie is your man. The Avant-dernieres pensees, the 4 Ogives, the Carnet d'esquisses et de croquis and some of the Danses Gothiques. Also several lieder by Schubert (Heidenroslein, Seligkeit, Der Schiffer, Gondelfahrer, etc.) are 2 minutes or less in lenght.


Also, the pieces in Sports et Divertissements are even shorter.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Stravinsky's _Preludium for Jazz Band_ clocks in at around 86 seconds.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

norman bates said:


> Langgaard in 1917 composed a startling and eerie collection of brief miniatures called Insectarium, very ahead of its time and of absolute originality. I don't think I know anything similar.


The one about mosquitoes is spot on.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Thanks everyone.

Hehe, those insect pieces are quite fun.

Here's one of the oddest short pieces from Scriabin, Poeme Op. 69 No. 2. Gotta love it.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

For something fun (in a scary clown sort of way), Shostakovich's Polka from The Golden Age, here arranged for piano and performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy:


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Stravinsky - Epitaphium

Ligeti - Hommage à Hilding Rosenberg

Poignant homages.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Many of Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Bach's WTC pieces are less than two minutes. You must be a man in a hurry.


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## Guest (Dec 14, 2014)

No mention of Kurtag yet..hmm...


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## ProudSquire (Nov 30, 2011)

Some of Schumman's Kinderszenen Op.15 clock in under 2 mins and they are pretty good. I think he has more, but I'm too lazy to scan my inventory at the moment!


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## Dirge (Apr 10, 2012)

[Gregorian chant]: _Ave verum corpus_
:: Bénédictins de l'Abbaye Saint-Maurice-et-Saint-Maur, Clervaux (Luxembourg) [Philips]






I don't listen to much Gregorian chant, but when I do, it's usually this one … one of the great minute and a halves of the last thousand years or more. This particular performance was recorded back in 1959, but it still strikes me as the one to beat.

* * *

Brian FERNEYHOUGH: In nomine a 3
:: Ensemble Recherche [Stradivarius/Kairos]






Ferneyhough modeled his nifty little fantasy (for piccolo, oboe & clarinet) on an In nomine by Renaissance composer Christopher Tye, the composer most associated with the form. The work begins with the clarinet playing the original plainchant incipit, which quickly gets the full Ferneyhough treatment.

The In nomine is a peculiar and peculiarly English form that was very popular from Tye's time through Purcell's. It uses the plainchant from the "in nomine Domine" section of a Mass by John Taverner as a cantus-firmus melody around which other contrapuntal parts are freely entwined. It's not known who invented the In nomine form, but Tye popularized it, writing 21 or more for variously populated viol consorts. (They have been recorded by Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XX on their Lawdes Deo album.) The form caught on somewhere along the line, and soon every English composers of viol music was writing In nomines. (The In nomine craze in England was a bit like the variations on "La Folia" craze on the Continent, only more English and ****-retentive.) Although having a religious birth, the In nomine quickly went secular/popular, with many having moods and titles like those of Dowland lute songs.


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## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

Here's some by Liszt: although I found out that many I thought were under two minutes were in between two and three (probably 30 of those I know of). Anyway, here are four that abided by the requirements:


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

If you can bear the additional 9 seconds, this one's a real beauty.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Thanks all I really enjoyed some of those.

I'm familiar with Chopin but his preludes do deserve a place here


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

Schumann has quite a number of other pieces under 2 minutes in his Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6; Carnaval, Op. 9 and Papillons, Op. 2. They're very good pieces .


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

*Bartok*: The totality of all the pieces in the six volumes of the _*Microkosmos*._

*Prokofiev*: 
*Op. 4 no. 4 Suggestion Diabolique* -- o.k. it is two and a half minutes, but ignore it at the cost of being without one helluva piano miniature:





*Sarcasms, Op 17*, five pieces running ca. 10 minutes (o.k. -- maybe a minute or more.) 




Spikier and a bit more technically demanding than his...

better known _*Visions Fugitives, Op 22*._ ~ 20 miniatures, delightful, and of enough musical interest that many a virtuoso performer has chosen to perform / record them.





*György Kurtág* -- mentioned as "not yet being mentioned," lol. A miniaturist by nature, so much of it, songs with instruments, instrumental works, all brief or in sequences of brief movements, pre-or post his adapting serial M.O. to his music, a lot of it is very fine music. Too, his several volumes of pedagogic teacher-beginning student duo pieces called _*Jatekok* (games)_, which allow the student some free improv, are also quite fine.

*Stravinsky:
Three pieces for clarinet
Three pieces for string quartet
Double canon: Raoul Dufy in memoriam* (string quartet)




*Epitaphium for flute, clarinet and harp* (already mentioned I think)




*Greeting Prelude* for orchestra (less than one minute





*Francis Poulenc* ~ *Promenades*. Ten piano pieces, theme: how we get around and about
I. A pied. Nonchalant 
II. En auto. Très agité 
III. À cheval. Modéré 
IV. En bateau. Agité 
V. En avion. Lent 
VI. En autobus. Trépidant 
VII. En voiture. Très Lent 
VIII. En chemin de fer. Vif 
IX. À bicyclette. Vite 
X. En diligence. Lent 





*Darius Milhaud* ~ _*La muse ménagère*_, Op.245, delightfully musical 'salon' miniatures for piano (later orchestrated by the composer as well.) Fifteen pieces -- the last concluding piece is a slight variant of the first.









perhaps musically 'slighter' than any of the above, but fun...
*Octavio Pinto* ~ *Scenas Infantis*, five piano pieces running just about five minutes.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Overruns by 15 seconds (actually, only 6), but a jewel:


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

^ Really enjoying those Poulenc pieces PetrB, thanks for the recommendation!

I've also always really enjoyed Leo Brouwer's _Estudios Sencillos_ - the vast majority of which are under 2 minutes.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

tdc said:


> ^ Really enjoying those Poulenc pieces PetrB, thanks for the recommendation!
> 
> I've also always really enjoyed Leo Brouwer's _Estudios Sencillos_ - the vast majority of which are under 2 minutes.


I really like the Poulenc. They're some of the pithier and 'dry' music in his more pronounced bitonal vein, still imbued with his inimitable musical sense of humor


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

A few orchestral pieces I've recalled:

*Marius Constant* ~ *24 Préludes pour Orchestre*





*Gunther Schuller* ~ _*The Twittering Machine,*_ from his _*Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee*_





*Olivier Messiaen*, from his *Sept Haikai*
1 ~ _*Introduction*_




2 ~ Le Parc de Nara et les lanternes de pierre




5 ~ Miyajima et le torii dans la mer




7 ~ Coda (@ 06:30)





There is also this musical fashion / trend -- which for all I know may already behind us 
http://sequenza21.com/2006/03/new-york-miniaturist-ensemble-in.html
Some of the newer composers listed there write _very brief_ pieces, the "100 notes or fewer" refers of course, to events, not necessarily microtones or some such.


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

Although it was published with others (_a set of three pieces for quartet_), this piece is often played separately, so I feel within bounds.

*Ives*, Scherzo _"Holding Your Own"_


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## melodic (Oct 26, 2014)

How about Chopin Minute Waltz Op 64 No.1?


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

*CPE Bach * - Solfeggietto in C minor

[has gained some recent mainstream recognition after an appearance in _Breaking Bad_, lol]


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## pianississimo (Nov 24, 2014)

This thread reminds me of about the only thing I remember from music lessons at school. I'd have been about 13.
The teacher was trying to explain to us why classical music was better than pop music.
He didn't SHOW us why, he didn't play some of the music he was talking about. He didn't play the piano even though there was one there in the music room - I never heard it all the time I was there.

He was talking to a group who loved popular chart music. He told them that was all rubbish. 
A symphony - he said, would last as long as an hour. Pop songs were often less than three minutes long.
Classical music is better _because it is longer._
No word of a lie.
No wonder it took me another 30 years to discover classical music!!

I love Chopin's miniatures. I love Greig's lyric pieces, Liszt's consolations, Schubert's impromptus and songs and I'm just discovering the riches in the vast numbers of short works by Villa-Lobos.
Symphonies can be daunting stuff for the un-initiated. The Romantic era miniature can be a brilliant gateway into classical music.


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

DeepR said:


> I think there's still time for something worthwhile to happen in even 1 or 2 minutes.


I agree. This is one of my favorite compositions of Ravel. _Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn_ played by Werner Haas.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

pianississimo said:


> I love Chopin's miniatures. I love Greig's lyric pieces, Liszt's consolations, Schubert's impromptus and songs and I'm just discovering the riches in the vast numbers of short works by Villa-Lobos.
> Symphonies can be daunting stuff for the un-initiated. The Romantic era miniature can be a brilliant gateway into classical music.


If you haven't do check out Scriabin's preludes and other short pieces. The 24 preludes Op. 11 to begin with, many of which are under 2 minutes. Here played by Pletnev: 




One of my favorites from his later period is the unearthly Poeme Op. 59 No. 1:


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Saariaho-Sept Papillons for solo cello


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## pianississimo (Nov 24, 2014)

DeepR said:


> If you haven't do check out Scriabin's preludes and other short pieces. The 24 preludes Op. 11 to begin with, many of which are under 2 minutes. Here played by Pletnev:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for this. I'm a massive fan of Pletnev as a pianist and conductor. I Saw him conduct in Edinburgh last year but I've never heard him play the piano live.
His disk of Scarlatti sonatas are in my top 10 cds.

I'm hot and cold on Scriabin. Great when played by Horowitz, but otherwise hard to grasp!


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

Quatuor Bozzini's _À chacun sa miniature_ is a nice collection of contemporary string quartets, about 3 minutes on average, containing 5 pieces that are less than 2 minutes. Norris's piece has four sections within 1 minute 34 seconds! A beautiful, well-structured piece.










Sally Norris, 40:24:20:10 (2011), 1m40s
Guillaume Primard, GE 40 W 28398 (2011), 1m39s
Andrea Young, Une âme turquoise (2011), 1m48s
Darren Miller, Waveforms for String Quartet (2011), 1m47s
Margareta Jeric, Con fuoco (2011), 1m39s


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Another nice miniature from Ravel - _L'Eventail De Jeanne_


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