# Encores



## ScottManson

Hi all, 

I am looking for great encore ideas for after a (hypothetical at the moment) concert/recital. Can anyone suggest good pieces that I could play?


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## bharbeke

Try a Chopin waltz or Bach gigue. They tend to be short and sweet.


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## Bulldog

I would need to know the concert program first.


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## Mandryka

bharbeke said:


> Try a Chopin waltz or Bach gigue. They tend to be short and sweet.


There's a story of someone, maybe Rudolf Serkin, doing the whole of The Goldberg Variations as an encore, maybe after a concert of the Diabelli Variations.


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## Josquin13

Yes, it was a teenaged Rudolf Serkin. Here's the story, as Serkin told it: "I was 17 years old. At the end of the concert, because it had been a great success, Busch pushed me out, saying I should play an encore. 'What shall I play?' I asked. 'The Goldberg Variations,' he replied, as a joke. (Without repeats, the Bach work takes half an hour to perform.) And I took him seriously. When I finished there were only four people left: Adolf Busch, Arthur Schnabel, Alfred Einstein [the musicologist] and me."

If I were a pianist, I'd consider playing the following (mostly technically easy, but musically difficult) pieces, as encores:

1. Robert Schumann, "Mignon", from his Album für die Jugend, or Album for the Young, Op. 35. Here are a variety of different interpretations:

Reine Gianoli (probably the slowest version I've ever heard):





Paul Badura-Skoda (the whole recording, you'll have to click on No. 35, Mignon):





Samuel Feinberg (selections, you'll have to click no No. 19, to hear Mignon):





Carlos Zecchi (the whole recording):





Luba Edlina, Homero Francesch, and Michel Block are worth hearing in this music too (though I couldn't find them on You Tube). I believe there's also an old RIAS radio recording from Walter Gieseking as well, if memory serves.

2. Debussy, Reverie--or perhaps a movement from his Images Book 1, or Preludes--which work well as encores from my experience. However, being a Debussy nut, I'd have already played some of his music in the recital itself.










3. Maurice Ravel's short Prelude would make a great encore piece, although I've never heard it played as such: Pianists Samson Francois and Jean-Yves Thibaudet play this piece very well, as both understand that it was Jazz influenced (or was it the other way around?), having played a good deal of Jazz themselves: Unfortunately, I can't find Francois' benchmark version on You Tube, but Thibaudet's Prelude is there:






4. Erik Satie--Gnossienne no. 2:














Roland Pontinen is worth hearing in this music too.

5. Frederico Mompou--Alicia De Larrocha used to play Mompou's piano works as encores, and I thought they worked really well, especially the way she played them. I'm not sure which piece to specifically suggest, but if I were you, I'd look into Mompou's Musica Callada (Mompou dedicated Book IV to De Larrocha), Impresiones intimas (perhaps nos. 1 or 8 "Secreto"), and Preludes (the one that Mompou dedicated to De Larrocha?), to see if anything grabs you:














If interested, you should definitely try to hear Mompou's own recordings of his piano music (on Brilliant Classics), which were recorded in the early 1970s (or possibly late 1960s):https://www.amazon.com/Mompou-Compl...ie=UTF8&qid=1542138511&sr=8-8&keywords=mompou. Adolf Pla, Josep Colom, Marcel Worms, Luis Fernando Pèrez, & Jenny Lin are good in Mompou, as well. But my 1st choices would be De Larrocha and Mompou himself.

6. Francis Poulenc, Melancholie:










Cristina Ortiz also plays this beautiful piece exceptionally well: 




7. Frederic Chopin, Mazurka in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4: a favorite Chopin work of mine, especially when played by Halina Czerny-Stefanska, or any of Chopin's Nocturnes, too.






8. G.F. Handel Keyboard Suite No. 1 in B-Flat Major, HWV 434--Menuett or Minuet in G minor (arranged by pianist Wilhelm Kempff):





https://www.amazon.com/Minuet-G-Minor-Suite-pièces/dp/B00G7KBYKM

9. Franz Schubert Moments Musicaux No. 2, or one of his 8 Impromptus:














10. Or, well off the beaten classical track, as an encore, how about Vladimir Cosma's Promenade Sentimentale, or Sentimental Walk, from the French film, Diva. Pianist Roland Pontinen plays a wonderful improvisation on this piece:

http://bis.se/performers/pontinen-roland/pianorama-cinematic-music-played-by-roland-pontinen
https://www.prostudiomasters.com/album/page/9258









11. Or, if you wanted to play something more modern, there are various piano pieces by Olivier Messiaen that might make very interesting encores, such as Le Courlis Cendré, if it isn't too long?:






12. If that's not enough, which would greatly surprise me, this CD might give you further ideas: https://www.amazon.com/Pontinen-Roland-Evocation-Legendary-Encores/dp/B002X1FZE0

Hope that helps.


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## BiscuityBoyle

Always thought this exquisite Hindemith number from Ludus Tonalis would make for a stunning slow encore:






If you can surmount some very considerable technical challenges, I'd suggest Prokofiev's demonic Scherzo (the last piece from op.12) or, speaking of the devil, Suggestion Diabolique.






A bit simpler to play, but still very fetching and tantalizing is the Gavotte (the second piece from op.12).

Shostakovitch has a lot of short preludes that could be cracking encores in his op. 34.

A Chopin Mazurka I'd choose is the one dedicated to Emile Gaillard, not heard as often as some of the others, and incredibly elegant and pungent.


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## ScottManson

Wow! Thanks for these great suggestions. I will look into all of these and decide which ones will suit both me, and a concert program when I make one.


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## dsosin

I have a piano piece called "That's All, Folks!" which is a compilation of endings of about 30 classical and a few pop pieces.


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