# To learn Reminiscenes De Don Juan, the most difficult Piano work.



## JamieHoldham

I know this may not be "THEE" most difficult piano work, but it is within the top 5 for certain. And I also know that this is purely a hypothotical question at the moment.

I don't know how to play the Piano, or any instrument, but I have a pretty good understanding of notation and all the different embelishments, key signatures, time signatures, notes, ornamentations and ect -- my question is how long do you think it would take someone *roughly* from this level to fully master this piece with little to no mistakes?

A answer from a pianist especially would be great, even if you haven't attempted this particular piece, I just want to have a better knowledge from someone who can play the instrument, since I have no need to as a composer.

Here is the work in question; if you the reader have not yet listened to it: :devil:


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## Pugg

The only thing I ever did was try and read the score, then I got cramp in my hands, just by looking at it.


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## JamieHoldham

Pugg said:


> The only thing I ever did was try and read the score, then I got cramp in my hands, just by looking at it.


Reading the score is terrifying in itself, then to hear a good performance of the work at the same time it jaw dropping, and I can imagine trying to actually learn the piece - not even Satan himself would dare to attempt to learn it...


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## tdc

JamieHoldham said:


> I don't know how to play the Piano, or any instrument, but I have a pretty good understanding of notation and all the different embelishments, key signatures, time signatures, notes, ornamentations and ect -- my question is how long do you think it would take someone *roughly* from this level to fully master this piece with little to no mistakes?


I think it depends on the student. Some people regardless of practice hours would never be able to play through this piece without any mistakes. For talented students that start at a young age for the vast majority it would take years and thousands of hours of practice to get to a level where one could play this piece.

Trying to learn piano fresh and starting with a piece like this would not work out well.


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## MarkMcD

Evgeny Kissin is one of my favourite pianists and one of his idiosyncrasies is that he prides himself on NOT making mistakes in his performances, but even he does make the odd one or two from time to time. There are very few pianists who play without the odd wrong note here and there, and even then they've put in thousands of hours to get to the level of competence necessary for public performance.

I don't think it would be possible for me to learn this piece from scratch and get it to a reasonable level without putting in 3 or 4 months work of at least a couple of hours a day. To get it to performance level, add another couple of months at least, probably more.


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## Pugg

Charles Rosen plays Liszt "Réminiscences de Don Juan" 
One of the best ......


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## Guest

This one isn't too bad...


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## JamieHoldham

On a similiar subject matter; anyone who can play the Piano can determine how difficult as a beginner this late Liszt work would be too? If I were to learn the Piano it would be a piece I would like to learn to play relatively soon from getting a Piano (if I ever do):


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## tdc

JamieHoldham said:


> On a similiar subject matter; anyone who can play the Piano can determine how difficult as a beginner this late Liszt work would be too? If I were to learn the Piano it would be a piece I would like to learn to play relatively soon from getting a Piano (if I ever do):


In my opinion it would be way too hard (not possible) to start out with something like this, another highly virtuosic piece. If you get through a bare minimum of Bartok's first 3 volumes of Mikrokosmos (or equivalent other books) at that point you can look at the score and you will have a better idea of what you can do.


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## Pugg

JamieHoldham said:


> On a similiar subject matter; anyone who can play the Piano can determine how difficult as a beginner this late Liszt work would be too? If I were to learn the Piano it would be a piece I would like to learn to play relatively soon from getting a Piano (if I ever do):


Stunning music and playing.


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## Bettina

JamieHoldham said:


> On a similiar subject matter; anyone who can play the Piano can determine how difficult as a beginner this late Liszt work would be too? If I were to learn the Piano it would be a piece I would like to learn to play relatively soon from getting a Piano (if I ever do):


This piece is not as difficult as Reminiscences of Don Juan, but it is still quite challenging. If you want to learn the piano, you should not start with Liszt. It's best to begin with some minuets by Bach, sonatinas by Clementi, maybe also Bartok's Mikrokosmos. You can gradually work your way up to the more advanced pieces, once you've established a solid foundation.


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## Guest

I think it would take several years of very intense daily practice to play it properly.


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## DavidA

Kontrapunctus said:


> I think it would take several years of very intense daily practice to play it properly.


I think it would take me several years of very intense daily practice to play the first bar! This is stuff for the concert pianists not the laymen like many of us. Just switch on the CD player and listen to Earl Wild! Fabulous!


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## JamieHoldham

Probally the main reason I could never learn the piano is because my stubborness would only allow me to play pieces I enjoy on the piano - Reminscenses de Don Juan, Transcendental etudes, liszt liszt and more liszt.. 

The piano is one of my least favourite instruments, until I heard Liszt, his originality in composing for it and the amazing virtuosoness of his works draw me to it, but alas all his piano music has a small part of his ego trapped inside - even the "simple" Libestraum No.3 has a pretty wild and difficult cadenza. 2 in fact. Damn you Lizst!

Just kidding - what a great inventive composer.


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## Bettina

JamieHoldham said:


> Probally the main reason I could never learn the piano is because my stubborness would only allow me to play pieces I enjoy on the piano - Reminscenses de Don Juan, Transcendental etudes, liszt liszt and more liszt..
> 
> The piano is one of my least favourite instruments, until I heard Liszt, his originality in composing for it and the amazing virtuosoness of his works draw me to it, but alas all his piano music has a small part of his ego trapped inside - even the "simple" Libestraum No.3 has a pretty wild and difficult cadenza. 2 in fact. Damn you Lizst!
> 
> Just kidding - what a great inventive composer.


Would you be interested in playing some simplified arrangements of Liszt? I know it's not as satisfying as the real thing, but you might want to give it a try. Here's a link to a book that has a couple of Liszt pieces arranged for easy/intermediate piano:

https://books.google.com/books?id=A...A#v=onepage&q=liszt easy arrangements&f=false


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## JamieHoldham

On the subject of most difiicult Piano works and analysing the difficulty of works - how hard does this rank? http://imslp.nl/imglnks/usimg/4/4e/IMSLP01994-Liszt_-_Symphonie_Fantastique__piano_reduction_.pdf

Liszt's rendition of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique of which I can only see a single performance of the full work and at the same time a decent performance, again by Nikolai Petrov:






Just looking at the sheet music and it just looks insane, can't describe it any other way.


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## chu42

JamieHoldham said:


> On the subject of most difiicult Piano works and analysing the difficulty of works - how hard does this rank? http://imslp.nl/imglnks/usimg/4/4e/IMSLP01994-Liszt_-_Symphonie_Fantastique__piano_reduction_.pdf
> 
> Liszt's rendition of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique of which I can only see a single performance of the full work and at the same time a decent performance, again by Nikolai Petrov:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Just looking at the sheet music and it just looks insane, can't describe it any other way.


I know that this is a two-year-old thread, but having learned both Don Juan and the Berlioz-Liszt I just wanted to give my thoughts.

The thing about Don Juan is that it isn't consistently difficult. Most of it, even including the rapid finale, are quite manageable. The only trouble is that it has several spots that are horrendous for the average pianist, the most prominent among them being any place with chromatic thirds- this is a very high-level technique that most pianists do not bother learning because they do not show up very often.

Fortunately, I had practiced Chopin's 25-6 extensively and the chromatic thirds weren't much of an issue. In fact, I struggled much more with the quasi-glissandi scales (such as 7:22 in the video) that must be both synchronized and extremely clear. Some people will have much more trouble with the thirds than the scales but both spots are very difficult.

And of course, there is a place which even concert artists manage to mess up royally-the jumps at 9:32. Requires absolute nerves of steel. But that about wraps it up.

Liszt's transcription of Fantastique is quite difficult musically, much more so than his typical showpieces. Strong octave technique is required for this work, as well as the nerves to take great leaps whenever called upon to do so (the piece is full of them). And of course, it's a 50-minute work, closer to an hour if you don't want to kill yourself in the process.

A similarly difficult transcription is the Beethoven-Liszt 9th Symphony. It has more octaves/chords and less of the nimble stuff, but it is no less challenging to pull off (and it's quite a bit longer).

Mechanically, none of these larger-scale pieces are as difficult as Feux Follets or the Paganini-Liszt S.140 No.4b. However, they are much more difficult to learn and play convincingly once learnt.


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## rice

chu42 said:


> I know that this is a two-year-old thread, but having learned both Don Juan and the Berlioz-Liszt I just wanted to give my thoughts.
> 
> The thing about Don Juan is that it isn't consistently difficult. Most of it, even including the rapid finale, are quite manageable. The only trouble is that it has several spots that are horrendous for the average pianist, the most prominent among them being any place with chromatic thirds- this is a very high-level technique that most pianists do not bother learning because they do not show up very often.
> 
> Fortunately, I had practiced Chopin's 25-6 extensively and the chromatic thirds weren't much of an issue. In fact, I struggled much more with the quasi-glissandi scales (such as 7:22 in the video) that must be both synchronized and extremely clear. Some people will have much more trouble with the thirds than the scales but both spots are very difficult.
> 
> And of course, there is a place which even concert artists manage to mess up royally-the jumps at 9:32. Requires absolute nerves of steel. But that about wraps it up.
> 
> Liszt's transcription of Fantastique is quite difficult musically, much more so than his typical showpieces. Strong octave technique is required for this work, as well as the nerves to take great leaps whenever called upon to do so (the piece is full of them). And of course, it's a 50-minute work, closer to an hour if you don't want to kill yourself in the process.
> 
> A similarly difficult transcription is the Beethoven-Liszt 9th Symphony. It has more octaves/chords and less of the nimble stuff, but it is no less challenging to pull off (and it's quite a bit longer).
> 
> Mechanically, none of these larger-scale pieces are as difficult as Feux Follets or the Paganini-Liszt S.140 No.4b. However, they are much more difficult to learn and play convincingly once learnt.


Yes. This piece may look intimidating to beginners, but I think it's manageable. Just usual Liszt virtuosity. Mazeppa came into mind when I think of his virtuosic pieces.
I'm just an amateur but having played a few Hungarian rhapsodies and some other Liszt's work, I feel that his music "make sense" to my brain and hands. On the other hand I think Rachmaninoff had more challenging pieces because of the exotic rhythmic patterns and complicated harmonies he often use.


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## chu42

rice said:


> Yes. This piece may look intimidating to beginners, but I think it's manageable. Just usual Liszt virtuosity. Mazeppa came into mind when I think of his virtuosic pieces.
> I'm just an amateur but having played a few Hungarian rhapsodies and some other Liszt's work, I feel that his music "make sense" to my brain and hands. On the other hand I think Rachmaninoff had more challenging pieces because of the exotic rhythmic patterns and complicated harmonies he often use.


I agree, Rachmaninov is often more difficult to interpret. Early Liszt is all about technique; if you have the technique to play it you can do it. Some pieces like Feux Follets and to a lesser extent Don Juan require absurd amounts of technique but if you have it, you have it. Late Liszt is more like Rachmaninov, more lyrical, more unconventional, and a little less technical but much more difficult to play well even if you have the technique to do it.


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