Unsung solo piano music: recommendations, please!

[Alan Howe]

I would be extremely grateful for members' recommendations of unsung piano music to explore - in particular piano sonatas, but also any substantial piece or series/cycle of pieces. I suggest no more than three recommendations per person with, if possible, favoured recordings.

[Herbert Pauls]

I know all of the following composers been discussed to some degree over the years on UC, but don't necessarily know to what extent they are your particular passions. So here goes:

Czerny Sonatas are very good indeed, although some are extremely difficult to play. Jones is quite good and deserves high marks for what must have been an appalling amount of work to master that literature, and for even managing to convince someone to record them. But they need other top notch pianists (the Ashkenazys and so forth) to do them and get them into the public consciousness.

Medtner is not as unsung as he used to be but still far too little played. Hamelin of course, but also Berezovsky (for example, in the Night Wind). Tozer's cycle is also very fine but he can't compete with Hamelin (sometimes life just isn't fair!). Also recommended is  Lucas Debargue's genuinely moving first sonata. Apparently he would be willing to play the whole cycle!. Hamish Milne did an early cycle and I always thought he had real true romantic depth and understanding in his playing (Holbrooke Concerto, Lyapunov Concertos, Liszt-Busoni Ad nos transcription)

York Bowen. Joop Celis' cycle is very good, but Danny Driver's set of the 6 sonatas is, if anything, even finer. I also value Bowen's 1960 Lyrita recording (and while we're talking about his own playing there is an Appian Way set that places him pretty much in the front rank of pianists)

In my opinion, all of the above are absolutely first rate from a pianistic and musical point of view and have amply repaid my efforts.

[Alan Howe]

Thank you very much. I have Hamelin's Medtner, but must clearly investigate Czerny and Bowen. Much appreciated.

[lasm2000]

Hmm. Since no preference for a style or period is given I'll go for three pieces that are almost certain to please although their composers aren't that unsung. Lets say the are amongst the rather sung part of the unsung:

- Bortkewiecz Sonata No. 2. This sounds like Rachaminov, the composer of concertos, had written a sonata. I know this sounds weird but I've found that his sonatas and concertos despite sharing some very obvious elements are texturally different and tend to flow different. Just look at Rachmaninov sonata 1, the last movement is as dense and contrapunctially complex as parts of the Hammerklavier sonata. On the other side, this sonata has the same passion for big chords and tunes that is so evident in the Rach PC 2. For recordings, Nadedja Vlaeva has a recording with several russian piano pieces named "A Treasury of Russian Romantic Piano".

- Paderewski Piano Sonata. If Wagner had decided to compose a piano sonata, it should had sounded similar to this. I am only aware of Plowright recording for Hyperion. Actually I vaguely remember that Melodya also had a recording which will likely be almost impossible to get by now.

- Dukas PC: This is a monster of sonata, in the same league as the Hammerklavier. Go for Hamelin's record.

And as a bonus, a small piece that makes a lovely encore: Ponce's intermezzo. As you can see, all of these pieces are on the rather well known side of the unsungs but are very enjoyable even on a first listening.

[Double-A]

Theodor Fröhlich's "6 Elegien".  Fröhlich was no concert pianist (he earned his bread, such as it was, as a conductor of choral societies and an amateur orchestra) and so the pieces don't sound very pianistic, but they are lovely romantic mood pieces.  One of them is even in 5/8 meter, very unusual in the late 1820s.
There is an old LP with Christian Spring which I used to own.  Three of the pieces with Spring can be found on YouTube.  More recently a CD has been issued with Charles Dünki. 

[adriano]

There is still quite a lot to discover by Walter Niemann, including a "Romantic" and a "Nordic" Sonata and a Sonatina "Stimmen des Herbstes" and some short Suites...
Some of his works can he heard on the Romana label (Gerhard Helzel, pianist) or or the Grand Piano label (Bing Bing Li, pianist - what a name!).
Niemann's father was a composer - and a pupil of Moscheles.

What about Hermann Goetz's Sonatinas (recorded by Adrian Ruiz)?

There are also two early Sonatas by Respighi, one in f minor and another one in a minor. The first is available on Naxos, it has been published by Ricordi.

[thalbergmad]

When i hear the word substantial, the first thing that always springs to mind is Reger's Variations on a Theme by Telemann. I would stay away from Hamelin on this one and try the Bolet version. It is rarely performed as the demands are obscene.

On a lighter note, is the Piano Sonata by Otto Nicolai that i still have in my repertoire, but for the life of me I cannot remember who recorded it and I only have an MP3. It has some very catchy themes cleverly spliced together.

On an even more lighter note is the undemanding and charming Souvenirs d'Italie by Bache, that has only been recorded once. Suitable for relaxing days in the summer, lazing in a hammock with a pint of ale.

Thal

[Alan Howe]

Again, I am most grateful for these suggestions. I have the Dukas, Paderewski and Bortkiewicz, but must clearly follow up the Niemann, Goetz, Respighi, Nicolai, Reger and Fröhlich.

[Jonathan]

I'd suggest Stephen Hough's Hummel piano sonatas on Hyperion.  A lovely disc! 

I'd also second the suggestions of Czerny, Paderewski and Bortkiewicz.

[eschiss1]

"If Wagner had decided to compose a piano sonata"
Aside from the 6 he actually did compose.
(2 lost, 3 of them basically juvenilia though some of those published, and the one mature one a brief 9-page work for the album of "M.W." (Mathilde Wesendonck, one guesses) in 1853, but - still. That's more surviving piano sonatas than we have from Brahms, just by numbers...)

[jerfilm]

if you're lookng for something really obscure and not too heavy, you might try Carl Arnold Sonata #1 in d, opus 3 and #3 in A opus 11.

Jerry

[TerraEpon]

I'll throw in a mention of Chaminade here....the best disc to fit the criteria is probably the most recent one on MDG: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R5AI72Q/ as it has many of the etudes (including the 'cycle' Etudes de Concert).

Also Stenhammar -- a great series of all the piano music on BIS, Vol. 2 has the sonatas http://www.bis.se/index.php?op=album&aID=BIS-CD-634

[Alan Howe]

not too heavy

I like heavy...

[Sharkkb8]

Stenhammar -- a great series of all the piano music on BIS, Vol. 2 has the sonatas

...and there is an additional sonata, in A Flat Major, Op. 12, on Vol. 3.

[eschiss1]

Recommending a book (specifically on sonatas, not piano music in general; of course some piano works not entitled sonata are longer and more substantial than very many of those that are and I am not even implicitly denying this, just concentrating):

William Newman's book on the piano sonata since Beethoven (the 3rd of a 3-volume set contains a critical appraisal of composers and developments between Beethoven (not included here, iirc, but included in the preceding volume of the 3) to Scriabin and thereabouts, and including Medtner, Draeseke, and others. A more up-to-date volume could be imagined* but some years ago I reread this one several times, and it introduced me to several worthwhile names that are mentioned fairly often here, and with written musical excerpts from their sonatas (for piano, for organ, for solo instrument and usually piano... or by itself...) (an E minor sonata by Kiel - violin sonata no.4 in E minor, Op.51, is excerpted, for instance...) I remember being, also, very intrigued by his description of, and excerpt from, Karg [Karg-Elert]'s 3rd piano sonata (C-sharp minor, Op.105), and awhile later inter-loaning the score (an odd duck, as I remember. I think it can now in some copyright domains by downloaded @ IMSLP. A cpo recording came out after that, and between then and now may have been deleted- I haven't heard it...)

*(well, yes and no. Yes in regards the factual statements- just for instance R. Viole's sonatas had disappeared apparently without trace beyond mentions-of when Newman wrote his book, and he was intrigued enough by the mentions to wonder what they were like; some of them have since been found and republished; some works he probably read but maybe did not hear have now been recorded, if not necessarily always very well - sometimes fairly well though - since he wrote about them...)