Tending the Repertoire Garden

"Also please send a repertoire list." Oh. Of course. But damn.

Many pianists, particularly those inclined towards contemporary music, place these prim lists on their web sites out of professional necessity, yet few remark on the pieces they've chosen to include. (And certainly everyone is choosy.) Wouldn't the annotated rep list make for scintillating reading? Every performance, from triumphant recital to disastrous premiere, formal master class to maudlin new music festival, usually has a great story at its heart, but rep lists are rarely so colorful. (That's why we write blogs, I guess.) Clean written-out rows suggest a pianist's aesthetics but only hint at the artistic journey: the performance has been weeded out. At least in web format, these alphabetized, itemized, and categorized lists can offer information to both the curious layperson and competitive professional. Hmm, what is a shofar? Or maybe, He's playing Scelsi?! [picking up telephone and dialing a number] "Hello? I'd like to place an order for a piano score..."

I've been tending my own list. It is a work in progress.

CONTEMPORARY COMPOSERS
Louis Andriessen, Hoketus - Brian Banks, Veni Sancte Spiritus for SA chorus and piano - William Bolcom, Cabaret Songs book I, Orphée Serenade - Ben Carson, Two-step for the Birds of Eden - Giuseppe Chiari, Ave Maria di Schubert - Alvin Curran, Inner Cities 7.5, Shofar 2004, The Milhaud Chair - Fred Frith, Seven Circles, Returning Home, soundtrack for Thirst - Peter Garland, Penasco Blanco, Coyote's Bones - David Meckler, Natural Music, Wind & Stone - Doug Michael, Klusters and Submerge, both for piano and tape/cd - Frederic Rzewski, Dreadful Memories, Coming Together - Roddy Schrock, Just Enough to Break Them Up - Charles Shere, Three Songs from Tender Buttons

EARLY and MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY COMPOSERS
John Cage, In a Landscape - Arnold Schoenberg, Drei Klavierstucke Op. 11 - George Rochberg, Trio for clarinet, horn and piano - Ned Rorem, Ariel (5 Poems of Sylvia Plath) for soprano, clarinet and piano - Gunther Schuller, Romantic Sonata for clarinet, horn and piano

COMPOSERS of the PAST
J.S. Bach, Preludes and Fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier books I and II, Prelude to English Suite #2 in a minor - Ludwig van Beethoven, Sonata in F# Major Op. 78, 32 Variations in c minor WoO 80, "Judas Maccabeus" Variations for cello and piano WoO 45, Clarinet Trio Op. 11, Piano Trio "Archduke" Op. 97 - Johannes Brahms, Clarinet Sonata Op. 120 No. 2, Clarinet Trio Op.114, Piano Trio in C Major Op. 87 - Frederic Chopin, Ballade #4 in f minor - Claude Debussy, Images book I, Premiere Rhapsody - Cesar Franck, Violin Sonata in A Major - Franz Joseph Haydn, Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVII: 52 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Clarinet Trio "Kegelstatt" K.498 - Sergei Prokofiev, Third Piano Sonata - Maurice Ravel, Chansons Madécasses

MUSIC for SINGER and ACCOMPANIST
Contemporary art songs by Samuel Barber, Marc Blitzstein, William Bolcom, Percy Grainger, Charles Ives and Hanns Eisler - German lieder by Brahms, Schumann, and Schubert - French melodie by Debussy, Poulenc and Faure - Popular recital arias, including many from the operas of Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, and Donizetti