When I was working on my diploma I had to perform 30 minutes of piano music. I decided to play 3 pieces. Bach’s Toccata in E minor, Haydn Sonata in A flat major and Chopin’s op50 no3 Mazurka. The Mazurka was the shortest at about 6 minutes, the Toccata was 9 minutes and the Sonata was about 15 minutes.
I know someone else who did the same qualification who played 9 different pieces of repertoire. I don’t know exactly what they were but as you can imagine they were shorter in duration per piece.
Looking at my own repertoire that I’m playing just now, I am working on very short pieces. Anything from a minute, up to around 6 ot 7 minutes to play from start to finish.
When I think about how I feel about this, I think I’m the type of person who prefers the shorter pieces. Reason being, they take less time to get my fingers around them and I get to explore more composers and repertoire.
When I think about tackling something that takes 15 minutes to play when it’s good, it feels like I’m climbing a mountain like Everest. It takes a long time to get it to a performing standard and it locks you in to one composer for however long it takes.
I can see and appreciate why some people love doing longer pieces. They may have a passion for a particular composer or era and simply can’t get enough of it.
What do you think you prefer? Longer pieces the delve deep in to genre or composer or finishing pieces more frequently and being able to explore?
