Piano Guidance
Piano Guidance
Photo: Anna Tarazevich
Chopin's piano works are often technically demanding, emphasizing nuance and expressive depth but Chopin was not a piano maestro in the way that Liszt was. Liszt was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age, and this undoubtedly influenced his composition style.
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Read More »Liszt's technical mastery over the piano makes his works exhilarating to listen to. There are definitely also things he wrote which are quite moving, like Piano Sonata, or many of his symphonic poems, and don't need to be crazy virtuosic in order to be profound. His paraphrased many great works for piano as well, and I regard those very highly and as very original in advancing the orchestral tone colors of the piano during that time. I couldn't do without Liszt, and I honestly don't think many composers for the piano afterwards would have done as well without him either. Chopin's music is pretty difficult to play as well, don't question that. When his Op. 10 etudes came out, they were a revolution in Europe as far as piano music - Liszt was a great technician but Chopin influenced his virtuosity. Beyond that, he was one of the most harmonically adventurous composers of his time, and explored places in music through the piano that composers had not been able to reach with the full symphony orchestra. Chopin may have understood the piano as an instrument more than anyone in his time. Liszt managed to imitate the orchestra better than anyone else on the piano. I'd argue Chopin managed to imitate the piano better than anyone else on the piano. In the area of cantabile, Chopin's music is not possible to sing (unless you have a four octave range), but it's even better done than Liszt - study the nocturnes and you'll know what I mean. So in terms of influence Liszt was greater, because he was one of the greatest proponents of Romanticism at the time, and Chopin was only very influential on the piano. However, this is not about who is more influential. I love Chopin's music more. There is a poetry of man that has been unveiled from the keys for all people to discover. No soul in the history of music was so timid and melancholy on the outside but so brave and courageous on the inside. Nobody wrote poems so intimate and fiery, danced among the fields and flowers so eloquently, hid their tears of the night so quietly, or marched along with the patriots so spirited, as Frédéric Chopin. Nobody else has such a widespread appeal across the world on the piano, not even Liszt.
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