Listen to some of the best new recordings here.ĭepressing? Well, there is a silver lining to these clouds of double thirds and thundering octaves. Classical Music: 2021 was a year of reawakening for the art form.Jazz Albums: Even the big-statement albums this year had a feeling of intense closeness.Pop Albums: Recordings with big feelings and room for catharsis made the most powerful connections.Best Songs: A posthumous political statement and a superstar’s 10-minute redo are among the 66 best tracks of 2021.Pierre's palms turn wet hair rises on the back of his neck he hurries back to his piano.įrom Lil Nas X to Mozart to Esperanza Spalding here is what we loved listening to this year. Today, Witold's G-minor Ballade is faster than Pierre's. The work is an ecological disaster: an irreplaceable resource disfigured in the pursuit of commerce.Įvery conservatory in the world knows this scene: Pierre in the corridor listening to Witold in the practice room. It's also a wonderful piece, if we could ever truly listen to it again. The G-minor Ballade is an event in a pianist's life. Pianists don't make careers by stepping over two-foot obstacles they scale instead the mighty falaise. Current concert life is predicated on such separations. Music like this separates amateur from professional. The reason we have ended up knowing it too well is that besides being original and brilliant, it takes a lot of high-class sweat to play.

If the piece were child's play, we might not hear it much at all. According to my ratio, frequency is directly, not inversely, proportional to difficulty.Ī nice example is the Chopin G-minor Ballade, that top-40 breadwinner of the piano recital world. HOW OFTEN WE HEAR A PIECE of music has a lot to do with how hard it is to play.

Difficulty of chopin scherzo 2