The Hardest Piano Piece Ever Written

Stop what you’re doing and listen to the hardest piano piece ever written

By Elizabeth Davis, Classic FM London

Sorabji’s Opus Clavicembalisticum is thought by many to be the most difficult piece ever written for piano – it’s well beyond most pianist’s abilities.

image: http://assets9.classicfm.com/2016/33/opus-clavicembalisticum-sorabji-1471449566-article-0.jpg

Oh and it lasts for FOUR HOURS. So there’s that.

But one pianist, the legendary and unique John Ogdon, made this piece his calling card.

Here's John, deep in concentration at the piano:

image: http://assets.classicfm.com/2016/33/john-ogdon-1471449746.jpg

One YouTuber has combined John’s legendary recording of Sorabji’s completed ridiculous work with the score – so you can both see and hear the number of notes actually involved.

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Vittorio Monti - His Music and His Life

Vittorio Monti (6 January 1868 – 20 June 1922) 

was an Italian composer, violinist, and conductor. Monti was born in Naples where he studied violin and composition at the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella. Around 1900 he got an assignment as the conductor for the Lamoureux Orchestra in Paris, where he wrote several ballets and operettas, for example Noël de Pierrot.

His only famous work is his Csárdás, written around 1904 and played by almost every gypsy orchestra. It is played by many people today.

Csárdás - Vittorio Monti (Violin & Piano)

Vittorio Monti, Csardas

Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen (piano cover)

Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen

Watch Adorable Evan Le Flawlessly Perform Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 8

By Rosalind Arnell , Classic FM London

Toddler Evan Le has only been learning the piano for less than a year, but can already smash out virtuosic concertos from memory.

image: http://assets7.classicfm.com/2016/30/evan-le-piano-1469453964-article-0.png

Are you ready to feel inadequate? Evan Le is only five, but is already charming audiences with his performance of this Mozart piano concerto, even writing his own complex candenzas for the piece.

Evan is not from a musical family, but has shown a pure instinct for music performance and composition. At the age of three he would listen to nursery rhymes and pick them out on a toy keyboard, and by four it was clear he had perfect pitch and an uncanny knack for memorising complex piano pieces. He has already featured on the NBC talent show Little Big Shots .

Concerto No. 8 was written by Mozart in 1776 for the Countess Antonia Lutzow, a fine pianist in her day. It requires high agility, and Mozart often used it for his own teaching.

Watch Evan Le play here:

Though he is obviously a future piano superstar Evan’s main passion is composing his own masterpieces, which have already amazed his teachers. Evan Le is a name to remember for the future - but for now you can see him perform greats such as Bach, Beethoven and Clementi on his Facebook page.

Music for reading / Musik zum Lesen: Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Debussy, Liszt, Sch...

Music for reading.Musik zum Lesen.
Enjoy. Viel Spass.

Saturday Night at the Movies - 

Andrew delves into the murky world of film noir.

image: http://assets7.classicfm.com/2016/26/spellbound-hitchcock-1467280849-article-0.png

Tonight Andrew shines the spotlight on film noir, as suggested by listener Nicholas Nicoll.

The term, which is French for 'dark film', was first given to a style of films by a French critic Nino Frank in 1946, but the name wasn't used in Hollywood till many years later. The genre embraces a wide variety of plots and characters but all have a distinctively suspenseful mood about them.

Tonight Andrew has music ranging across the decades of this mysterious genre, including Spellbound by Miklos Rosza, The Maltese Falcon by Adolph Deutsch and Chinatown by Jerry Goldsmith.