Who is the greater Piano Composer: Chopin or Beethoven

[Beyond Within]

I just want to know your thoughts on this....

[Peter]

Beethoven!

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'Man know thyself'

[Rod]

Originally posted by Beyond Within:
I just want to know your thoughts on this....

Why Beethoven of course, he's the greatest of them all!

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Amalie]

Originally posted by Beyond Within:
I just want to know your thoughts on this....

BW, Is this a windup?

[Chaszz]

An interesting article on Chopin is at
http://www.hudsonreview.com/MullenWi04.html

It contains the following, which bears on a recent thread here about varying the Diabelli Variations:

One evening, when they were all assembled in the salon, Liszt played one of Chopin’s nocturnes, to which he took the liberty of adding some embellishments. Chopin’s delicate intellectual face, which still bore the traces of recent illness, looked disturbed; at last he could not control himself any longer, and in that tone of sang froid which he sometimes assumed he said, “I beg you, my dear friend, when you do me the honor of playing my compositions, to play them as they are written or else not at all.” “Play it yourself then,” said Liszt, rising from the piano, rather piqued. “With pleasure,” answered Chopin. . . . Then he began to improvise and played for nearly an hour. And what an improvisation it was! Description would be impossible, for the feelings awakened by Chopin’s magic fingers are not transferable into words.
When he left the piano his audience were in tears; Liszt was deeply affected, and said to Chopin, as he embraced him, “Yes, my friend, you were right; works like yours ought not to be meddled with; other people’s alterations only spoil them. You are a true poet.” “Oh, it is nothing,” returned Chopin, gaily, “We each have our own style.”

[v russo]

I think that Chopin would not have been Chopin without the ol' Ludwig Von....


...sorry, I couldn't resist.

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v russo

[Opus131]

Though call, let's not forget that Beethoven deafness halted his career as a pianist.

This didn't affect his ability to write for the piano, however, after 1803 he seemed to neglet the instrument untill the very end of his life.

Alternatively, Chopin died at a younger age and didn't get a chance to achieve the depth of Beethoven last compositions for the piano (his last 5 piano sonatas and the Diabelli variations).

If you want to compare what they DID actually end up writing as a whole, i'd say Beethoven, if only for the aforementioned last works (which doubled with Bach last compositions constitute the crowning achievement of keyboard music).

On a curios note, it's funny that people often compare Chopin to Beethoven (no doubt in light of their 'emotional' expressiveness)
whereas their music couldn't be more different.

Indeed, Chopin himself repuded Beethoven and was more akin to Mozart's music.

On the other hand, Beethoven had the utmost admiration for Mozart therefore i would assume his opinion of Chopin would have been highter then the former's had of himself...



[This message has been edited by Opus131 (edited February 25, 2004).]

[Ahmad]

I do agree that the two composers are too differnt to put in a comparison.

Anyway,I do listen to Chopin's piano music more often than Beethoven's...It's a matter of personal preference..

[Joy]

I vote for Beethoven! Although I think that Chopin's Etudes, Noctunes, and Ballads are extemely beautiful and I love to listen to them from time to time.

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[Rutradelusasa]

B, of course!

B developed piano music to an extent it had not been tried out before, although Chopin's music is very beautiful and very touching, what he and Liszt did was introduce new levels of difficulty on piano playing.

[Shane]

Originally posted by v russo:
I think that Chopin would not have been Chopin without the ol' Ludwig Von....


...sorry, I couldn't resist.

v russo:

soz, i hav to disagree with u ther. as far as i no, which is not a lot since im only in school, chopin didnt really like beethoven. he liked bach and mozart more. as i said tho, i cud be wrong. some1 correct me if i am.

Shane

[urtextmeister]

I think Chopin was a better piano composer(wasn't that the original question?). I think Beethoven was a better orchestral composer.

I don't think anyone (including Liszt) understood the piano as completely as Chopin.

Notice I didn't actually say who was a better composer...

[Beyond Within]

Yeah, is everyone answering who was the better PIANO composer? Thats what I wanted to know.

A paino performance major friend of mine says that musically Beethovens pieces may be better, but Chopins are MUCH better written with technique in mind. He said his genius was in how perfect everything was in relation to hand placement.

[melvyn]

Originally posted by Beyond Within:
Yeah, is everyone answering who was the better PIANO composer? Thats what I wanted to know.

A paino performance major friend of mine says that musically Beethovens pieces may be better, but Chopins are MUCH better written with technique in mind. He said his genius was in how perfect everything was in relation to hand placement.

Ah - so are you asking who was the best composer in terms of listening to the music, or in terms of playing it? Because you seem to be making a distinction between the two.

If Beethoven's compositions were 'musically' better, then surely there's your answer.

Melvyn.

[Rod]

Originally posted by Beyond Within:
Yeah, is everyone answering who was the better PIANO composer? Thats what I wanted to know.

Beethoven.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin