What Did They Play?

: The Changing Repertoire of the Piano Recital from the Beginnings to

1980
Author(s): John Gould
Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 146, No. 1893 (Winter, 2005), pp. 61-76
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
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I. A short but useful
summaryis that of William
Weber in Stanley Sadie, ed.:
Thenew Grovedictionary
of musicand musicians
(Macmillan,2001), sub.verb.
'Recital'.
2. George Kehler: Thepiano
in concert,2 vols (Scarecrow
Press, 1982). Readersof this
articlewill readilyunderstand
my deep indebtednessto
Kehler'svaluable collection,
which I here gratefully
acknowledge.
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JOHN GOULD
Whatdid they play?:the changingrepertoireof
the piano recital from the beginnings to 1980
THE STORY OF THE EMERGENCEof the piano recital from the almost
circus-like environment of early 19th-century musical entertainments
and its transformation into one of the most serious and uniquely
personal types of musical experience is well known.' What has been less ex-
plored is the structure and content of the recital. What have the recitalists
played; what types of solo piano works; how many and which composers; in
what sort of overall structure?What changes in such featureshave there been
over time?
This article addresses such questions by analysing a small sample of the
nearly 15,000 recital repertoires compiled by George Kehler in his book The
piano in concert,published in i982.2 For each entry Kehler records the name
of the performer, the date and venue, and the repertoire played. Entries are
arrangedunder the names of the pianists in alphabeticalorder, and for each
pianist in chronological order of the recitals. They are sequentially num-
bered from I to 14,708, though there are in fact slightly more than that
number since in a few cases a series of two or more recitals (such as a Beet-
hoven sonata cycle) has been grouped together under one entry number.
The sample analysed here comprises only 280 of Kehler's collection,
ratherless than two per cent of the total. The findings are presented for five
chronological periods, from the beginning to 186o, and then in four periods
each of 30 years from 1861-90 to 1951-80. For the first period, where entries
are fewer, 40 recitals were chosen, and for each of the other four periods, 60.
The sample was chosen by taking for each period a number of pianistsjudged
to be, for the most part, amongst the leading performers of their time. For
the first two periods, where entries are fewer, this criterion had to be some-
what relaxed. For those pianists with an appreciable number of entries in
Kehler, who constitute the majority, there has been further individual
sampling. For example, in the extreme case of Hans von Billow, of whose
programmes Kehlerhad been able to locate as many as 177,every tenth recital
in chronological order was studied. The pianists and the number of their
recitals used are listed, period by period, in fig.i.
Exception might be taken to the method of sampling; it cannot be claimed
to have produced a random sample of Kehler's nearly I5,ooo programmes.
This hardly seems to matter, however, since Kehler's entries are themselves
not a random sample of the recitals actually played; they depend on what
THE MUSICAL TIMES Winter 2005 61
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62 Whatdid theyplay?: the changingrepertoireof thepiano recitalfrom the beginningsto 1980

to G860
(40o)

Liszt 12 Moscheles 2 Jaell 12

ClaraSchumann 8 Anton Rubinstein I Pleyel 8
Beethoven 3 Evers I Halle 3
Chopin 3 Kalkbrenner i Brassin 3
Thalberg 3 Leschetizky i Liibeck 3

86 -9 o (Go)
Billow i8 Joseffy 3 Busoni i8
Anton Rubinstein 9 Tausig 3 Rosenthal 9
Wolfsohn 5 Essipoff 2 Paderewski 5
D'Albert 4 Halle 2 Wieniawski 4
ClaraSchumann 4 Griinfeld 2 Auerbach 4
Rummel 3 3

891-19Z20 (Go)

Carrefio Io Hofmann 6 Gieseking Io

Godowsky 7 BloomfieldZeisler 5 Griinfeld 7

Paderewski 7 Cortot 4 Rachmaninov 7
Gabrilovitch 7 Galston 3 ArturRubinstein 7

1921-5o (6o)

Horowitz Io Arrau 7 Godowsky Io

Schnabel Io Gieseking 5 BloomfieldZeisler Io
Rachmaninov Io Kempff 4 GezaAnda Io

ArturRubinstein 8 Cherkassky 2 8

1z5 -8o (Go)

Richter 9 Brendel 6 Argerich 9

Pollini 8 Gilels 6 Ashkenazy 8
Geza Anda 7 Kempff 4 Barenboim 7
Arrau 7 Cherkassky 3 Perahia 7

Fig.I: Pianistsandnumbersof recitalsin sample,by period

historical records chance to have survived, and how many of them Kehlerhas
been able to find. That his near 15,000grossly understatethe number of reci-
tals actually played is surely obvious; I5,000 concerts over a period of even
150years is an average of less than two per week.
Only a small fraction of the early concerts was devoted to solo piano
music. Even Chopin, in his first public appearancein Vienna in 1829, had to
share the billing with an orchestra, a singer, and a ballet. Nevertheless, these
early entertainments have been sampled by the same technique as the rest,
partly to establish the proportions of what it is convenient to call 'solo' and
'mixed' recitals, and partly to discover what music pianists were able to pre-

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 Period Numbers Percent of total

Total Mixed Solo Mixed Solo

to 1860 40 31 9 77-5 22.5

I861-90 60 Io 50 I6.7 83.3

1891-1920 60 2 58 3-3 96.7

1921-50 6o o 6o o Ioo

1951-80 6o o 6o o IoO

Fig.2: Mixedandsolo recitalsby period

sent in the limited opportunity which the mixed recital afforded them. In
analysing the data, however, only the solo works played by the pianist have
been counted.
Fig.2 shows the numbers of mixed and solo recitals for each of the five
periods, both in absolute figures and as percentages of the total. In the first
period the mixed form naturally predominated, but by the beginning of the
third period in 1891 it had all but completely disappeared. In the second
period ten of the 6o recitalswere of the mixed form. But of these ten, six were
played in the first decade (1861-70), two were played in the USA, which was
some 30 years behind Western Europe in the development of public music
making in the mid-19th century, and in the remaining two the recitalist was
Clara Schumann, who of all the great pianists of the day remained, for
reasons not entirely clear, the most wedded to the mixed format. (Her pre-
ference is the more surprising in that she had given a number of solo recitals
as early as the mid-I84os, only a few years after Liszt had pioneered the
concept, and had been satisfied with the experience.) In the following period
(1891-1920) one of the only two mixed recitals was played in the USA, the
other in Moscow. In Western Europe, at least, it thus seems that the solo
recital had completely triumphedby about 1870.
Less well known, but perhaps as important as the changing balance in the
numbers of mixed and solo recitals, was the fundamental change which
occurred in the first half of the century in the characterof the mixed recital.
Gradually the solo piano component rose to much greater prominence; the
popularity of the virtuoso pianists of the I830s and I84os enabled them to
dictate the overall structure of the event to a much greater degree. The
number of performers other than the solo pianist was gradually reduced, and
they came to be described in programmes and advertisements as 'assistant
artists', with the soloist as 'Concertgeber(in)', to emphasise who was the
leading attraction. Clara Schumann was described as 'Concertgeberin' in a
concert in Brunswick as early as 1835, when she was only 15 years old. More-

THE MUSICAL TIMES Winter 2005 63

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64 What did they play?: the changing repertoire of the piano recital from the beginnings to 1980
3. Liszt made this claim in a
letter to a friendwritten in
June 1839following a series
of solo performancesin
Italy, which, however, were
played in relatively informal
circumstances.The birth
of the solo recitalis more
commonly ascribedto a
public concert by Liszt in
London the following year,
which also saw the first use
of the designation 'recital'
(or more correctly,at first,
'recitals'). See Alan Walker:
Fran{Liszt (Faber& Faber,
1983), vol.i, Thevirtuoso
years, pp.355-57.
4. R. Allen Lott: FromParis
to Peoria(Oxford University
Press, 2003).
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over, the recitalists relied less on the tricks and showmanship of the earlier
musical extravaganzas, with pianists playing their own fantasias and
improvisations featuring eye- and ear-catching effects, in favour of more
solid and demanding fare.
Ignaz Moscheles demonstrated as early as the i83os that the mixed format
could accommodate the 'historical' recital which he pioneered. In 1837 in
London's Hanover Square Rooms he dominated a mixed concert in which,
along with some brief vocal interludes, he played virtually a complete solo
recital: three Bach preludes and fugues; a Weber sonata; two Beethoven
sonatas (opp.31 no.2 and 8ia); some of his own studies; and some Scarlatti
(on harpsichord). The mixed form had proved capable of being adapted to
serious musical purposes even before Liszt, in 1839, first dispensed entirely
with 'assistant artists' and grandiloquently announced 'Le concert, c'est
moi'.3
These changes were due primarily to the efforts and artistic integrity of
the pianists themselves, though they also required increasing sophistication
on the part of audiences (which tended to lag behind). The influence of the
promoters and managers of the concerts told in the opposite direction. They
feared that box office takings would suffer if concerts were devoted entirely
to the sound of a solo piano, and to serious compositions demanding more
attentive listening than the familiarmeretricious,crowd-pleasing exhibition-
ism they favoured.
There was, admittedly,a degree of justification for such fears. Allen Lott,
in his very informative book FromParis to Peoria,4traces the development of
American musical taste through the successive tours of five European
pianists, from Leopold von Meyer in 1845-47 to Hans von Billow in 1875-76.
In the first tour Meyer's own Fantasia on the Star Spangled Banner, tran-
scriptions of opera numbers, and improvisations were the most appreciated
type of fare, and the success of his tour was enhanced by Meyer'sbehaviour
on stage, which was that of a showman and at times even of a clown. By the
end of Billow's tour 30 years later, however, audiences could take demanding
classical programmes played by an austere artist who had successfully
resisted the pleas of his manager to sweeten his programmes with bravura
works. By then, music lovers and press critics were discussing Biilow's pro-
wess as an interpreterof particularcomposers and even of particularworks.
The tension between artistic integrity and the demands of the box office
is of course a familiar theme. It was poignantly illustrated by Clara Schu-
mann's experiences during her first tour in Paris in 1832,at the age of 12. She
was dismayed by what Pamela Pettler, who has researched her early career,
calls the 'gaudy culture' of music recitals in the Paris of the 183os, 'with
concerts featuring six, eight and ten pianos played four hands, bizarre
combinations of unusual instruments, and even comedy acts'. Urged by her
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5. Pamela S. Pettier:
'Clara Schumann'srecitals,
I832-50', in zgth Century
Music IV/I (Summer 1980),
pp.70-76.
6. Harold C. Schonberg: The
gloriousones:classicalmusic's
legendaryperformers (Times
Books, 1985), p.48.
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father and the concert promoters Clara at first tried to fit into this patternby
playing 'the latest trinkets from Paris or Vienna'. But such was the strength
of characterof this remarkableyoung woman that by 1840 she was insisting
on programmes based on Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann and Mendelssohn.
Pettler has to concede, however, that such recitals 'were not always met with
great enthusiasm'.5
There was of course another factor influencing the transformationof the
early piano recital, namely, the changes taking place simultaneously in other
forms of public music-making, especially orchestral concerts. These, too,
had been 'dumbed down' in the early i9th century to provide popular enter-
tainments rather than serious musical experiences. Even in so musical a city
as Leipzig the Gewandhaus programmes had included liberal doses of easy-
listening works by contemporary composers quite forgotten today. When a
Beethoven symphony was programmed, it was not unknown for undemand-
ing vocal items to be sandwiched between the second and third movements,
the concert managers presumably believing that the audience could not be
expected to remain attentive throughout a long work without some relief.
MATTERS changed quickly when Mendelssohn took up the reins of the
concerts in 1835,bringing his scholarship and high artisticstandards
to bear.6The quality of performancewas greatly improved, concert
programming was refashioned to present great works of composers both
living and dead, and programmes were cast into some sort of logical select-
ion and order: an overture, a concerto, a symphony, with perhaps a bracket
of lighter pieces inserted somewhere. Mendelssohn's influence spread well
beyond Leipzig through his work as a conductor throughout Europe. Clara
Schumann was encouraged to pursue her own bent by her friend Mendels-
sohn, ten years older than she, and adopted a similar structure for her piano
recitals. Moscheles, a former teacher of Mendelssohn, and who in 1848 was
appointed Professor of Piano in the Leipzig Conservatory which his pupil
had founded, was already performing along similar lines.
Variedinfluences, then, were all working in the same direction, and by the
middle of the century public music-making had been substantially re-
oriented. The era of the virtuosi and their flamboyant and meretricious style
of musical entertainmentwas virtually over. But the virtuosi should be cre-
dited with helping to enhance the appeal of the solo piano and for estab-
lishing the financial and artistic viability of the solo recital. What music did
the new type of recital offer the public?
In recording for each period details of the 60orecital programmes (40 for
the period to I860) no note was taken of the number of items by each
composer in a given recital, if only because of the difficulty of defining
'item'. Instead, merely the name of each composer one or more of whose
THE MUSICAL TIMES Winter 2005 65
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66 Whatdid theyplay?: the changingrepertoireof thepiano recitalfromthe beginningsto 2980

Fig.3: Composerappearancesby period

I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Io II I2 13 14

Bach Bach Mozart Liszt 1 toTotal

Total
Bartok 12'Other'
Copin Schubert Brahms
Debussy
(Original) Beethoven Schumann
(transcription) Mendelssohn

To I86o

Number 7 o o 19 20 5 3 4 I6 o o o 74 37
Percentage 6.3 o o 17.I 18 4-5 2.7 3.6 14.4 o o o 66.7 33-3

z86z-o90

Number 23 9 7 45 40 17 12 33 29 7 0 0 222 87
Percentage 7-4 2.9 2.3 14.6 12.9 5.5 3.9 10.7 9-4 2.3 0 0 71.8 28.2

Z89 --1920

Number 4 11 4 36 55 5 15 35 35 15 5 0 220 114

Percentage 1.2 3.3 1.2 o10.8 16.5 1.5 4.5 10.5 10.5 4.5 I-5 o 65.9 34.I

z92z-50

Number 15 II II 32 37 6 13 23 27 II i6 I 203 I00

Percentage 5 3.6 3.6 10.6 12.2 2 4-3 7.6 8.9 3.6 5-3 0.3 67 33

z952-8o
Number 5 o 13 34 22 4 13 22 IO 9 9 6 147 30
Percentage 2.8 o 7-3 I9-2 I2-4 2.3 7-3 12.4 5.6 51i 5.I 3.4 83.1 16.9

works were played was noted, irrespectiveof how large, for example in terms
of playing time, the contribution of the work or works was. Thus the units
of counting are what will be termed 'composer appearances', that is, the
number of concerts in each period in which one or more compositions of a
given composer appeared.
Fig.3 presents the total numbers of such composer appearances for each
period, giving in columns I to 12 the numbers for eleven 'named' composers
(Bach gets two columns, one for works played in their original form and the
second for transcriptions). Column 13 totals columns i to 12, and column 14
totals composer appearances for all composers other than those named in
columns i to 12. For each period the first line gives the number of appear-
ances in actual figures, and the second line transformsthese into percentages
of all composer appearances.In all five periods the eleven named composers
accounted for well over 60 per cent of the total; but the contribution of the
other composers still varied between over one-third in 1891-1920 and only a

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7. The recitaldevoted to the
works of a single composer
was only one ot a number
of types departingfrom
the familiar'conservatory
model'. Another notable
exception was the recital
consisting entirely of
compositions in a particular
genre. Rachmaninovhad one
recitalconsisting entirely of
fantasias(though the word
was interpretedliberally to
include Beethoven's sonatas
opp.27/i and 2), and he
attainedperhapsthe neplus
ultraof this type by offering
a Buffalo audience in 1919a
programmeconsisting solely
of 20 e'tudesby Chopin (8),
Schumann(2), Scriabin(2),
Liszt (2), Rubinstein(i), and
five of his own.
8. Halle bettered his own
achievement20 years later
with an eight-recitalsseries
covering all 32 Beethoven
sonatas and the whole of
the Welltemperedclavier,
proceeding at the rate of four
sonatas and six preludes and
fugues per recital. In both
of the series mentioned Halle
played the sonatas in order
of opus number,which of
course is not quite the same
thing as order of composition.
This was the usual practicein
the 19thcentury.In the 20th
century recitalistsmore
often distributedseven major
sonatas (opp.53and 57 and
the last five) one at a time
between the recitals,grouping
the other 25 around them
in threes and fours so as to
achieve variety of style and
key signatureswithin each
recital, and make them of
more nearly equal length.
Schnabeladopted this
arrangementin a notable
cycle in Carnegie Hall in
1936. But Kempff,in a series
played in 1970,preferredto
revert to the older arrange-
ment. The pros and cons of
the two solutions are fairly
obvious.
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little over one-sixth in 1951-1980.
Amongst the named composers, three stand out: Beethoven, Chopin, and
Liszt. Between them these three accounted for nearly half (49.5 per cent) of
all composer appearancesin the first period. As was to be expected their lead
fell considerably as more and more new piano music was written. But they
still accounted for 36.9. 37.8 and 31.7 per cent successively.
1951-1980 saw a sharp reversal of this falling tendency, but only because
of a large jump in the popularity of Beethoven. Chopin and Liszt have never
quite recovered their position in the pre-i86o popularity stakes, thereafter
declining, though not monotonically, to numbers of appearancesratherless
than two-thirds of those of Beethoven in the case of Chopin, and ratherless
than one-third in that of Liszt.
The prominence of Beethoven, especially in the most recent period,
would be even more marked if account were taken of the fact that he was
featured in more single-composer recitals than anyone else (12 out of 28
in all five periods combined; six out of ten in 1951-1980). Other single-
composer recitalsfeatured Chopin (9), Schubertand Schumann(2 each), and
Weber, Liszt, and Rachmaninov (i each).7
The dominance of Beethoven did not, however, mean that all his output
was equally popular. Some ten or 12 sonatas were far more frequently played
than the rest: opp.27/2, 30/2, 53, 57, 8ia and 90, and the last five. Probably
half of the 32 were never played at all in any of the programmes under ana-
lysis, except, of course, for the 32-sonata cycle which several pianists offered,
following the lead of Charles Hallk, who first presented such a cycle in 1860.8
Of the variations three sets stood out: the 'Eroica' op.35;the 32 in C minor;
and the 'Diabelli'.
In the case of Chopin, the whole solo piano oeuvre was well represented.
The two great sonatas in Bl minor and B minor were both frequently played,
as were other longer works: the ballades, scherzi, and the F minor Fantaisie
op.49. Shorter works were sometimes played as a complete opus number,
such as 12 Etudes op.io, but perhaps more often in 'brackets'of two or more
pieces in the same genre.
Liszt's B minor Sonata was also often played, but many of his 'composer
appearances' consisted of a rather eclectic choice of works of differing
lengths and musical value. It was some time after Liszt himself ended his
virtuoso period in the late I840s before the public began to lose its appetite
for the works characteristicof that period: the fantasias on operatic themes,
the transcriptions, and the like. And of course there are always recitalists -
in our third period Leopold Godowsky stands out in this category - who like
their programmes to include plenty of works of transcendental technical
difficulty, and for them Liszt was and remains a rich and obvious source of
material.
THE MUSICAL TIMES Winter 2005 67
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68 What did they play?: the changing repertoire of the piano recital from the beginnings to z980
9. Jeremy Siepman: Thepiano
(Carlton Books, 1996), p.si5.
10. Dorothy de Val & Cyril
Ehrlich:'Repertoryand
canon', in David Rowland,
ed.: The Cambridgecompanion
to thepiano (Cambridge
University Press, 1998),
pp.120, 131-32. ing third in 1861-1890, third equal (with Liszt) in 1891-1920, and second
i1. Nancy B. Reich: Clara
Schumann:the artistand the
woman(Cornell University
Press, 1985),pp.268-71.
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Schubert had long lagged behind Chopin and Liszt. The considerable
increase of his popularity in the final period is usually attributed to the
championship of Schnabel, who featured the sonatas in his recitals of the
interwar years. Indeed, it has even been claimed that in the later i9th and
early 2oth centuries Schubert's sonatas were actually unknown. This claim
in part relies (unreliably!) on the testimony of Rachmaninov,who famously
confessed in an interview in 1928 that not only did he not play Schubert's
sonatas, he did not even know that they existed.9 Given his status as one of
the greatest pianists of the day, this seems impressive. But Rachmaninov had
come to his career as a concert soloist only late in life, and he never had time
to develop a really extensive repertoire of solo works, let alone of concerti.
Schubert's sonatas, admittedly, were not as often played in the i9th
century as they deserved; but they cannot be said to have been unknown.
Clara Schumann played the Bl major in Vienna as early as 1866; Biilow
played the A major (D.959) and the A minor (D.845) both in America and in
Europe; Carl Wolff also played one of the A minor sonatas (which one is not
known) in an all-Schubert recital in 1877. The series of Monday Popular
Concerts staged in London's St James' Hall from 1862 to 1890 regularly
featured Schubert sonatas, of which the G, late A and Bl majors were the
most popular. The last was played seven times between 1863 and i882.'o But
it is true that Schubert was more often represented in the i9th century by
shorter works such as the Momentsmusicauxand the impromptus; the only
long work frequently played was the WandererFantasia.
PERHAPS as surprising as the relative neglect of Schubert is the
persistent popularity of Schumann. Although Schumann has always
had his champions his compositions seem not to have been very highly
regardedin the mid-i9th century,especially by his fellow composers. Chopin
is said never to have played anything of Schumann;Wagner dismissed him;
Liszt did turn to his works late in life, and apologised for neglecting them in
earlier decades, but still felt his music unsuitable for public recitals. Even
Clara, for all her efforts on behalf of Robert's music, acknowledged that the
public found his longer works (which Schumann himself never heard in
concert) difficult to understand. She introduced them cautiously, playing at
first only extracts rather than the complete work. She did not play the C
majorFantasyuntil 1866, nor the first sonata until 1884, and she is not known
to have played the Abegg variations at all." Yet in the last four periods
Schumann hovered around ten per cent of all composer appearances,rank-
equal (with Chopin) after Beethoven in 1951-1980.
One explanation is suggested when we consider the structureof the piano
recital in terms other than merely the composers represented. Since the
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 i87os, at the latest, there was a conscious attempt to achieve in recital pro-
grammes a balance of solidity and variety, involving amongst other things a
mix of what might be termed major and minor works. These terms, ob-
viously, are vague; but the intention is to differentiatebetween compositions
of sufficient artisticweight to stand on their own in a programme and those
better suited to be coupled with other similar works in a 'bracket'.
An appropriatemodel on which a consensus seems to have emerged en-
visaged five or six composers in all; a variety of styles, with perhaps a
roughly chronological order of presentationto provide a sense of coherence;
and a judicious balance of major and minor works. Possibly no great pianist
did more to popularise this model than Hans von Billow in his mature years.
A typical Billow recital of the I870s might start with a substantial Bach
work - of the 5i Billow repertoiresassembledby Kehler for the year 1873,no
fewer than 16 started with the Chromatic fantasia and fugue; then, either
immediately before, or immediately after, or before and after the inter-
mission one or sometimes two major works; sometimes, especially if there
was only one truly major work, a piece of intermediate stature, something
like Mendelssohn's Variationsserieuses;and two or three brackets of minor
works by Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, or Mendelssohn.
Return now to the question of Schumann'spopularity.The eleven named
composers in fig.3 differ in the extent to which their works fall into the major
or minor categories. It is yet one more measure of Beethoven's greatness that
his numerical preponderance in fig.3 rests entirely on his role as a composer
of majorworks. (A bracketof minor Beethoven works is perhapsbarely con-
ceivable.) At the other extreme Mendelssohn, with the exception of his
Variationsserieuses(a major minor work, or a minor major work?), finds his
way into Kehler's repertoires almost entirely as a composer of short pieces
easily capable of being assembled into attractivebrackets.His period of rela-
tive popularity in the decades immediately following his death rested on this
aspect of his output; the popularity has not subsequently stayed the course.
Schumann, on the other hand, wrote copiously in both major and minor
categories, and was useful for this reason to those planning programmes.
Admittedly, several of the major works are really only collections of minor
pieces, with little or no musical threadbinding them together. (There may be
other types of thread, literary or biographical.) The longer works most fre-
quently played were those least damaged by this criticism: the C major
Fantasy, the Etudes symphoniques, Carnaval. Faschingsschwank aus Wien, an
amiable and easy-listening longer work, was also popular. These compo-
sitions often enough did duty as a majorwork. But Schumann'sminor works
were also often played in brackets. Kehler's collection shows that his large
number of composer appearancesarose, in part, from this ability to fill both
major and minor slots.

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70 Whatdid theyplay?: the changingrepertoireof thepiano recitalfrom the beginningsto z980
12. Richter, despite his
enormous repertoire,played
little of Mozart'ssolo piano
music. He much preferred
Haydn, complaining that
Mozartdid not 'stay in
my head'. (See Bruno
Monsaingeon:Sviatoslav
Richter: notebooks and
conversations (Princeton
University Press, 2001),
pp.I39, 177, 331-32).
Ashkenazy ascribedthe
lukewarmnessof some
Russianpianists towards
Mozart'ssonatas to the
contrastbetween the
composer's restraintand
clarity and Russia's'chaotic
and emotional national
character'(JasperParrott
with VladimirAshkenazy:
Beyondfrontiers(Collins,
1984), p.54.) HC Schonberg
alleges that when Horowitz
studied at Kiev Conservatory
Mozartsonataswere regarded
there as 'simple minded,
something not worth wasting
much time on' (Horowit:
his life and music(Simon &
Schuster,1992), P.53).
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Brahms,andmore particularlyDebussy and Bart6k, naturallyappearlater
in the programmes. But even allowing for this they have perhaps never
achieved quite the degree of exposure the importanceand originality of their
contributionsto piano literaturewarrant.Perhapsit is simply that their works
for solo piano are more impressive for their quality and originality than for
their actual number.
Bach, on the other hand, was more prominent than many seem to think.
The combined total of his appearances in the original and transcription
columns put him in fourth place in three of the five periods. He was relatively
neglected, however, in 1951-80. Maybe the sample of pianists chosen
inadvertently brings this about; the inclusion in it of Rosalyn Tureck and
Glenn Gould would doubtless have altered the figures. It may also be,
though, that the later 2oth century's enthusiasm for authenticity made some
artistsnervous about including Bach in piano recitals,and caused them to feel
that it was better left to specialists to tread such hallowed ground.
The composer not so far mentioned, Mozart,appearedrelatively rarely in
the solo recital, except in the most recent period. In the earlier periods the
prevailing Romanticism might account for this. But it could also be that some
pianists and their audiences shared the belief, lasemajesteto most but at least
arguable to some, that unrivalled as was Mozart's contribution to the piano
concerto his works for solo piano, a few acknowledged masterpieces apart,
are not in fact very interesting."2In any event in the structuralmodel of the
piano recital already discussed even the best of Mozart's sonatas may not
have seemed weighty enough to bear the responsibility of the 'major work'
slot around which the rest of the programme was to be built.
What of the 'other' composers? Who were they? In the two periods when
their contributionwas at its peak, between 1891 and 1950,about 80 individual
composers were involved. Rather than simply name them it may be more
helpful to classify the sources from which they were mainly recruitedby the
programme planners. (It will be obvious that some of the names to be
mentioned could well have been included in more than one list.) In what
follows the numbers in brackets are those of the times the composer named
featured in the recitals of the period.
The first two sources are chronological extensions of the range of com-
posers played in earlier periods. At one end there is the pre-Beethoven cate-
gory, only Bach and Mozart figuring amongst the named composers. Other
composers in this category were modestly represented in the recitals of both
of the peak periods, 1891-1920 and 1921-1950. Most of them, of course, did
not strictly speaking write for the piano. They include Rameau, Lully,
Corelli, Gluck, Scarlatti, Clementi and Haydn. Of these only Scarlatti ap-
peared in more recitals in 1921-50 (4) than in 1891-1920 (2), on his way to
becoming an established, if minor, member of the pianistic canon.
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 It is perhaps surprisingto find Haydn so obscurely placed, with only three
and one appearances in the two periods respectively. A glance through the
pages of Kehler confirms that this was not a consequence of sample bias;
Haydn was indeed rarely played. The only work played at all often was his
Andante and Variationsin F minor, a favourite piece with Anton Rubinstein.
At the other end, the category Contemporary Composers obviously
overlaps with other categories, and the number of such composers listed here
for 1891-1920 may be understated for this reason. Moszkowski (3), Scriabin
(3) and Franck (2) stand out. In the following period this category becomes
more numerous (and Bart6k as well as Debussy now appear amongst the
named composers). Scriabingoes up to five appearances,Ravel to seven, and
they are joined by Stravinsky and Prokofiev (6 each), Poulenc (3), and Bar-
ber and Hindemith (i each).
The third category expands the range of composers culturally ratherthan
chronologically. It parallels the emergence of ethnicity and nationalism as
major historical forces in the fields of politics and international relations.
This development awakenedinterest in national and regional forms of dance
and folk music, and was supported in this by the rash of establishment
of Conservatories outside Germany and Austria between i85o and I875.'3
Composers in this category in 1891-1920 included Anton Rubinstein (8),
Tchaikovsky (7), Macdowell (6), Grieg (4), Balakirev (2), and Smetana and
Albeniz (I each).
This source was less fertile in 1921-50, Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky
having almost completely disappeared,and Grieg and Macdowell entirely so.
(The brief popularity of the last named had depended heavily on the cham-
pionship of his former teacher,the American pianist Bloomfield Zeisler,who
died in 1927). These losses were only partly offset by the appearanceof Gra-
nados (4), Villa Lobos (3), and Musorgsky (i).
A fourth category might be called, perhaps a trifle unfairly, Obscure
Composers. A praiseworthy feature of the recitalistsof the period 1891-1920
was their willingness to offer a hearing to minor composers, new or old, who
had not achieved a firm position in the repertoire.Amongst those placed here
are Schiitt (4), Loeillet and Raff (2 each), and Schobert, Gradener, Lesche-
tizky, Scott, and Brockway (i each). Some of these, if not really making the
grade as composers, enjoyed a deserved reputation in other ways, notably
Leschetizky,one of the most celebrated and influentialteachers in the history
13.For example:Warsaw, of the piano. None of these composers reappearedin 1921-50, perhaps be-
1861;Cordoba, 1862; cause they had been given their chance to shine and had not shone brightly
St Petersburg, 1862;
Bucharest,1864;Moscow, enough.
1865;Budapest, 1875;and Finally there is the familiarcase of the composer who plays his own works
in the USA, Peabody
(Baltimore), 1866;New
in public. In the early years of the piano recital playing one's own works was
England (Boston), I867. not thought to be in bad taste; on the contrary, the distinction between com-

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72 Whatdid theyplay?: the changingrepertoireof thepiano recitalfrom the beginningsto 1980

posing and performing was far from apparent,and the ethical question mark
hung ratherover playing the works of others. Opinions on this issue were re-
versed only gradually, presumably in part because of the increasing volume
of the compositions of others clamouring for presentation. But additionally,
by the late i9th century the balance of skills had shifted; none were as gifted
in both directions as Mozartor Beethoven, but there were now many pianists-
would-be-composers, with the emphasis very much on the first rather than
the second. We do not think today of Anton Rubinstein, Gabrilovich, Hof-
mann or Horowitz as more than at best very minor composers.
In both of the periods under discussion many pianists did not hesitate to
display their own works. The motive was not merely vanity, or the hope of
improving the sale of sheet music, to the financial benefit of the composer/
performer. The earlier expectation that the performer would play his own
works had by no means completely died out, kept alive by the belief of some
audience members that a pianist's interpretive and technical prowess were
best displayed when playing his own works. And of course the names of
some pianists had become inextricably bound up with one or more of their
own compositions. In the 1920S and 1930s Rachmaninov found it as im-
possible to get off stage until he had played his Prelude in CJ minor as Liszt
had done, 80 or 90 years earlier, before yielding to the clamour for his Fan-
tasia on Robertle Diable.
Composers falling into this category in 1891-1920 included the following
(numbers in brackets refer to the total number of times a work of the pianist
named was played, the composer being also the performer in most, but not
all, cases): Paderewski (7); Gabrilovich and Rachmaninov (5 each), Hof-
mann and Godowski (2 each). In the following period the first two of these
dropped out, but this loss was partly compensated by the number of times
Rachmaninov played his own works. This was not the result of vanity on
Rachmaninov's part, but of the fact that embarking in middle age on a new
career as concert pianist, driven by poverty and the need to feed a family, he
at first lacked any substantialrepertoire except for his own works.

ADRAMATIC CHANGE is apparent in the last period, 1951-80. In

sympathy with the overall decline of composer appearancesthose of
'other' composers, which had reached three figures in each of the
preceding periods, fell to a mere 30. Moreover, this modest number was not
as widely spread over either pianists or composers as previously. Of the 12
pianists sampled the two Russians, Richter and Gilels, between them ac-
counted for 16 of the 30, and it was mainly due to the programmes of these
two that exactly half of the 30 involved works by Russian composers:
Prokofiev (4); Scriabin (3); Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Musorgsky (2
each); Kabalevsky and Stravinsky (i each). This was not simply a matter of

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 Fig.4:Recitalsby numberof composers perrecital,byperiod
played,andaveragenumberof composers

Number of recitals by numberof composersplayed Total Average

recitals numberof
Period I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 II 12 composers

1861-90 7 3 7 4 1o ii 6 7 4 I o o 6o 5.17

1891-1920 4 I 4 9 14 2 13 8 3 I O I 6o 5.67

1921-1950 4 2 7 7 12 18 4 4 2 0 o o 6o 5.05

1951-1980 Io 6 27 12 4 I o o o o o o 6o 2.95

national pride, or of the fact that Russian Conservatories were strongly

14. Parrottwith Ashkenazy:
Beyondfrontiers,p.57.
biased towards Russian music. In the Stalinist era Russian artists seeking
permission to travel abroad to play elsewhere were expected to indicate an
intention to display Russian and Soviet works.14
In these 6o recitals other sources of 'other' composers were little in evi-
dence. Pre-Beethoven music was representedonly twice. Richter,perhapssur-
prisingly but in line with his practice of playing only music he really liked,
included a Handel suite in a 1963 recital; Brendel, not at all surprisingly,in-
cluded a Haydn sonatain a recitalin 1974which was one of a series in Carnegie
Hall, each consisting of works by Haydn, Beethoven, and Schumann.
Though a majority of the 30 composer appearances involved works
actuallywritten in the 20th century,only four representedthe majorGerman/
Austrian and French schools of 20th-century composition. Pollini played
Webern's Variations op.27, composed in 1935-36, in 1975; in 1978 Cher-
kassky offered Messiaen's ile de Feu Land II, dating from 1949-50; in 1966
Barenboim played Berg's Sonata no.i, written as early as 1907-08; and in
1959 Arrau contributed Schoenberg's Klavierstiicke op.i i, dating from 1909.
Apart from the Russian composers only five appearances went outside the
German/Austrian mainstream:Ravel (4) and Granados (i). And none of the
30 could fairly be called 'Obscure'. Thus in the last period 'other' composers
were not only far fewer in total, but were drawn from much more restricted
sources.
The total number of composer appearances for each period has already
been given, but the average number of composers per recital and the distri-
bution of recitalsby numbers of composers are also of interest. The data are
given in fig.4.
The average number of piano composers in the period to 1860 was natu-
rally small, because most of the recitals were 'mixed'. In the three following
periods the average did not change much: 5.2, 5.7 and 5.i respectively. But
there were some changes in distribution. In the two periods between 1861and
1920 numbers varied over a very wide range, from one to ten in the earlier

THE MUSICAL TIMES Winter 2005 73

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74 Whatdid theyplay?: the changingrepertoireof thepiano recitalfromthe beginningsto 1980

Fig.5: Numbers of composers in six recitals by four pianists before and after 1950/51

Kempff Cherkassky

Yearsof recitals 1932-42 1959-64 1935-40 1968-78

Average numberof composers 4.8 3.7 7.5 4-7

Arrau ArturRubinstein

Yearsof recitals 1946-49 1970-71 1938-39 1961-62

Average numberof composers 7.3 3.5 6.2 4.3

period and one to 12 in the later. The most common numbers were five, six
or seven, but these represented less than half of the recitals. The period
1921-50 saw a limited but definite movement towards a smaller spread. The
average number dropped only slightly, but the number of recitals featuring
nine or more composers declined from five to two, none reaching ten or
more. Further, exactly half were now of either five or six composers.
The biggest change, however, came in the last period. Total composer
appearances declined from over 300 to 177, so that the average number of
composers per recital fell sharply to below three. Only one recital included
works by as many as six composers, none had more than that, and the number
of single composer recitalsincreasedfrom four to ten. Over two-thirds of the
60 recitals featured no more than three composers.
It might be wondered whether this dramatic change could in part be a
statistical illusion, arising from a chance oversampling of pianists who fa-
voured less varied programmes? As a partial check on this, four recitalists
were chosen whose playing careers straddled the 1950-1951 boundary. For
each of them six recitals (not already analysed) on either side of this boun-
dary were randomly selected, and the average number of composers in each
of the eight cases was calculated. The results are shown in fig.5; the years
within which the recitals were played are also shown.
For all four pianists the number of composers per recitalwas smaller after
1950-51 than before it. The steepness of the decline varied from pianist to pia-
nist, being least markedfor the German Kempff,who alreadyfavoured fewer
composers than the others in the earlierperiod. But the averagedecline for the
four pianistscombined (36 per cent) is only a little below that calculatedfrom
the overall data in fig.4 (42 per cent), which tends to confirm that the major
change observed is not a merely accidentalresult of the choice of pianists.
It would be interesting to be able to calculate from Kehler's data some
indication of the average duration of recitals in the four periods since 186o.
But an attempt to discover the present-day playing time of the hundreds of
compositions included in the 240 recitals was quickly abandoned as im-

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15. Lott: FromParis to Peoria,
p.I78.
16. William Weber:'The
history of musical canon',
in Nicholas Cook & Mark
Everist, edd.: Rethinking
music(Oxford University
Press, 1999), P.34. Weber
conceded that there was
some evidence after 1980
of reviving interest in new
works, 'chiefly in avant-
garde artisticcircles'.
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practical, and in any event this approachwould finesse the vexed question of
changes in tempi as between the i9th and zoth centuries. But even if played
in quicker 19th-century tempi the eight sonatas which comprised the all-
Beethoven recital in Anton Rubinstein's famous historical series would
surely exceed the staying power of most present-day audiences (opp.27/2,
31/2, 53, 57, 90, IOI, 109, and III). Today, several combinations of just three
of these sonatas, and almost any combination of four, would be enough to
allow the recitalist to feel that the audience was getting value for money.
While this was fairly exceptional, Allen Lott comments that Rubinstein's
early recitals in the USA (with repertoires which he also played in Europe)
averaged two-and-a-half to three hours, with some nearly reaching four.'5
IN CONCLUSION,
the foregoing survey suggests a tripartiteperiodisation.
The first period, to about 1870, saw the birth of the solo piano recital from
its gestation in the 'mixed' recital, and the consolidation of the solo
recital's position as a unique vehicle for the presentation of serious classical
music by dedicated performers. This involved the changed expectation that
recitalists would mostly perform the works of others, ratherthan their own.
The second period, from about 1870 to 1950, was not marked by major
changes. The solo recital had all but triumphed over the mixed form when it
began. Repertoires naturally changed and broadened as more and more
music became available to be played. The establishment of Conservatories
outside the German/Austrian heartlandencouraged new nationalistic styles
of composition, and trained pianists wishing to play them. The recitals
studied in preparingthis article strongly suggest that in general pianists born
and trained elsewhere than in Germany and Austria favoured more varied
programmes, featuring more composers, than did those from those coun-
tries. This in some degree accounts for the more adventurous repertoires
characteristic,in particular,of 1891-1920. But otherwise the structureof the
piano recital consolidated rather than changed during these 90 years.
Much sharper change came in 1951-80o- for reasons which are by no means
obvious, and which it must be left to a further article to explore. The average
number of composers per recital was virtually halved, and recitals almost
certainly became shorter. Composers from outside the German-Austrian
tradition fared particularly badly. This tendency would be even more ob-
vious were it not for the countervailing efforts of pianists trained in Russia
and Eastern Europe. And, again apart from Russian works, the 'Contem-
porary' category almost disappearedfrom repertoires.
These featureshave not escaped either notice or criticism. William Weber,
tracing the history of musical canon, claimed that the period 1945-80 was
characterised by 'an extreme, indeed intolerant, predominance of classical
over contemporary music'.I6He was writing, admittedly,of both the concert
THE MUSICAL TIMES Winter 2005 75
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76 What did they play?: the changing repertoire of the piano recital from the beginnings to z980
17. So great was his
internationalreputationthat
one forgets how distinctively
Russiana musicianRichter
was. Playing outside Russia
for the first time in 1960, at
the age of 45, he appeared
only 60 times even in Paris,
his favourite foreign venue,
as against 851times in
Moscow. A similarindication
is given by his repertoires.
The five composers whose
works he played most often
were: Shostakovich(4641
items); Rachmaninov(2683);
Debussy (2444); Beethoven
(2327); Prokofiev (1797)
(Monsaingeon:Sviatoslav
Rickter,pp.143,381-82).
18. Parrott& Ashkenazy:
Beyondfrontiers,pp.167-68.
19. Daniel Barenboim,
ed. M. Lewin: A life in music
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
1991), p.49.
20. Schonberg:Horowitz,
pp.157-58.
21. David Dubal: Evenings
withHorowit: apersonal
portrait(Birch Lane Press,
1991),p.112. It has to be
admittedthat late in life, with
a shrinkingrepertoireand
failing memory, Horowitz
was unable to follow his own
prescription.
22. Schonberg: Theglorious
ones,p.416.
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hall and the opera stage; his verdict on the piano recital specifically might
perhaps have been less severe. There were, after all, leading pianists of the
period - Pollini, Glenn Gould, Brendel - who championed Schoenberg and
gave at least some exposure to the Second Viennese School.
But there were undoubtedly many who confessed to little or no interest in
contemporary works. Richter, despite his huge repertoire, played, of the
major 20th-century German/Austrian composers, only Berg's Chamber
Concerto and Webern's Variations op.27; he would not play Schoenberg,
whom he saw as 'a composer who set out to destroy'."7Very little contem-
porary music appealed to Ashkenazy.'8Barenboim admitted to having neg-
lected the Second Viennese School until late in life, when Boulez persuaded
him otherwise.'9 Horowitz, as part of his war effort, saluted America's Rus-
sian ally by learning and performing three Prokofiev sonatas, and as if to
reciprocate, premiered Barber'sSonata in Havana in 1949. But otherwise he
could find little 20th-century music to interest him.20Moreover, it requires
some latitude in regard to chronology to regard some of the compositions
mentioned above as 'contemporary', from the vantage point of the year in
which they were performed.
As for the more general question of the structure of recitals, the arch-
Romantic Horowitz, who gave very careful consideration to the construction
of his own programmes, striving above all for 'variety, variety, and more
variety',2'is said to have 'looked with scorn on programs that contained only
three Beethoven or Schubert sonatas." Quite contrary to what one might
have expected, in view of the ever increasing availability of recorded and
broadcast music, the piano recitals of the late 20th century, judging by
Kehler's repertoires, seem to have relied to a greater extent than those of
1891-1920 on frequent repetition of a very limited range of works, and even
identical repetition of entire programmes in several centres.
What, in the light of all this, the long-term future of the live solo piano
recital is, is a good question; one to which it is not easy to fashion an answer
both optimistic and persuasive.
John Gouldis EmeritusProfessorof EconomicHistoryat VictoriaUniversityof
Wellington,New Zealand.
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