The 10 Most Emotionally Draining Piano Works 

I've always wondered about bebung ! Don't know how I missed your explanation on clavichord the first hearing . i think when one hear's Ingrid Haebler play Mozart and every note is like a singer every note has meaning -this is really how music in general should be played -the way Midori plays and so very few others . This makes music alive and it really amazes me how Mozart's simplicity doesn't grab everyone .Many of Hadyn's Sonatas too have great charm !

Rachmaninov's First Piano Sonata, followed by listening to Medtner's Night Wind Sonata. No pianist will play these in the same recital. He or she will be sucked dry, and so will the audience.

Love the list. My personal add: Copland's Piano Fantasy. Cold pathos, maybe, but very draining.

Great list. I would also add Janácek's Piano Sonata I.X. 1905 which is grippingly dramatic full of those wild mood swings typical of the composer and a work I believe he wrote in response to the killing of a worker who had gone to protest in a march. Schubert's last sonata is a great choice although I would also include his Sonata D. 958 which sounds very Beethovenish. It's angry and relentless. Liszt's Dante Sonata from his Années de Pélérinage Book II would also be a candidate in my view. Actually there are alot of emotionally draining suckers out there. Great talk Dave as usual.

The Bridge Sonata is a harrowing work. Something I can't listen to too often.

Thumbs up for Prokofiev. The 8th and also the 4th - very intimate and emotional. The piano concerto no 2 also needs to be mentioned.

Great talk! The Rzewski-Blues is surely the best of the North American Ballads. And for my own list, it's a pity that you mentioned the Haydn, because it's my ambition to come with my own list without doubling your work suggestions, but not the composers. The list just alphabetically. BACH: Goldberg Variationen - so much sophisticated counterpoint, and then comes the final Aria, and it's a farewell; the piece itself sings this adieu, calm, noble, unsentimental. What a moment! BEETHOVEN: Diabelli Variations - need to say more? Don't think so. BULL: Walsingham - one more piece which waves a last farewell. So many jolly moments there are in this music, and the end isn't sad at all, it's just a farewell, and that's so incredibly moving for me. CRUMB: Makrokosmos II - the 2nd Makrokosmos-cycle surpasses in my opinion even the 1st, and that says something. In a way, it's the successor of Ives, using tonality, atonality, simple chords and clusters and citations, and there is a true grandeur, too, in this music. But to listen to means to drain. DEBUSSY: Des pas sur la neige - in my ears, that's pure loneliness without any consolation. For me, this piece is so draining just because it avoids any pathos, all emotions are frozen. MESSIAEN: Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus - I'm not interested in the religious context. But "draining" means not only emotionally draining, in my view, but also mentally draining, and this work is mentally draining. This huge cycle has hypnotic quality. When one is in the mood for Messiaens cascades of chords and colours, one loses completely the feeling for time. This cycle doesn't only show the possibilities of Messiaens theories about rhythm and modality, it shows also, what's possible on the piano concerning virtuosity, but also expression, and there are moments of ecstasy, which have what I use to call disturbing glory. RZEWSKI: The People United Will Never be Defeated - I chose the big one; it's just one of the greatest piano works ever written, it's extremly demanding for the pianist and the listener but also extremly rewarding. SHOSTAKOVICH: Preludes and Fugues - that's a compendium of all emotions one can set to music. Oh, that 13th prelude...! And a fugue cannot be emotional overwhelming? - Listen to fugue 6...! SCHUBERT: Drei Klavierstücke D946 - The late Sonatas cannot be surpassed, I know. And I wanted to name the "Wanderer-Fantasie", then the Impromptus op. 90, but I decide for these three pieces, because they pierce directely into the heart. Even when they sound cheerful, there is a nervous undercurrent. I my view, these are some of the most disturbing and painful pieces Schubert ever wrote. STEVENSON: Passacaglia on DSCH - a huge piano cycle, 80 minutes or so, but not at all in the amorph Sorabji-fashion. Stevenson has more in common with Rzewski (also being politically far left), being not so advanced, but using tonality and atonality and varying skilfully the techniques of counterpoint, accompanied melody, glimpses at Bach aso. Moreover, the work is well structured in three great parts, each one consisting of smaller parts, which refer one to the other.

Hello David ! Your uploads are little highlights in my day, thanks ! Beethoven’s Op 111 leaves me feel serene, at peace, it has got a calming effect on me. Janacek’s 1905 sonata perhaps deserves a spot on your list.

Good selection, I reckon Stevenson's Passacalgia on DSCH should make the top 10.

Great, David! Hoping to see 10 great symphonies by the numbers 2 soon!

Rzewski!! Thrilled that you included him.

My additions: Faure - Nocturne No. 13 in B minor Protopopov - Piano Sonata No. 2

Klement Slavicky's piano sonata "Contemplation of Life" has drained me to my bones lately.

I'm certainly glad the Chopin Piano Sonata No. 2 made the list; that's the first piano work that came to my mind with regards to emotional drainage. I would personally add Chopin's Ballade No. 1 to the emotionally draining piano pieces. As I have played and performed it, it certainly drains me emotionally, if not physically, every time. The frequent, quick character changes, the transitions between sections, and especially that return of the main tune in g minor, with its ominous low Ds solidifying the darkness if one wills, before the crazy coda all make it quite the roller coaster of human emotions in my opinion. Thanks for your list, as always, Mr. Hurwitz! I'm enjoying these!

Shostakovich 2nd piano sonata is piece that wears me out.

Dave, I love all of your comments on the greatest composers last greatest Sonata, number 32 Opus 111. Your description with its phraseology is dead on: transcendental, Cosmic trills. You get it as you always do !

What a list ❤️

Excellent list I agree 100%. I would like to mention 4 more pieces which I find very emotionaly draining and wonderful. 1. Rachmaninoff Corelli Variations, a piece with very dark melancholic character. 2. Schumann Ghost Variations, his last piano piece before he was committed to an institution. So beautiful and eery at the same time 3. Litany by Takemitsu, a true Requiem for piano. 4. In the mist, Janacek music as personal it can get

It's interesting that you included Schubert's D960. The first piece I thought of was D959, with its second movement that in the middle has what feels like either a nervous breakdown or a release of frustration which has been bottled up too long. After that breakdown or release, when the tune from the beginning of the movement returns, there is such catharsis. (Thanks for including the Beethoven sonata, which is the other work I thought of, and for directing me to works that I didn't think of because I didn't even know they existed.)

Well, you just outdid yourself with this list. How wonderfully diverse this list is. Also, David, how educational this video is for me. I have to listen to all of this, but I’ll start with the Prokovief, then the Schubert. My own list would be tame by comparison, and it would include the second movement of the Brahms 3rd piano sonata.

Excellent list! I would like to add the Moonlight Sonata. The Solomon recording on Audite really opened my ears to the cosmic grief in that familiar opening movement.

Schubert's last three sonatas are all deep mariana trench challenging stuff. I'd actually choose the c-minor in the context of draining. Individual movements of D959 and D960 may grab the hreartstrings more effectively, but taken as a whole, it's D958 that is the complete journey. And it is a journey indeed, which always puts me in mind of a mad dash through a winter landscape (not of the merry Christmas variety) and also of an emotional journey from anguish to insanity. That sonata is the most unified whole of the last three, and takes me to emotional depths that I'm not sure I want to encounter unprepared. Hearing/watching Egorov do it live has maybe biased me. If so, I'm thankful for the bias. Wouter van Doorn

Yaay! Somebody realizes what a work of genius "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues" is. I almost never see pictures or hear stories when I listen to instrumental music, but in this case I can't get away from imagining the narrative of a worker trapped in the raucous goings on of a cotton mill, getting on mass transit at the end of his shift ("motion music"), arriving home and kicking back to some calming blues, back on the mass transit to arrive at the end of the piece back in the chaos of mill work--a never ending cycle. Marc Andre Hamelin's recording has been my touchstone, but I heard a kid student at Julliard about 12 years ago play it in an afternoon recital with even more virtuosity (!) and feeling.

Didn't expect this so fast! Thanks. Great list, especially the beethoven sonata and the chopin sonata. Really you could've chosen anything by Chopin, most of it very intense. Actually playing Chopin is even more emotionally draining, "easier" pieces like the nocturnes and waltzes are still exhausting because of the emotional aspect.

I nominate Sequentia Cyclica. It is beyond emotionally draining. It will physically exhaust your last bit of stamina and ability to stay awake

A great selection. I don't know the CPE Bach or the Haydn, and it's a long time since I heard the Alkan - so I have great music to listen to. (I heard Ronald Smith lecture on Alkan and play excerpts and examples, long ago. An interesting man - I think he was wealthy enough that he didn't need an income, and was able to devote himself to very difficult repertoire. I remember an LP of him playing late Beethoven with a picture of him in a bright red jacket at the piano - like a fox hunting man.)

I have listened to Richter's performance of Schubert's Piano Sonata D. 960..several recordings. They are so moving.... It is a cry to "live" They are probably performed too romantically performed ..but when I am sad..and have seen the ravages of death (I am a Doc)..I go to this performance...(there are many fine recordings -I have many but I always go back to Richter!!

This may be cheating but one of the most draining keyboard works I usually listen to is Bartok's third piano concerto. Since he wrote it while he was dying, it seems imbued with that sense of farewell - especially the slow movement. It really hits me in the feels but leaves me feeling better and serene.

So much music I didn't listen yet - I'm so lucky! Also, I knew I didn't get Prokofiev's 8th, thank you for reminding me to go back and try again. One piano piece that gets my knees soft everytime is "In The Mist" by Janacek.

wow, just asked 3 days ago. You work fast :)

I am always drained by listening to the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra. The thought of a imminently dying man producing such exuberance, darkness in places, joy, sorrow, and brilliance. I also am ripped by the Liszt Piano Sonata for inexplicable reasons!

The frank bridge piano sonata, written for his friends lost in the Great War is devastating!

Love that the Ives is in there. I've asked before: please, please, please do a repertoire video on the Concord. I'm really curious which one you prefer. Do you go for Kirkpatrick? Or which Hamelin version? Or maybe Donna Coleman. And what about my current favourite: Easley Blackwood (because he makes it his own, which is what Ives would've apreciated, even if he wouldn't have played it himself that way). Sorry if I get carried away a bit, but I love this work so much. You're never done with it.

Hi David. Regarding the Ives Sonata, would you recommend Alexei Lubimov's rendition? I saw it on a budget series on erato, coupled with Ives 'three-quarter tone pieces' alongside Pierre-Laurent Aimard. I was curious but flinched as I don't know the composer at all.

Great picks! I'm unsure whether my list would include Beethoven No. 32 or Beethoven No. 29... after playing 29's massive fugue, what performer (or listener) wouldn't be drained?

On my list are Bartók's 1926 Sonata and Ginastera's Sonata #1.

Which Arrau video of Beethoven 32 did you have in mind--the color video or the older B&W video?

"keyboard drainage" - simultaneously one of the funniest and most disgusting phrases I've ever heard! I will be finding ways to incorporate this phrase into my own speaking about music.

Great list! Here are some others I would nominate, in no particular order: - Chopin Ballade No. 2 - Alkan Trois Morceaux Dans le Genre Pathetique (if only for the final two chords!) - Brahms Op. 118 (the last piece is a real barrel of laughs) - Scriabin Fantasie - Rachmaninov Sonata No. 1 (amazing piece, you can hear the gates of hell clang shut at the end!) - Godowsky Sonata (enormous piece with a funeral march/Dies Irae near the end) - Medtner Sonata-Ballade (epic journey to the depths and back) and Sonata Reminiscenza (15 minutes of pure gloom)

Thanks, David. I would have included Gaspard de la nuit

The late, great, Danny Pinkham was fond of saying the clavichord had a remarkable dynamic range: “all the way from pianissimo - down to inaudible!”

I just started listening a moment ago. Liszt B Minor has to be on the list. And I'm a huge fan of Copland's Piano Variations. No other comments till after I listen to the video.

I know it's a duo/four hands but Schubert F minor Fantasie D.940? Lupu and Perahia Sony or Paul Lewis and Steven Osborne on Hyperion are my favourites.

I would love to ad to your list - Satie: 3 Gymnopédies - Also Satie: Gnossiennes No. 1 - Debussy: La fille aux cheveux de lin - Alkan: Symphony for solo piano (Oh my god, that piece drains all my energy and emotions just to think the effort the pianist has to do)

1.Chopin Ballade 4 2.Beethoven Hammerklavier 3.Prokofiev sonata 8 4.Scriabin sonata 7 5.Beethoven sonata 32 6.Chopin sonata 2 7.Ives concord Sonata 8.Schubert sonata 14 9.Liszt piano sonata in b minor 10.Schubert Sonata 18

Here is my list, if anyone is interested (I’ve tried not to mention any of the works that already have been listed): In no particular order A. Scriabin - Sonata no 3 op. 23 (mov 3 is just heavenly) R. Schumann - Kreisleriana op.16 C. Franck - Prélude, Choral et Fugue, FWV 21 Bach-Busoni - Chaconne (I consider it a separate piece from the original, just so good) V.Silvestrov - Nostalgia (or any of his piano works, there are all sublime) L. Godowsky - Piano Sonata in E minor J. S. Bach - Prelude in B Minor BWV 923 (not a piano work, but couldn’t miss the opportunity to include it as it is so rarely played, unfortunately) N. Medtner - Sonata-Reminiscenza, op. 38 no. 1

Rzewski's "The People United" definitely belongs on this list BECAUSE it's longer than "Winnsboro."

6 moments musicaux, D780 Schubert. The mood of the piece is like you try to enjoy yourself while fate is creeping in on you. Then the last movement leaves you stunned as fate swallows you whole.

The two works that came to mind when I read the title were: 1. Rachmaninoff sonata 2 in Bb (either version!) 2. Prokofiev piano concerto 2 (yes it's got orchestra with it but it might as well be considered a piano work with that cadenza :D

Can’t dispute the C Minor fantasy by any stretch, but the Adagio in B minor, K. 540, could easily be on this list… don’t know why that absolute masterpiece doesn’t get the attention it deserves. And speaking of B minor, the Berg Sonata op. 1 would be on my list.

I’ll nominate the Bridge sonata. A real underplayed masterpiece. Shostakovich prelude and fugue in d minor is pretty draining.

I agree about Mozart's solo piano music. It's pencil sketches, where Beethoven's are oil paintings. Another one that's an exception amongst Mozart's works is the Adagio in B Minor. I love Horowitz's performance of it. It's almost Chopin-esque.

I’m still debating if Messiaen’s Vingt Regards would be on my list but I can’t decide if I find that piece emotionally draining, deeply meditative, or both.

Some Scriabin can be draining, (Sonatas 3,9 and 10 and the B minor Fantasy Op 28 spring to mind).

Chopin's Ballade n°1 (and I can't avoid thinking of the impact it has in the movie "The Pianist", even if it's not played complete there).

For those willing to explore the outer fringes of the repertoire, Sorabji's music guarantees emotional drainage. My favorite on this regard is his Toccata seconda.

A small appendix to your list… Liszt: Benediction de dieu dans la solitude & Nuages gris, different takes on being alone Chopin: Nocturne in F-sharp minor, Op. 48 No. 2, one of the most wistful, nostalgic pieces Mozart: Fantasia and Fugue in C major, perhaps not exactly draining, but I always feel well-spent

I find Schubert’s D959 even more emotional and draining than the D960. As if you can hear the dispair of the syphilis he must have been suffering. Now it may be that I am influenced by the three-part documentary of Schubert’s life (Notturno - mit meinen heissen traenen, from the Austrian tv), which was set against this music.

Wow, very interesting list Dave. I'll post my top 10 cause why not. There's something very emotionally triggering about piano music in general to me because it's one person creating it which somehow makes it a private/personal experience. 1. Schumann - Fantasy, Op. 17.... I can't imagine anything more draining than this. When you get to those final pages, it's a singular experience in the repertoire. What an amazing work! 2. Ravel - Gaspard de la nuit....To watch a pianist play this work is emotionally draining all it's own, but to hear it evolve, particularly that first movement is such a rare experience. 3. Chopin - Ballade No. 4 (Op. 52).... Every bar feels like you're being transported somewhere else. It's totally transcendent. 4. Schubert - Piano Sonata 21 (D. 960) ... this is the piece I go to when nothing in life seems as it should. It feels very personal, even spiritual from the first note. 5. Liszt - Sonata in B minor .... I've heard very boring, intellectual interpretations of this one, but in the right hands such as Argerich it's an explosion and can drain the life out of the listener. 6. Faure - Nocturne No. 6 (Op. 63).... Really an under-appreciated masterpiece from an under-appreciated composer. 7. Debussy - Images.... Particularly Reflets dans l'eau which in the hands of Jacobs or Michelangeli leave me with the impression that I've just been transported 8. Chopin - Ballade No. 1 (Op. 23).. no qualms about putting 2 Chopin. He deserves at least that when it comes to solo piano. 9. Brahms - Intermezzi (Op. 117).... The Brahms late piano works are to me, his greatest works in any medium, and of these the three intermezzi seem to present the most emotional weight of the lot. 10. Mozart - Rondo in A minor (K. 511)... I agree with you Dave, the Mozart sonatas are for the most part, likely among his most boring efforts to receive regular recording and concertizing, the C minor and A minor excluded. But the Rondo in A minor is almost like hearing the beginning of romanticism, and I think for the time it's emotionally charged in a way that no solo keyboard work had ever been before. It just boggles my mind. *Honorable mention....The Grieg lyric Pieces which in the right moments can leave one without words. *Honorable mention #2.... Scriabin Vers la Flamme (Op. 72)... my list isn't filled with much dissonance as that's not where i live musically, but all of Scriabin's late works are emotionally charged and deserve to be mentioned, most of all his last.

I find this list very draining. I wonder what would happen if I listened to all ten of these in one sitting? I suppose there would be nothing left of me.

Ten most sinus draining bassoon concertos? "Sniff"

The only piece of music that actually came close to triggering a panic attack from me is John Cage's "Four Walls". The relentless C major pounded out frequently at full volume felt like the aural equivalent of claustrophobia. I forced myself to get to the end, but it was an experience I'll never put myself through a second time. Maybe it was less emotionally draining as it was emotionally and even physically wrenching, but it definitely left a, shall we say, impression on me (and, for the record, I'm the type who can read Lovecraft at midnight and still get a good night's sleep).

Oh yes. D 960. I would have included Bach's (JS, that is) E-flat minor prelude from book 1 of the Well-Temperend Clavier, and perhaps even some Bull or Byrd. Or Froberger, the world's greatest tombeauist. But D 960 is still out there, unsurpassed after some 200 years. In my ears.

Apparently Mozart wrote the C minor fantasy as a prelude or partner piece to his C minor sonata. Listening to fantasy and sonata together is definitely draining!

One of Liszt's late piano works could also have made the list, example, Sinistre, or Nuages gris.

I find the Moonlight Sonata THE most emotional draining of all. Just my opinion, of course

Winnsboro -- it'll make you wonder how the performer doesn't reduce the piano to kindling.

Schubert’s works are included in vocal works, in piano works, and most likely in chamber works. But his 4th symphony is not included in orchestral works. Tragic but enjoyable, not draining.

I'd add Brahms Schumann Variations

Idea for a list: The 10 most embarassing works (embarassing for the composer). For works like Beethovens Wellingtons Sieg.

So, without even looking/listening, I'm guessing Beethoven's op. 111. Will I eat crow??

No Liszt at all?

Scriabin black mass. I just want to kill myself when listening to it, and not out of enjoyment xD