Piano Pieces

Having attended music school and played the piano almost my entire life, I have very strong feelings about this magical instrument. Let's share all the piano pieces we like here. Doesn't have to be classical music, even - just any solo piano music that you enjoy.

On the classical spectrum, I think impressionism is my favorite period. I am especially fond of Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte, as I used to play it at a time that was quite difficult for me.



And of course, you can't go wrong with Debussy.




But it's not like I only listen to stuff like this. most of my music library is soundtracks, actually, and I've been rediscovering the Rebuild of Evangelion soundtrack in recent days, so here's two stand out piano tracks (although the score is filled with them, really, theses are just the two I like most.

First there's the incredibly energetic duet Quatre Mains.



And the very melancholy L'Apotre de la Lune (I have this thing in that most of the music I like is some shade of sad).

Prelude in E-Minor is used in one of my favourite episodes of The West Wing and that scene will make me well up every time. The whole piece is both mournful and hauntingly beautiful.



All of the piano pieces from Kingdom Hearts are amazing, I think the Organisation XIII theme and Dearly Beloved are two of the biggest highlights of the soundtrack for me.





There was also a guy on youtube who would arrange and play his own covers of Progressive Rock songs (and some other genres) from bands like Tool and A Perfect Circle. He was the reason I ever started learning piano and I enjoy his takes on these songs almost as much as I enjoy the originals. Not the best audio quality unfortunately.

Oooh, that reminds me of the pure excellence that is the Kingdom Hearts two piano collection albums~!

A lot of the piano pieces I enjoy have strings in them as well. :o

I set this as my wife's ring tone when we met (it was one of my mothers favorites to play).




Another that my mother would play (one of the first that I learned to play, after "Mary had a little lamb", "Three blind mice", and all that).

Love this instrument. I've been playing it since I was... 9 years old I think.

When it comes to classical music, there's no one I respect as much as Beethoven. Learning the Moonlight Sonata was doubtlessly the most satisfying period of the time I spent playing the piano, as it is actually my favorite musical piece of all time.



Though like Fynn, most of my library is soundtracks. My appreciation for piano and soundtracks go hand in hand. One of the earliest piano soundtracks I really fell in love with is To Zanarkand from Final Fantasy X, and it was the first track I taught myself to play all on my own so it'll always have that nostalgic value for me.



I also learned FF IX's Rose of May, though it's been a while since I last played it so I wonder if I can still play it...

Recently as well it's usually the piano tracks that really get to me. Little Busters for example has Parting of the Boys. Umineko has a quite number of them, some melancholic, some hype, and I love them all. On the melancholic side, my favorite is probably this one:



On the hype side, it'd be this one:



Some more good melancholic ones: Hope, Thank you for being born, Moon.
Some more good hype ones: Life, Answer.
Special mention to Golden Sneer.

Great thread. Most of my favorites have already been said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3ryiSk995Q

@Fynn: I have that KH collections CD! :)

The piano is my favorite instrument, and I still kick myself for never learning how to play it.

This one is a song, but the instrument is mostly a piano.



Course some Yoko Kanno goodness.











Some more classical pieces.





Some video game ones.

Clair de Lune has pretty much always been a personal favorite of mine. I don't really know how to play piano outside of knowing what note is what on the sheet music and the piano, but it has always been a goal of mine to be able to play Clair de Lune someday on piano even if I can't play it well. It's super calming.

Other than that, Chopin is my favorite piano composer. It's part of why I liked Eternal Sonata so much despite it being only an okay game. I just really like his music.

I've also always quite liked the FF and Kingdom Hearts piano collections music.

These are all things I like to listen to when I'm reading or writing and just want something... quieter I guess than something with more instruments. I'll have to go through this thread when I have more time. I really haven't broadened my experience with piano music much despite really liking the instrument.