Question by : Which is harder, Rachmaninoff’s 1st Piano Concerto or 2nd Sonata? First Movements?
Just the first movements, I’m looking to do one of the two for supplemental applications for my MIT and UChicago apps.
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Answer by hihihi
i play violin and clarinet.
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Nemesis says
This will always depend entirely on your own strengths and weaknesses as a musician as well as your physical strengths and weaknesses as a player. There is no absolute answer.
With regard to the 2nd Sonata, you will have to decide whether to pursue the original reading of the work or the later revision, in which case the original conception of the work is exponentially more challenging than either the revision or the concerto, itself a revision too.
Bottom line, taking the above into consideration, you will have to make provisional first readings of all three and then make up your own mind. If it is this level of the repertoire you wish to grapple with, then that is a responsibility for yourself that comes with it, indivisibly. Only you have your body & mind, and therefore only you can judge.
All the best,