Jeffrey Hall wrote:

>>I haven't heard it, but Balakirev's Islamaey, Oriental Fantasty is
>>supposed to be a real knuckle-buster.

You haven't missed anything, in my humble opinion.

Steve Schwartz:

>As a matter of fact, Ravel composed Gaspard de la nuit in part to surpass
>Islamey in its technical difficulty, just as Islamey was composed to
>surpass the Liszt Transcendental Etudes.

A few (or more) votes, in no particular order:
Boulez: 2d piano sonata
Liszt: Transcendental Etudes
Ravel: the Miroirs suite and Gaspard de la nuit
Stravinsky: 3 movements from Petrouchka

To move past the difficult to the impossible, listen to Nancarrow's
works for player piano.  They are impossible to play if you are a mere
human (they were specifically written for the player piano), but it is
fascinating to hear piano works that are removed from a human's physical
constraints.

Drew M. Capuder
Fairmont, West Virginia USA
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