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I've been thinking recently about the style of music that most inspires me to play the piano and have found some commonalities. The most obvious seems to be that sonata form often just works for my ears. I love hearing the development of material through different keys and the tonal changes in the form. I've noticed that Chopin ballades, Beethoven sonatas, and Liszt sonata all especially inspire me with their innovations to the form. I'm curious of other music that might be along similar lines from a structural perspective. I want to use this thread to attempt to gather inspiration and new music. I really love the dramatic storytelling qualities found in works like Beethoven op 110, Liszt Sonata and Chopin 2nd Ballade. I know this is all a bit vague but really I don't mind how people interpret what I mean, just that they share music that inspires them. Thanks!

"Fantasy"!

BTW, my tastes are similar, including that I also would single out Opus 110.


P.S. Why are there a lot more pieces called "Fantasy" than "Reality"....

I love the form known variously as La Follia/Folia/Les Folies. Just based on a simple repetitive chord sequence played always in the same order. Even in its simplest folk versions quite hauntingly hypnotic I find, and capable of endless variations and instrumentation. See what Rachmaninov does with Corelli's variations! Has even made its way occasionally into pop.
There's a website devoted to this form called La Folia, a Musical Cathedral:
https://www.folias.nl/

And if anyone can say whose variations this wonderful harpist Sofia Kiprskaya is playing, I'd love to know! (It's not Vivaldi, Corelli or Marais..)

La Follia is not really a form. It is a theme used in the form of theme and variation. It belongs to the compositional technique of ostinato. It could be used as a theme or Often times also as a bass ostinato like in the ground. There are other famous patterns such as the passamezzo or Romanesca used similarly in variations. Specific compositions like the passacaglia and the chacona.

Hmm .... aren't you being a bit nitpicking ?

The OP's request was, " I know this is all a bit vague but really I don't mind how people interpret what I mean, just that they share music that inspires them. Thanks!"

The example of the music is just fine. I was making a precision about the fact that a particular form is different from a music based on that form.

Brahms Rhapsodies

Any piece can have "dramatic story telling qualities" depending on the listener. Some people associate pictures, stories, etc. with virtually every piece of music, some only occasionally, while others rarely or never do so. I'm in the latter category. Some hear a story in Beethoven Op.110 or a Chopin Ballade and others don't.

I think it's the logic/organization of sonata allegro form or rondo form that appeals to many. Others might prefer less structured form more common to a composer like Debussy. The most common form is probably ABA form.

Just listen to a lot of music and find what appeals to you.

Someone wrote (in English) in the commentary that it is Salieri's variations on that tune.

Thanks bennevis, but it isn't Salieri or another suggestion, Fernando Sor. I downloaded both scores (and other possibilities!) A mystery, and my harp teacher has also asked around on her professional forum with no luck.

Here is the info for Classical Media Group— give them a try

CONTACTS

Russia, St. Petersburg,
Nab.Fontanki 5, Office 44
E-mail: cmmgroup@cmmgroup.ru

And their website

https://cmmgroup.ru/en/news/

Thanks dogperson, I'll give them a try!

The harpist Also has an e-mail
Address

sofia@sofiaharp.ru

Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven all acknowledged the huge influence that CPE Bach had on their music. You might want to take a look as his sonatas. I remember reading through many of them some years ago, and being startled by how formally inventive they could be.

I forget which one it was, but in at least one of them, he blurred the transition from fast first movement to slow movement in such a way that you couldn't really say where one ended and the other began. There was something about it that seemed experimental and almost "modern", in spite of the tonal idiom. I think that some of Beethoven's celebrated radical ideas were actually borrowed from CPE Bach.

There are of course tens of variations on that theme composed by a multiplicity of known and less known musicians across several centuries. I never heard the very first version of the theme that she plays. The other ones are quite close to several other variations. Given that the theme is the same and the variation technique being used are also similar it is bound that some variations have some common characters across composers.

Now it may very well be that she wrote herself some of the variations or arranged existing ones as well. That is something only she can tell.

Some composers that wrote variations: Frescobaldi, Pasquini, Lully, D'anglebert, Carl Philip E. Bach, Gaspar Sanz, Antonio Martin y Coll, Matteo Coferati, François Le Cocq, .....

CPE Bach is someone I've heard a bit about but haven't heard much of his music. I'll definitely take a look at his sonatas and see what they're working with.

You've got lots of company.
It is so for most people except for the piece "Solfeggiotto." I'd guess that even many advanced pianists aren't familiar with anything else of his.

Thank you people who are helping my little quest for the Folia! Am following up. It's not important, just one of those things that is bugging me. My harp teacher is interested too as she could actually play that version. (Envy attack!) She calls me Sherlock because I have sometimes been able to find out obscure stuff which is more accessible on English language sites.
I can only manage a much simpler arrangement on the harp though I can make a reasonable fist of some of the Marais Folies d'Espagne on the flute. I will enjoy rooting out the variations that Sidokar mentioned and getting to know some composers I'd never heard of!