If you were in hell, what programme would the devil inflict upon you? For me the obvious answer would be last 3 Schubert sonatas, but that’s too easy so I’ve gone with:
Beethoven - Tempest Sonata
Schubert - D960
intermission
Prokofiev 7th
Rachmaninoff preludes (selection of my least favourite)
You can choose your torturer if you like, but the emphasis should be on the rep rather than the pianist.
Thinking about this there are few pieces in the standard repertoire I really dislike actually - it’s more about fear of being bored, in which case the pianist plays a big role too. Among realistic programs however, for solo piano, with more or less standard rep, and generally speaking, either of these would be hard to sit through:
I don’t mind one sonata, but whole programs… Hamelin did essentially that program at Carnegie a few years ago incidentally. I think that might have been the lowest point of his career!
Can’t live with this hypothesis, for the simple reason that even pieces like Beethoven’s Für Elise or Liszt’s Liebestraum or Chopin’s Raindrop etc. can sound like a revelation again in the hands of a really great artist.
Unfortunately yes, but that’s not because the pieces are bad music.
If I were in hell, you could torture me much more severely with heavy metal, house, rap than with a boring performance of a classical work.