Liszt's reputation as perhaps the greatest pianist of all time is powerfully supported by his dazzling body of work for solo piano. The undiminished popularity of his etudes with pianists and audiences alike have made them among the most performed and recorded works for solo piano in the romantic repertoire.This superbly produced yet inexpensive two-volume edition presents all of Liszt's etudes as edited by the great pianist, composer, and musical scholar Ferruccio Busoni for the Franz Liszt Society and published by Breitkopf and Härtel in Leipzig in 1910–11.This first volume, Series I, includes many of Liszt's most inspired piano works. The Etude en 12 Exercises and the 12 Grandes Etudes can both be regarded as early versions of the Etudes d' Exécution Transcendante (Transcendental Etudes). Each set is a highly successful work in its own terms, and both generally surpass the famous final version in difficulty. The separate «Mazeppa» is yet another working of one of the etudes from these sets. The individual etudes range dramatically in style from the delicate refinement of «Feux Follets» to the startling bravura of «Wilde Jagd» (both from the Transcendental Etudes). Each will bring to pianists and their listeners a moving encounter with the genius of this towering musical personality.
Although best known as the sister of Felix Mendelssohn, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-47) was a virtuoso pianist and a composer of considerable merit in her own right. Her oeuvre of more than 400 compositions remained largely unknown for more than a century after her untimely death, and her newly rediscovered reputation as a composer rests chiefly with her piano music. This volume is the first American publication of her important early works. Reproduced directly from rare first editions, its contents include Vier Lieder für das Pianoforte, Op. 2, Op. 6, and Op. 8, in addition to two selections from Six Mélodies pour le Piano, Op. 4 and Op. 5. Introduction.
This volume offers pianists a unique opportunity to study and master Chopin's two piano concertos: The Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11, and the Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 21. Although the composer wrote both works to launch his career as a concert artist, he soon abandoned the concert hall for the more intimate atmosphere of the salon and turned his creative attentions to the brilliant shorter works on which his reputation rests today. The concerti remain among the composer's few ventures in longer and more comprehensive musical forms.Extended stretches of brilliant passagework and many moments of exquisite loveliness have made both works favorites with music lovers. Now pianists can explore their beauty and expressiveness with this practical playing and study edition. It contains the original solo piano parts of the concerti as well as a skillful piano reduction of the original orchestral parts. This means a pianist can play the solo part while the second piano functions as the «orchestra.» Clearly printed and sturdily bound in this high-quality volume, these scores are an effective, practical way for students to learn, practice, and rehearse these masterworks of the piano repertoire.
While better known for his great orchestral works, Tchaikovsky composed a large number of solo pieces that are loved and played by pianists the world over. This new collection, bringing together the best and most popular of these compositions, is the finest single-volume edition of Tchaikovsky's solo piano music now available.Featured in this volume are two particularly well-known works: The Seasons, Op. 37bis, a suite of 12 pieces, each bearing the name — and capturing the spirit — of one of the months, and Album for the Young, Op. 39, a set of 24 easy pieces popular with pianists of all levels for their charm and lyric grace. Also included in this edition are five early pieces: Thème original et variations, Op. 19, No. 6; the famous «Chanson trists» and three other pieces from Op. 40; Valse sentimentale, Op. 51, No. 6; Doumka, Op. 59; and ten favorite excerpts from Eighteen Characteristic Pieces, Op. 72.
Born in the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti strongly influenced subsequent trends in keyboard music through his uniquely elegant, embellished, fleet virtuoso style. This new compilation of popular selections by the great master presents favorites drawn from his more than 500 miniature sonatas.All of Scarlatti's familiar and best-loved masterpieces — well-known worldwide from piano recitals and CDs — appear here: tarantellas, Siciliennes, pastorals, and sparkling high-speed keyboard toccatas of the greatest ingenuity.According to legendary keyboard artist Wanda Landowska, «when we hear Scarlatti's music, we know that we are in the climate of sunlight and warmth. It is Italy, it is Spain — the spirit of the Latin countries and the god of the Mediterranean.» Pianists and all music lovers can discover the truth of that statement in this handsome and inexpensive compilation of exquisite pieces.
This new gathering of the world's greatest classical themes follows Bergerac's highly successful My First Book of Classical Music. Here are ever-popular themes from the symphonies, concertos, and operas of such masters as Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Mozart, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, and many others, presented in easy-to-play formats for children and beginners of any age. This collection includes a free MP3 download for every piece, which will help beginning pianists develop an ear for the melodies. The MP3s may be downloaded individually or collectively.
Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909) began his musical life as a piano prodigy in Barcelona at the age of four, and it is as a prolific composer of solo works for the pianoforte that we celebrate him most. This inexpensive Dover edition, designed to give you a lifetime of musical enjoyment, presents two of Albéniz's best-known works in authoritative editions: the piano suite Iberia, generally considered to be his masterpiece; and España, which contains the «Tango,» his most popular individual work.Iberia is a collection of twelve musical scenes of Spanish life, principally Andalusian, written in the years from 1906 to 1909. Its brilliant and complex character is suffused with the rhythms and harmonies of Spanish popular music, to which Albéniz turned for inspiration in the last years of his life.España, an earlier work first published in 1890, is made up of six piano pieces that subtly reflect the influences of the piano literature of the nineteenth-century salon and — like Iberia — the harmony and style of impressionism, which Albéniz himself helped to create. Both works reveal characteristics of the highly individualized piano technique Albéniz developed from early childhood and perfected under the tutelage of Liszt.
Among the best-loved and most performed of Chopin's piano compositions are his mazurkas. This volume includes 51 works — remarkable for their wide emotional appeal, advanced choromatic techniques and pianistic devices, and ranging in difficulty from relatively easy, for advanced beginnings, to quite challenging, for the accomplished pianist.Edited by Carl Mikuli, a pupil of Chopin, the works in this inexpensive and attractive volume extend from the radiant joyfulness of the Mazurka in B-flat major, Op. 7, No. 1, to the aching sadness of the Mazurka in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4, and from the brevity of the Mazurka in E-flat minor, Op. 6, No. 4, to the breadth of the C-sharp minor Mazurka, Op. 50, No. 3.Pianists and music lovers will welcome this attractive, sturdy volume reproduced directly from the authoritative Kistner edition. It comprises a treasury of Chopin's most characteristic and appealing works in one convenient, inexpensive source.
Renowned for the originality of his music and his gifts as a melodist, Henry Purcell (1659–1695) was the preeminent English composer of the seventeenth century and one of the greatest that nation has ever produced. His gifts are apparent not only in the vocal and orchestral works on which his fame rests, but in his delightful keyboard music, much of which is relatively simple and easy to perform. This volume is a near-complete collection of Purcell's keyboard compositions, including the eight suites, the core of his keyboard works. Also included are many miscellaneous one-movement pieces: airs, trumpet tunes (for harpsichord solo), grounds, preludes, dances, etc.Piano students and pianists of intermediate skills will enjoy these pieces for their charm and accessibility. Gathered here in one convenient, inexpensive volume, they offer a treasury of time-honored music that musicians and music lovers will turn to again and again.This volume has been edited with a preface by the noted music scholar William Barclay Squire.
A prolific composer and virtuoso pianist, Franz Liszt (1811–1886) was the most lionized musical personality of his time. His compositions for solo piano continue to be loved and admired by pianists and their audiences for their lush Romanticism and technical fireworks. They remain among the most frequently performed works in the repertoire. This choice selection of Liszt piano works reveals the powers at this extraordinary composer's command: Mephisto Waltz No.1; Nuages Gris; Liebesträume Nos. 1, 2 & 3; Grand Galop Chromatique; Polonaises Nos. 1 & 2; Valse-Impromptu in A-flat Major; Fantasia and Fugue on the Theme BACH; La Lugubre Gondola I & II; Valse Oubliée No. 1; Czárdás Macabre; Gretchen (from A Faust Symphony); Unstern: Sinsitre, Disastro; and Rhapsodie Espagnole.