Lateness and Brahms takes up the fascinating, yet understudied problem of how Brahms fits into the culture of turn-of-the-century Vienna. Brahms's conspicuous and puzzling absence in previous scholarly accounts of the time and place raises important questions, and as Margaret Notley demonstrates, the tendency to view him in neutralized, ahistorical terms has made his music seem far less interesting than it truly is. In pursuit of an historical Brahms, Notley focuses on the later chamber music, drawing on various documents and perspectives, but with particular emphasis on the relevance of Western Marxist critical traditions.

The thirty-two Piano Sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven form one of the most important segments of piano literature. In this accessible, compact, and comprehensive guidebook, renowned performer and pedagogue Stewart Gordon presents the pianist with historical insights and practical instructional tools for interpreting the pieces. In the opening chapters of Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonatas, Gordon illuminates the essential historical context behind common performance problems, discussing Beethoven's own pianos and how they relate to compositional style and demands in the pieces, and addressing textual issues, performance practices, and nuances of the composer's manuscript inscriptions. In outlining patterns of structure, sonority, keyboard technique, and emotional meaning evident across Beethoven's compositional development, Gordon provides important background and technical information key to understanding his works in context. Part II of the book presents each sonata in an outline-chart format, giving the student and teacher ready access to essential information, interpretive choices, and technical challenges in the individual works, measure by measure, all in one handy reference source. In consideration of the broad diversity of today's Beethoven interpreters, Gordon avoids one-size-fits-all solutions or giving undue weight to his own tastes and preferences. Instead, he puts the choices in the hands of the performers, enabling them to create their own personal relationship with the music and a more powerful performance.

Originally published in 1933, this book provides a detailed history of the piano-forte from its invention in Italy in the eighteenth century until the presentation of the first European cast-iron frame for a piano at the 1851 Great Exhibition. Harding also analyses the role of the piano as a replacement for a chamber orchestra and its history as a domestic instrument. The text is richly illustrated with images of pianos produced by a variety of makers over time, as well as with images of piano machinery taken from patent registrations. This thoroughly-researched book will be of value to anyone with an interest in one of the most ubiquitous instruments in the Western world and the history of its development.

The key to fast and fun piano proficiency! Whether you're a wannabe Mozart or are an experienced hand at tinkling the ivories, the latest edition of Piano For Dummies has what you need to take you to the next level in making beautiful music using this much-loved and versatile instrument. Working as an introductory course--or as a refresher to keep those fingers nimble--you'll find information on getting started, improving your technique and performance, and the best ways to practice until you hit finely tuned perfection. And, along the way, you'll pick up the techniques for different styles, including classical, blues, and rock. In an easy-to-follow style, the book also helps you sharpen your sight-reading. You can also tune in to audio and video online to help you improve your creativity and discipline, as well as hear and see that you're hitting the right notes. Choose the right piano Know your keys Scale up for success Care for your instrument Whatever you want from your love affair with the old "88," you'll find enough right here to keep you hammering happily--and even more proficiently--away for years to come! P.S. If you think this book seems familiar, you're probably right. The Dummies team updated the cover and design to give the book a fresh feel, but the content is the same as the previous release of Piano For Dummies (9781118900055). The book you see here shouldn't be considered a new or updated product. But if you're in the mood to learn something new, check out some of our other books. We're always writing about new topics!

This book contains nine pieces from ABRSM's Grade 3 Piano syllabus for 2023 & 2024, three pieces chosen from each of Lists A, B and C - ideal for both Practical and Performance Grade exams. The pieces have been carefully selected to offer an attractive and varied range of styles, creating a collection that provides an excellent source of repertoire to suit every performer. The book also contains helpful footnotes and, for those preparing for exams, useful syllabus information.Audio recordings of all 39 pieces on the Grade 3 syllabus, performed by expert musicians, are included (via the download code in the book). A version of this book without audio download is also available.

(Faber Piano Adventures ). Enhancements to the 2nd Edition Level 2B Technique & Artistry Book include emphasis on pattern recognition, new teacher duets for several Artistry Magic pieces, and a new exercise to prepare students for playing chord changes. The four effective technique secrets are used as warm-ups throughout the book.

This book contains nine pieces from ABRSM's Grade 5 Piano syllabus for 2023 & 2024, three pieces chosen from each of Lists A, B and C - ideal for both Practical and Performance Grade exams. The pieces have been carefully selected to offer an attractive and varied range of styles, creating a collection that provides an excellent source of repertoire to suit every performer.The book also contains helpful footnotes and, for those preparing for exams, useful syllabus information. A version of this book with audio download is also available.

What Else Can I Play? Piano Grade 4 presents 18 carefully graded repertoire piecs for the grade 4 level pianist. With a variety of musical styles ranging from classical and jazz through to showtunes and popular songs, this collection will bring enthusiasm to learning the piano and provide an entertaining alternative for those pupils who are working towards, or have recently completed their grade exams. Each piece offers suggested fingering, dynamics and tempo together with technical tips and performance notes.

The most influential compositional movement of the past fifty years, spectralism was informed by digital technology but also extended the aesthetics of pianist-composers such as Franz Liszt, Alexander Scriabin and Claude Debussy. Students of Olivier Messiaen such as Tristan Murail and Gerard Grisey sought to create a cooperative committed to exploring the evolution of timbre in time as a basis for the musical experience. In The Spectral Piano, Marilyn Nonken shows how the spectral attitude was influenced by developments in technology but also continued a tradition of performative and compositional virtuosity. Nonken explores shared fascinations with the musical experience, which united spectralists with their Romantic and early Modern predecessors. Examining Murail's Territoires de l'oubli, Jonathan Harvey's Tombeau de Messiaen, Joshua Fineberg's Veils, and Edmund Campion's A Complete Wealth of Time, she reveals how spectral concerns relate not only to the past but also to contemporary developments in philosophical aesthetics.

Discoveries from the Fortepiano meets the demand for a manual on authentic Classical piano performance practice that is at once accessible to the performer and accurate to the scholarship. Uncovering a wide range of eighteenth-century primary sources, noted keyboard pedagogue Donna Gunn examines contemporary philosophical beliefs and principles surrounding Classical Era performance practices. Gunn introduces the reader to the Viennese fortepiano and compares its sonic and technical capabilities to the modern piano. In doing so, she demonstrates how understanding Classical fortepiano performance aesthetics can influence contemporary pianists, paying particular focus to technique, dynamics, articulation, rhythm, ornamentation, and pedaling. The book is complete with over 100 music examples that illustrate concepts, as well as sample model lessons that demonstrate the application of Gunn's historically informed style on the modern piano. Each example is available on the book's companion website and is given three recordings: the first, a modern interpretation of the passage on a modern piano; the second, a fortepiano interpretation; and the third, a historically informed performance on a modern piano. With its in-depth yet succinct explanations and examples of the Viennese five-octave fortepiano and the nuances of Classical interpretation and ornamentation, Discoveries from the Fortepiano is an indispensable educational aid to any pianist who seeks an academically and artistically sound approach to the performance of Classical works.

Features the life and work of Dinu Lipatti. This book deals with Lipatti as pianist, composer and teacher. It includes many quotations from letters written by him, many musical examples, a list of works and two cadenzas for the Mozart Piano Concerto in C (K467). This publication is a valuable foundation from which to understand the complete devotion and musicianship of one of the most gifted pianists/composers the world has ever heard. Much of this book is devoted to understanding Dinu Lipatti's music, his teaching, composing and those important in his musical development.

This beautiful, collectible souvenir folio features eight pages of more than 30 full-color scenes from the film. Titles: The Polar Express * When Christmas Comes to Town * Rockin' on Top of the World * Believe * Hot Chocolate * Spirit of the Season * Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town * Winter Wonderland * It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas * Silver Bells * Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane) * Suite from The Polar Express.

Dr. BARRY ROSE, OBE Born in 1934, Barry Rose originally set out on a career in insurance, but at the age of 24 he suddenly quit the world of commerce, and became a mature student at the Royal Academy of Music. Whilst there, and still without any musical qualifications, he was appointed as the first Organist and Master of the Choristers of the new Guildford Cathedral, founding and directing a choir which made several award-winning recordings for EMI (including Platinum, Gold and Silver discs). In 1974 he was invited to move to St. Paul’s Cathedral, where he took over the training the world-famous choir, directing them at many great State Occasions, including The Queen’s Silver Jubilee and the 1981 wedding of The Prince of Wales. His recordings with the Cathedral choir range from Mozart and Handel with Dame Kiri te Kanawa to a gold-disc recording of the pop-song My Way and the original soundtrack of The Snowman. From St. Paul’s Barry moved on to run the choral music at The King’s School, Canterbury, but was lured back into Cathedral music at St. Albans Abbey and Cathedral in 1988 – where he stayed until Christmas 1997. With the St. Albans choir he toured the USA no less than five times, as well as making recordings and broadcasts. Barry was also the BBC’s Music Adviser to the Head of Religious Broadcasting – a post he was to hold from 1971-1990, broadcasting regularly as conductor, organist, pianist, and even writing and presenting a series of church music programmes on BBC2. With his brother-in-law he also founded and produced recordings for GUILD RECORDS, as well as acting as recording producer for other choirs on different record labels. A regular visitor to the USA since 1974, he has been visiting director of several high-profile choirs on the East Coast, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and many European countries. Married, with three grown-up children, he and his wife Elizabeth (to whom the book is dedicated) now live in rural Somerset, where he still makes music and enjoys his hobby of collecting and restoring vintage fountain pens.

Pianists will find unlimited fun in this collection of 24 easy piano arrangements of the world's most familiar musical themes from movies and television. Spanning several decades of entertainment history, the 24 selections in this book will delight audiences of all ages. Titles: As Time Goes By (Casablanca) * The Ballad of Gilligan's Island * The Big Bang Theory (Main Title Theme) * Cantina Band (Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) * Concerning Hobbits (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King)* Doctor Who Theme * Downton Abbey - The Suite * Falling Slowly (Once) * Harry's Wondrous World (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) *Hedwig's Theme (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) * The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme) * Into the West (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King) * James Bond Theme * Let Me Be Your Star (SMASH) * Song from M*A*S*H (Suicide Is Painless) * Misty Mountains (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) * The Notebook (Main Title) * Over the Rainbow * The Pink Panther * Raiders March * Secondhand White Baby Grand (SMASH) * Star Wars (Main Title) * Theme from Superman * A Very Respectable Hobbit.

(Faber Piano Adventures ). The new Level 4 Technique & Artistry Book combines two elements of pianism: technical skill and artistic performance. This smooth, integrated approach builds basic elements of piano technique, always directed toward an artistic goal. Four powerful exercises called "Technique Secrets" help intermediate students build a strong technical foundation. "Artistry Magic" pieces at the end of each unit explore expressive playing.

The second edition of William Phemister's The American Piano Concerto Compendium reveals to professional and amateurs pianists alike a vast collection of available compositions by American composers. Analysis expands outside mainstream concerto styles to include those considered experimental or popular derivatives. The range of music flows from Pulitzer Prize winners like Samuel Barber, Gail Kubik, and John LaMontaine, to lesser-known multi-ethnic composers such as Tania Leon and Samuel Zyman, to old standards like Edward MacDowell and the first piano concerto written by an American-born composer, Otis B. Boise (1875), to the cutting-edge avant-garde of Milton Babbitt and Elliott Carter, just to name a few. These all contribute to the varied narrative that animates American piano music. With forty percent more works described, documented, and reviewed than were listed in the 1985 first edition from the College Music Society, this second edition is a valuable resource not only for pianists and conductors, but also for orchestras, teachers, students, music historians and critics, collectors, and concert attendees.

More than any other part of Bach's output, his keyboard works conveyed the essence of his inimitable art to generations of admirers. The varied responses to this repertory - in scholarly and popular writing, public lectures, musical composition and transcription, performances and editions - ensured its place in the canon and broadened its creator's appeal. The early reception of Bach's keyboard music also continues to affect how we understand and value it, though we rarely recognize that historical continuity. Here, Matthew Dirst investigates how Bach's music intersects with cultural, social and music history, focusing on a repertory which is often overshadowed in scholarly and popular literature on Bach reception. Organized around the most productive ideas generated by Bach's keyboard works from his own day to the middle of the nineteenth century, this study shows how Bach's remarkable and long-lasting legacy took shape amid critical changes in European musical thought and practice.