Innehållsförteckning för 132 från Pianist

EMAIL: editor@pianistmagazine.com WRITE TO: The Editor, Pianist,Warners Group Publications,The Maltings, West St, Bourne, PE10 9PH. Letters may be edited. More Rachmaninov Having enjoyed reading Lucy Parham’s lesson on the glorious Rachmaninov Prelude Op 32 No 5 (issue 130), I’ve started to do some serious work on it. My goal is to programme it with a couple of other Rachmaninov preludes that aren’t too challenging (even if that’s almost an impossibility!) Do you have any recommendations? Ash Davidson, London If you like that particular prelude, we’d suggest another gorgeous one that has a similar feel – the D major from the Op 23 set (No 4). Lucy Parham gave a lesson on the piece inside issue 99. If you are looking for something turbulent and fast, as a nice contrast,…

We pianists are often preoccupied with empowering our so-called ‘weak’ fingers – i.e. the fourth and fifth – and with some justification, given that we need to make the most of all the digits we’ve got. Thankfully, weird contraptions designed to strengthen certain fingers haven’t caught on, despite an appetite for experimentation evident among pianists in the 1830s (it didn’t end well for poor Schumann, who famously damaged his second and third fingers with his homemade cigar box and wire gizmo). Just as a racket sports player cannot solely rely upon a strong forehand to compensate for a dodgy backhand, and the right-footed footballer might still need to shoot with the left foot, so the pianist must learn to harness all ten digits. There are plenty of pieces, studies and…

Key C major Tempo Tempo giusto Style Romantic Will improve your ✓ Sense of pulse ✓ Finger articulation Chant des chasseurs Tyroliens (Song of the Tyrolean hunters), is a lively, energetic piece. It was written by French composer Félix Dumont (1832-1917), a distinguished Parisian piano teacher. Dumont was primarily known for his piano method, École du piano (‘School of piano’). The method consists of eight progressive books, from very simple to advanced, and it became so popular that there have been seven editions of the series. This piece comes from Book 1 (Op 24). In the key of C, the piece is set in four-bar phrases and is in Ternary form (ABA). It consists of a simplistic, tuneful melody (RH part) and an Alberti-bass accompaniment (LH). This type of…

On these pages, Pianist covers the most basic stages of learning through a series of lessons by Hans-Günter Heumann. These eight short exercises are perfect warm-ups for the start of your practice session. Eight exercises from L’ABC du Piano French music teacher and composer Félix le Couppey was notorious for his elementary exercises for the piano. Play the notes evenly, allowing for equal weight from one finger to the next. When practising slowly, lift the fingers a little more than usual, and then when increasing the speed, decrease that movement.…

First published in 1847, the key sequence of Alkan’s 25 Préludes Op 31 guides us through all the major and minor keys, but instead of settling for all 24 major and minor tonalities, Alkan comes full circle for a 25th and final C major Prélude to complete the set. Even if Alkan had in mind that the Préludes might equally effectively be played on piano or organ, they have always been regarded primarily as piano music. Playing tips: Start out quietly and expressively, always aiming to produce a beautifully singing, legato line in the RH. The LH, too, has its own melody line, and this should be heard as well – even if more understated. At the end of bar 4, the melody appears in sixths; voice the notes so…

Baldassare Galuppi was a Venice-born composer who wrote many operas as well as liturgical and keyboard works, including 130 keyboard sonatas. The slow movement from another of his sonatas – also in the key of C – was published inside issue 75 (watch Michelangeli’s mesmerising performance on YouTube) and the first movement from yet another C major sonata inside issue 108. So if you like learning this, try them! Playing tips: Start by practising at a very slow tempo and work on the sections that are extra difficult (e.g. the RH trills, which appear at the start and elsewhere). You will notice that the score is devoid of dynamic markings; Galuppi didn’t written them onto his music; it was up to the performer. Some suggestions: reduce the dynamics at bar…

The ability to play at sight is an immensely valuable skill that enables and accelerates the process of learning new repertoire. It’s often neglected, though, and if it is untended for too long there will inevitably come a point where one’s reading ability becomes too weak to register effectively against increasingly complex notation. Progress will slow, and when the burden of reading outweighs the joy of the music-making, the outlook is bleak. There are essentially three types of sight-reading books on the market to help ward off this predicament: The first type contains pieces that are homogenised in terms of their difficulty to a specified standard. The second type provides exercises and instruction to work on the nuts and bolts of the reading process. And the third type features progressive…

Written in 1905, the Sonatine counts as a relatively early completed and published work by a composer who never relaxed a fastidious approach to his craft, and whose language strikes a fine balance between the shimmer of Impressionism and the rhythmic verve and clarity of French Baroque composers such as Couperin. Playing tips: This movement – indeed the entire Sonatine – should have a Baroque feel to it. Start off calmly, bearing in mind the elegant bearing of a minuet, always in strict time, and take note that the first 12 bars should be repeated. Ravel has carefully marked tempo changes throughout such as ‘sans ralentir’ (‘without slowing down’) at bar 52. Resist the temptation to slow down: a seamless entry is needed into the return of the melody. The…

Alkan Prélude Op 31 No 12:For fun, try out the idea of playing the RH’s opening few bars with just your third finger, to help with lyrical voicing. In bars 3, 9, 15 and 21 you can harness finger three for the repeated notes (play the first note of each bar with finger five). Dett Mammy: While for many pianists’ fingers four and five will seem the most obvious choices for the grace notes populating bars 17-33, try using three and four instead. There’ll be a wider stretch, but the payoff is added clarity and consistency. Glinka La séparation: Here also, there are opportunities to practise your finger three lyricism, but also to produce a more emphatic effect, e.g. at bars 6 and 7 (also, in combination with the thumb,…

Key D minor Tempo Lento Style Romantic Will improve your ✓ Tenuto ✓ Pedalling ✓ Voicing When proofreading the manuscript of his biography Rachmaninoff ’s Recollections in 1933, the composer shared with the book’s author Oskar von Riesemann his earliest composition, at least as he remembered it. It already contained a few Rachmaninov trademarks (key choice of D minor, and some biggish stretches) but it must be the easiest original work by someone not otherwise known for producing anything as accessible. Von Riesemann included a facsimile of the (hurriedly written?) piece in his book, but the scaling down of the score to less than A5 size doesn’t make it any easier to read. In fact, the F#s in bars 15 and 16 could easily be mistaken for F§s, making…

Notes from the composer: Triads are chords consisting of three notes written a third apart, sitting on top of each other on the stave. Triads often feature in piano music, appearing in many pieces, but we don’t often get the chance to ‘practise’ them. Triad Tease is intended to offer this opportunity! It’s a lively, sprightly work that is good fun to play and requires some finger dexterity and a flexible wrist so that each triad can be fully sounded as opposed to rushed or skirted over. Fingering has been added – it’s a good idea to stick to it as it’s very simple: 1-3-5 almost throughout. To play the triads successfully, lift the whole hand after sounding each one; ensure your wrist is loose, relaxed, and flexible, as it…

In 1850, Schumann rearranged some of his discarded music to come up with the Bunte Blätter (and the Albumblätter). Although fine works, they never received the popularity of his other well-known works composed around the same period, such as Kreisleriana and Kinderszenen. In contrast to these masterpieces, the 14 Bunte Blätter (Coloured Leaves) contain melodies which are less memorable and mood swings which are less extreme (which we expect from the ‘agitated’ Schumann). Playing tips: The marking at the start, ‘Nicht schnell, mit innigkeit’, means ‘not quickly, with intimacy’. That precious intimacy should be portrayed throughout, with melody notes ringing out like soft pearls, beneath which the accompaniment – in both hands – ripples seamlessly. Allow for breathing spaces (e.g. at the end of the first phrase, middle of bar…

If one attempts to picture Brahms, one sees two images: at one end, the strikingly handsome, long-haired, youthful composer – the iconic romantic virtuoso. At the other end is the older, bushy-bearded, familiar Brahms – the iconic elder statesman. Should we also look at his music via these two images? His three sonatas and early sets of variations are all filled with great virtuosity and relentless energy, yes. Then, apart from his Klavierstücke Op 76 and the Two Rhapsodies of Op 79, there is a long hiatus until the composer’s final decade when the four sets of Op 116 through to 119 appear in quick succession. We’d do a disservice to Brahms if we were to assume all of these late pieces are in some way serene and ‘autumnal’. These…

PETER DONOHOE Mozart Sonatas Vol 6 Somm SOMMCD0660 The sixth and final volume of Peter Donohoe’s survey of Mozart Sonatas for Somm is intimately recorded and captures affectionate, expressive and classically crisp accounts of three sonatas. They include the K545, the one that is suggested as being relatively straightforward to master technically. Well, I didn’t find it so; however, Donohoe plays it with ease but never glibness, in a delightful reading – rather puckish in the final movement. K282’s opening Adagio goes deeper, for which Donohoe sets a spacious tempo, following it with a dancing Minuet & Trio and a sparkling Finale. The C minor Fantasia (K475) is opening arrestingly and goes on to tease the listener as to direction and content. Much is beguiling and also dramatic –…

TAP TO WATCH Alice Sara Ott plays Liszt Liebestraum No 3 TAP TO WATCH Alice Sara Ott play Beethoven Concerto No 3 It’s as slick and sleek as any advert can be: red dress, black and white piano keys, swiftly switching responses. At the summons of a search on ‘Beethoven Op 1’, the pianist plays a flourish from a piano trio; but the pictured user then types an extra ‘5’ and suddenly we’re hearing ‘Op 15’, the Piano Concerto No 1. As if by magic, an orchestra appears, and a conductor, Karina Canellakis; and with one more click, spatial audio enlivens the sound. The advert for the new Apple Music Classical app features, as the scarlet-clad soloist, Alice Sara Ott. And it is all over in just half a minute.…

One of the most basic skills needed by every musician is the ability to hold onto a steady pulse no matter what is happening on the surface of the music. It is relatively straightforward to feel the three main beats in bar 11 from the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata Op 109 (first bar below); rather more challenging in bar 12 (second bar). To help us internalise a basic pulse there are many exercises we can practise with the metronome. Choose any scale you like, set the metronome to somewhere around 60 bpm playing one note per click for one octave up, then back down, before switching seamlessly and without stopping to twice the speed (one click every other note) over two octaves – up and down, as before. Start…

Key G minor Tempo Allegro energico Style Romantic Will improve your ✓Fifth-finger strength ✓Chord voicing ✓Phrasing Brahms wrote his penultimate set of piano works, the Six Piano Pieces Op 118, in 1893. Dedicated to his beloved friend, Clara Schumann, they were written very much with her technique (and now more arthritic hands) in mind. I particularly love playing this G minor Ballade as it possesses a feeling of triumph that is always tinged with melancholy. The six pieces work perfectly as a set. However, several of them are equally successful when played as single, standalone pieces. Most notably worth choosing for this are the A major Intermezzo (No 2) the final E flat minor Intermezzo and this one – the ever-popular Ballade in G minor. I par ticularly love playing…

Russian Late-Romantic composer Vladimir Rebikov studied piano with his mother, and completed a course in linguistics before entering the famous Moscow Conservatoire. He went on to be a founding figure among modern Russian musicians and a pioneer in the use of the wholetone scale. Sadly, though, he was already a forgotten figure by the time of his death at age 54 and even today he is best known by way of his insubstantial music in salon genres. He wrote lyrical piano miniatures (suites, cycles, and albums etc.) including three Ballades for piano. The third, in the key of G minor, was first published around 1913. Playing tips: Here’s a piece that would benefit from singing the melody out loud before learning the notes. Think in long four-bar phrases and aim…

Canadian-born pianist, composer, music director, and writer Robert Nathaniel Dett dedicated himself to spreading African American music throughout the US. He taught himself to play the piano, influenced not only by his grandmother, who sang the spirituals that came to influence his style, but also by his mother, who taught him to recite long passages from the Bible as well as poems by Shakespeare and Tennyson. Two of his best-known pieces are his piano suites Magnolia (1912) and In the Bottoms (1913). A bit of trivia: Dett died the same year at Rachmaninov. Playing tips: The RH triplets might look difficult to grasp, but if you listen to the track (and other performances on YouTube), these recurring motifs are quite ‘lazy’; don’t worry about getting the rhythm spot-on. Most important…

London-born but Paris-bred, Bertini was also known to Liszt, and gave at least one duet recital with him, but it was his work as a teacher that assured his reputation. Playing tips: In this hand-crossing exercise, the RH should stay close to the keys. It barely needs to move. The LH requires more work: practise hands separately. Once you are familiar with the LH jumps, try to practise ‘blind’, without looking down at the LH. Your aim is to be so familiar with the distances that you can find the right notes without looking. Take a look at the technical tips within the score. Don’t be put off by the speed. Practise slowly at first, making sure the notes are clean, and you will pick up speed over time.…