Innehållsförteckning för 134 från Pianist

One of the joys of my job is talking to many people from different walks of life, and hearing their stories. Everyone has something to teach me. The two winners of Pianist’s inaugural online amateur piano competition shared with me the challenges they have faced when learning the piano. Homemaker and piano teacher Annie Kwon was the winner of our Classical category. As an excellent sight-reader, continually juggling a hectic schedule, she finds it difficult to really get to know a piece, rather than skating through it and moving on to the next. Software engineer Rob Rennie was the winner of our Modern category. For him, practice and improvement is all about trying to coax the perfect sound out of an instrument that’s ‘all wood and steel’, as he puts…

LESSONS FROM THE EXPERTS MELANIE SPANSWICK is a pianist, writer, teacher and composer. As an author, she is published by leading publishing houses, and has written a three-book piano course for those returning to piano playing; Play It Again: PIANO (Schott Music). Melanie teaches the piano at Junior Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Eton College. As a composer, her music is published in the renowned Edition Schott Composer Series. Read Melanie Spanswick’s lesson NILS FRANKE is Dean of Higher Education at the University Centre Colchester, UK, having previously held posts at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and the University of Reading. He has recorded for Warner and Brilliant Classics. Nils specialises in historical performance pedagogy, with a particular focus on 19th-century pianist-composers.…

ABILITY RATING ADVANCED Spanish piano repertoire has often been perceived as the exclusive domain of musicians born in the Iberian Peninsula, with interpreters such as Alicia de Larrocha and Rafael Orozco promoting Granados, Albéniz and the likes by regularly featuring them in their programmes. However, it was none other than the celebrated Polish pianist Arthur Rubinstein who was the great champion of Manuel de Falla’s own piano transcription of the Danza Ritual del Fuego (Ritual Fire Dance) from his ballet El Amor Brujo (Love, the Magician). For years Rubinstein would include it as one of his encore pieces, and despite the fabulous amount of repertoire that he kept under his fingers, this dance used to be a favourite vehicle for ending a recital. It is easy to see why, as…

BEGINNER Notes from the composer: A gigue is a fast dance usually in binary form, featuring a compound time signature. The dance originated in the UK and was especially popular in Ireland (called the ‘Jig’), before becoming known in France from the 1650s. A favourite musical form among Baroque composers, the gigue typically appears as the last movement in a suite. In the key of G major, this lively dance requires deft fingerwork and a firm sense of pulse. Start out by tapping the rhythm on your piano lid or on your knees – with the RH tapping the note patterns in the treble line and the LH tapping those in the bass line. In the early stages, it may help to use the metronome. Now add the notes to…

TRACK 5 EARLY INTERMEDIATE When one thinks of the great British composer of ‘Nimrod’ fame, one doesn’t necessarily associate him with piano music! However, Elgar did compose numerous short pieces for the instrument – with such titles as Adieu, Rosemary, Serenade etc – and of course his wonderful and more ambitious Salut d’Amour, which featured inside issue 66. These all provided him with a steady and secure income. Note: The second (final) movement of the Sonatina appears inside the next issue. Read Nils Franke’s step-by-step lesson.…

INTERMEDIATE A variety of Scarlatti sonatas have featured inside the pages of Pianist over the years, but this one – in the soul-searching key of F minor – has to be one of the most moving. The passionate melody that opens the piece almost feels like a precursor of music of the Romantic era. Needless to say, many concert pianists have this sonata in their repertoire. Playing tips: Dynamic markings on the score are limited, and that’s how Scarlatti would have wanted it; there are so many ways that the pianist can colour the notes. The most important thing is to follow the natural phrasing and try to iron out any bumps. Aim to use a good finger legato (but observe the rests); the suggested fingerings should help. Pedal tips:…

LATE INTERMEDIATE Anton Rubinstein became an important figure in Russian culture when he founded the Saint Petersburg Conservatory (his older brother Nikolai founded the Moscow Conservatory). As a pianist, he ranks among the great 19th-century keyboard virtuosos – his recital tours were legendary and well worth reading about – but he was also a prolific composer; he wrote 20 operas, five piano concertos, six symphonies and many solo piano works along with a substantial output of works for chamber ensemble. Dedicated to a countess with a very long name (!), the Romance – the first piece from his 6 Soirées à Saint-Petersbourg – was published in 1859. Playing tips: Tempting as it may be, try not to learn the piece from the start. A good place to begin your practice…

MAKERS ‘I’ll tell you how to move a piano: properly.’ Vicky Murphy, managing director of F&M Elite Piano Specialists, based in London, is not joking. ‘It really is that simple,’ she adds. ‘Brute strength will get you nowhere. Instead, it takes technique, experience and team work. Get it wrong and not only do you risk damaging the piano but more importantly, yourself.’ Confession time. Around 20 years ago I moved my piano, a large Broadwood Stratford upright, from my dining room to my sitting room. It wasn’t too far but the journey involved two very tight turns, the floors were carpeted and there was only me doing it. First, I tried pushing the piano on its tiny castors but they simply dug into the carpet and in any case, looked…

EMAIL: editor@pianistmagazine.com WRITE TO: The Editor, Pianist, Warners Group Publications, The Maltings, West St, Bourne, PE10 9PH. Letters may be edited. STAR LETTER Sky’s the limit After many years of believing other people played piano, no matter how much I admired them and wished I could learn too, I settled on the idea that it would be too difficult for me. However, a surprise gift changed that unfortunate mindset… It was just at the start of the pandemic, Mach 2020, when my pianist daughter presented me with a gift. As I opened the bag, confusion filed my mind – the unlikely gift was a piano course book for adult beginners. It took a while to connect the dots as she confirmed she was going to teach me, with my first…

There’s little doubt that finally playing through a piece at a level we’re happy with gives immense satisfaction – the sense of being under control, communicating what we feel the piece is ‘about’, and at the same time adding something of ourselves. Depending on how long or challenging the piece is, our journey from sight-reading to this final stage may take longer than we’d anticipated, so managing our expectations is something we need to get good at pretty early on. We’d all accept that our performance isn’t likely to improve simply by grinding through the piece again and again from beginning to end, so how can we reach our goal more efficiently? The trouble with the phrase ‘delayed gratification’ is that it seems to imply the process is an irksome…

ABILITY RATING LATE BEGINNER Key A minor Tempo Andantino Style Late Romantic Will improve your ✓ Articulation ✓ Rhythmic precision ✓ Phrasing In the Cosy Corner (in German, Im Schmollwinkel) was written in 1933 by Russian-born Swiss composer Paul Juon (1872-1940). Juon studied composition at the Moscow Conservatoire with Anton Arensky and Sergei Taneyev and completed his education at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where he became professor of composition from 1911-1934. Stylistically, his music is rooted in tonality exhibiting largely Germanic Romantic gestures. This is the first from a set of six pieces for children called Easy Piano Pieces For Youth. In The Cosy Corner is an example of Ternary (ABA) form. In terms of tempo, it moves along nicely at a crotchet equals 69 beats per minute,…

On these pages, Pianist covers the most basic stages of learning through a series of lessons by Hans-Günter Heumann. German composer Cornelius Gurlitt’s one-page study focuses on the interchange of notes between the hands. Gurlitt Study Op 187 No 54 The passing of notes from one hand to the other should ‘sound’ seamless. Try to find the exact same weight and tone for the notes, with a slight emphasis on the first beat of the bar. Hans-Günter Heumann continues his series for beginners in the next issue. To find out more about Heumann, visit www.schott-music.com…

INTERMEDIATE This ‘doll’s lullaby’ is the second movement from Gabriel Grovlez’s cycle L’almanach aux images, which draws its imagery from texts by Tristan Klingsor (who also supplied Ravel with several poems for Impressionist and Orientalist song cycles such as Shéhérazade). The third movement, ‘La Sarabande’ appeared inside issue 100 and the eighth and final movement, ‘Petites litanies de Jésus’, inside issue 111. Playing tips: Serene and rocking, make sure that you create a calm and even pace before you begin. Bring out the inner RH alto melody between bars 6-9 (and again at bars 56-59). The one bass minim note – such as in bars 11 and 19 – doesn’t need to be perfectly on time; it can linger a bit. From bar 17 you will need your best pianissimo…

INTERMEDIATE Published between 1738-39, this feisty fugue by German Baroque composer Telemann would have been played on the harpsichord. It is such a wonderful piece of music – fun to play and a great introduction to fugal technique. Playing tips: We suggest pinpointing all the fugue entries before you begin your work at the instrument. Then start at a very slow tempo, hands separately, making sure that your finger articulation is spot-on. There are very few dynamic indications on the score; there is no need to constantly alter the dynamics – let the music speak for itself! Bars 12-14 exude sheer joy, as does the triumphant ending. Chenyin Li adds the odd trill/ornament on this issue’s album, which is fine and welcome – though by no means obligatory. Pedal is…

INTERMEDIATE Apart from being a famous pianist and pedagogue, Clara Schumann wrote numerous songs alongside other works in various genres. Liszt was obviously impressed by her 6 Lieder Op 23, transcribing No 3, Geheimes Flüstern hier und dort (‘Secret Whispers here and there’), for solo piano. The original text was written by Austrian poet Hermann Rollet and it’s well worth reading the whole love poem and, of course, listening to Clara’s song. Liszt’s transcription is a model of simplicity and transparency, maintaining the original structure with little fuss. Playing tips: Use your best singing tone for the gorgeous melody, making sure that the accompaniment is calm, quiet and flowing (one should not be able to hear the notes passing from one hand to the other). Imagine that you are the…

INTERMEDIATE/ ADVANCED French Baroque composer Louis-Claude Daquin was a virtuoso organist and harpsichordist. He was courted by the aristocracy, and his great expertise at the organ drew large crowds to hear him. He was known for his ‘unfaltering precision and evenness’ at both the harpsichord and organ. In Rondo form, this evocative piece appears within Daquin’s third suite of his Pièces de clavecin. Written in 1735, Le Coucou imitates the sprightly call of the cuckoo bird at its most vocal. It has been a favourite among pianists and works a treat as an encore on the concert platform. Playing tips: Think of the timbre of the harpsichord, which is a very different sound to that of a modern-day piano. The notes need to sound ‘plucked’ – quite the opposite of…

Some months back I came across a captivating recording of the Debussy Préludes. It was performed by an unknown (to me, anyway) French pianist and teacher by the name of Elie Robert Schmitz (pictured). I was curious and delved further, discovering a fascinating interview he gave in 1920 on ‘Pianoforte Technic’. There is a lot here that many a Pianist reader would do well to read (I for one, have learned a lot about my own playing!), so I present the highlights. Schmitz’s use of the English language might be a tad clunky here and there, but I didn’t wish to tamper unnecessarily. I’d be curious to hear what readers think. ‘It is quite easy for one to point out the defects in a technical or pedagogical system, but to…

YULIANNA AVDEEVA Resilience: Music by Szpilman, Shostakovich, Weinberg, ProkofievPentatone PTC 5187 073 ★★★★ Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva, a fierce critic of the war in Ukraine, presents works by four composers who used music to express personal resilience against collective horrors. The opening pieces are by Władisław Szpilman, whose memoir of life during the Holocaust became the basis of the film The Pianist. As a Jew he was forbidden to play Chopin: this knowledge gives his melancholy little piece ‘Mazurek’ (1942), a work very much in the style of the composer, a heartrending poignancy. His amusing suite The Life of the Machines (1933) is in a more spiky and rat-a-tat style, and sounds as much like a satire on contemporary music as it is on mechanization: Avdeeva is terrific in both…

It all began some 20 years ago, when I was reading about the many competitions in the US designed specifically for amateur pianists over the age of 30. I knew that Pianist had to do something similar and in 2005 we set up a similar competition with partners Yamaha, culminating in a glittering Finals gala evening held at London’s Cadogan Hall. Much has changed over the years – YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and the rest spreading like wildfire, so it made sense to reinvent the wheel – this time we’d run an online competition, inviting applicants to record themselves via video. Yamaha jumped on board again, and we were nearly set. My first step was to approach two trusted colleagues from the music industry – Melanie Spanswick and Matt Ash –…

The time signature, found at the very beginning of a piece after the clef and the key signature, is made up of two numbers. The top number tells us the number of beats in each bar, the lower number the note value we are counting. Thus 2/4 tells us two crotchets (quarter notes) in each bar. Textbooks tell us to play the first beat of each bar stronger than the second (a weak beat), but as we shall see accentuation changes depending on the context. In the opening of Bach’s Italian Concerto, the chunky LH chords in bars 1 and 5 will create a stronger accent than any other downbeat in both of the opening two four-bar phrases. The accent on the first beat of bar 2 will be lighter,…

ABILITY RATING INTERMEDIATE Key G major Tempo Andantino Style Romantic Will improve your ✓ Expressive skills ✓ Pedalling ✓ Handling of texture Edward Elgar (1857-1934) is not a composer generally known as a writer of piano music. Nevertheless, his own piano solo transcription of the Enigma Variations is testimony to an insightful and effective use of the instrument. Never showy, just purposeful and imaginative. It’s no surprise, then, that this little two-movement Sonatina displays similar qualities. Note: the second movement appears inside the next issue, but I thought it logical to include some playing tips here. First written in 1889 for his niece, Elgar produced a revision of the work as we now know it in 1931. That is significant, because there must have been something about the piece that…

BEGINNER This spirited piece comes from JS Bach’s Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach – a set of two volumes of works that he presented to his second wife, Anna Magdalena. Keyboard music (minuets, rondos, polonaises, chorales, sonatas, preludes, musettes, marches, gavottes) makes up most of both notebooks, and a few pieces for voice (songs and arias) are included. The two notebooks are known by their title page dates of 1722 and 1725. The title ‘Anna Magdalena Notebook’ is commonly used to refer to the latter. The primary difference between the two collections is that the 1722 notebook contains works only by JS Bach (including most of the French Suites), while the 1725 notebook is a compilation of music by both JS Bach and other composers of the era, including sons…

TRACK 4 BEGINNER/ INTERMEDIATE The son of a Swiss émigré, Paul Juon was born in Moscow and entered the Imperial Conservatory to study violin and composition. For the latter, he studied with Arensky and Taneyev, both of whose styles had been strongly influenced by Tchaikovsky. He went on to study at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin with Woldemar Bargiel, Clara Schumann’s half-brother, providing Juon with a direct link to the German Romantic style of Mendelssohn and Schumann. Juon settled in Berlin in 1897, later taking up a teaching post at the Hochschule. In 1934, ill health led him to retire to Vevey in Switzerland. While the influences of Tchaikovsky and Taneyev come through in his music, Juon’s compositional voice is largely Germanic – he has even been called the…

INTERMEDIATE Born a countess into an aristocratic household, Dora Pejačević broke away from her comfortable life to forge her own path as a composer. A hundred years after her death, the Croatian composer’s music is thankfully receiving the recognition it has always deserved; there are some wonderful Romantic solo piano gems to explore – this accessible Remembrance Op 24 being the perfect example. Playing tips: Dig deep into the keys to produce a glorious tone for the RH melody. The LH is the accompaniment, but it does have its moments to shine – such as the flourishes at the start of bars 4, 8 etc and the inner descending line in bars 13-16. The middle section, which appears at bar 17, should be played with a bit more liveliness (Etwas…

TRACK 13 ADVANCED CLICK HERE TO WATCH Iago Núñez’s lesson | CLICK HERE TO WATCH Iago Núñez’s performance Ritual Fire Dance (in Spanish, ‘Danza ritual del fuego’) is a movement from the ballet, El amor brujo (‘Love, the Magician’), written by the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla in 1915. The plot is as such: a young Andalusian gypsy girl called Candela is haunted by the ghost of her dead husband. To get rid of him, all the gypsies make a large circle around their campfire at midnight. Candela then performs the ‘Ritual Fire Dance’. This causes the ghost to appear, with whom she then dances. As they whirl around faster and faster, the ghost is drawn into the fire, making it vanish forever. Exciting, indeed! The composer’s own piano arrangement…

ESSENTIAL PIANO TECHNIQUE Primer A, Primer B, Level 1 Penelope Roskell Edition Peters Penelope Roskell’s 558-page wonderful tome on piano technique The Complete Pianist was published three years ago but I suspect its sheer magnitude, length, and cost, will have restricted its appeal to the average consumer. These three new accessible technique books are based on the principles laid out in The Complete Pianist and can be used profitably alongside whatever method or course a student is following up to Grade 1. Whilst many books on technique provide musical exercises to improve one’s technical ability, Roskell’s approach places greater emphasis on developing effective physical movements to produce the best musical outcomes. So, from the very first pages in Primer A, the student works on arm movements such as ‘floating balloon’…