Innehållsförteckning för 140 från Pianist

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 IAGO NÚÑEZ is a pianist and accomplished musician who has great experience as a soloist, accompanist and teacher. He has written arrangements for a multitude of ensembles as well as editing, filming and producing music. Iago currently teaches music history, analysis, composition and performance at Bishop’s Stortford College, UK. He has also been on the…

ABILITY RATING ADVANCED Key D flat major Tempo Lento placido Style Romantic Will improve your ✓LH control ✓Soft playing ✓Phrasing The third in a set of six pieces, Liszt’s Consolation in D flat was written in 1850. It is a far cry from the virtuosic, bravura works that we often associate with the composer. This work is very Chopinesque in its sentiment and it may well have been inspired by some of the Polish composer’s works in the same key, such as the Nocturne Op 27 No 2, the ‘Raindrop’ Prélude Op 28 No 15 and the soothing Berceuse Op 57. The key of D flat major is a warm and embalming key. It is also a very comfortable key to play in as it lies beautifully under the hand…

BEGINNER Composed and published in 1913, French composer Mel Bonis’s Album pour les tout-petits (Album for the very young) Op 103 contains 20 easy pieces which feature some charmingly descriptive titles such as La puce (The flea), Douce amie (Sweet friend), La toupee (Spinning toy) as well as No 18 which is called Le pâtre dans la montagne (The herdsman in the mountain). Another easy piece from the same set, Gouttes de pluie (Raindrops), appeared inside issue 137. Playing tips: Atmospheric from the start, this piece starts out with a RH lilting melody (joined by the LH in the second bar) which is ‘echoed’ quietly in bars 3 and 4. One can almost hear the herdsman calling to his herd and the echo his voice makes against the mountains. The…

INTERMEDIATE Beethoven’s fourteenth sonata was dedicated to one of his students, the 17-year-old Giuletta Guicciodi, for whom he apparently had romantic feelings – though that ‘Moonlight’ nickname came much later. Beethoven described this piece as a ‘sonata quasi una fantasia’, thereby providing a reason for the fact that it doesn’t follow conventional sonata form. In this movement he also departs from the conventional Scherzo-Trio by asking that the exposition not be repeated (‘La prima parte solamenta una volta’). Playing tips: Inside this issue Mark Tanner gives a masterclass on syncopating and tied notes – hence the reason for including this particulare score (which is full of them!). This movement should sound quite light (notice that dynamics are mainly piano). In the Trio section you might want to try ‘true’ legato…

INTERMEDIATE Schumann’s Albumblätter (Album Leaves) Op 124 is a collection of pieces assembled from earlier unpublished works after the success of his Album für die Jugend (Album for the Young) Op 68. The high opus number suggests that it is a late work, yet in reality the work comprises 20 single movements which were composed 10 to 15 years before publication. Hence, they were written around the time of Schumann’s early masterpieces such as Carnaval Op 8 and the Drei Romanzen Op 28, in the 1830s; but they remained unpublished. Most of the pieces are quite easy to play, and therefore perfect for the intermediate-level pianist, with No 6, Wiegenliedchen (Little Lullaby), being the most famous. Playing tips: This dreamy waltz in the key of A flat should sound calm…

INTERMEDIATE READ IAGO NÚÑEZ’S LESSON ON THIS PIECE Venezuelan-born French composer Reynaldo Hahn epitomises the spirit of the fin de siècle artist. With a sophisticated multicultural upbringing, fluency in several languages, and friends like Marcel Proust, Hahn embodies the perfect image of the refined French composer. Composer, conductor, music critic and singer, he is best known for his songs, of which he wrote more than 100. This dreamy piece appears within a collection of 53 short solo piano works entitled Le Rossignol éperdu (the bewildered nightingale) and is dedicated to little-known composer Gabriel Frontin. Above the score, Hahn places short quotes from two separate poems by Paul Verlaine (further explained in Iago Núñez’s lesson): Baiser, rose trémière... (kiss, hollyhock) Sans même savoir qu’elles sont pardonnées... (Without even knowing they are…

ADVANCED READ LUCY PARHAM’S LESSON ON THIS PIECE Unlike the majority of Liszt’s works for piano, the six Consolations, published in 1850, do not make overly virtuosic demands on the player. No 3 is by far the most famous, but this is hardly surprising in view of its melodic beauty and the characteristically sumptuous harmonies with which Liszt transforms a piece that could otherwise have belonged to the salon. The dreamlike atmosphere of the piece is created largely by the LH, whose liquid quavers and arebesques should be even, consistent and played with the utmost lightness. The score presented here offers some editorial help with fingerings and dynamics. Read Lucy Parham’s lesson. Lucy plays the Consolation No 3 on this issue’s album.…

The praise goes on I am delighted by Isabel Morrison’s Comme vous voulez (2024 Composing Competition winner). I love the dramatic marcato opening rhythm with right-hand chords, the dance-like lyrical section, the diminished sevenths, the chromaticism. An atmospheric piece (with plenty of personal challenge), it takes me back to Paris and inspires me to try out some improvisation. Merci, Isabel, c’est merveilleux. Roger Coupe, Tunbridge Wells, UK From past to present I am really enjoying issue 139. It’s been nostalgic for me as it includes two pieces which I did for my ABRSM exams in the early 2000s: Burgmüller’s La Chevaleresque and Heller’s Prelude Op 81 No 10. I remember finding both really difficult at the time but I was pleasantly surprised to find them returning easily to my fingers…

In Western classical music our fundamental grasp of rhythm often begins with an understanding of so-called strong and weak beats: the emphasis of beats 1 and 3 in a time-signature of 4/4, or just beat 1 in 2/4 and 3/4. For a musician, being able to ‘hold’ a beat reliably is a fundamental attribute that underpins the vast majority of pieces we’re likely to find ourselves playing. The mental retention of a beat is therefore linked to one’s retention of pulse – the ‘heartbeat’ of the music that ticks along, irrespective of how many beats there happen to be per bar. If we can’t feel a pulse in the music we play (or listen to), it’s likely the pulse itself is not sufficiently settled. It’s possible, of course, that there’s…

ABILITY RATING ELEMENTARY Key A minor Tempo Adagio Style Classical Will improve your ✓ Articulation ✓ Finger placement ✓ Phrasing Virtuoso German pianist and composer Daniel Steibelt (1765-1823) once challenged Beethoven to a ‘piano duel’, only to lose suffering public humiliation! However, he did give regular recital tours around Europe and wrote numerous compositions, the majority of which are for the piano. This delightful piece champions his melodic style. It is written in Ternary form, or an ABA structure – in this case, an AABA structure. The title is ‘Adagio’ but it still needs to move along nicely allowing the exquisite melancholic melody to shine; a tempo of a crotchet equals 66-72 should work well. Practise hands separately for greater security. Play with a deep touch to help gain control…

On these pages, Pianist covers the most basic stages of learning through a series of lessons by Hans-Günter Heumann. This issue we present a Czerny exercise which will help develop independance of each individual finger by holding various notes. No 9 from Czerny’s Practical Finger Exercises Op 802 Holding onto the minims whilst playing the triplet quavers might feel awkward at first, but it’s a great way to help improve the individuality of each finger. Things become more challenging as the exercise progresses. Enjoy! Hans-Günter Heumann continues his series for beginners in the next issue. To find out more about Heumann, visit www.schott-music.com…

INTERMEDIATE Aside from his famous 48 Preludes and Fugues, Bach composed many shorter keyboard works including a set of 9 ‘Kleine’ (Small) Preludes, in which this wistful Prelude in G minor appears. Marked Allegretto and dolce, the short 18-bar piece comprises a melody which switches between the hands, plus a fair amount of tied notes. Playing tips: Keep the pulse even, allowing for ample finger weight on the tied dotted-minim notes. Read Mark Tanner article on syncopation and tied notes in which he gives playing tips for this Prelude. Pedal tips: Even if not marked, try dabs of pedal where finger legato alone is not sufficient.…

INTERMEDIATE Haydn wrote his Sonata in F Hob.XVI:23 in 1773, probably composing it for a harpsichord rather than the fortepiano, which became his preferred keyboard instrument a decade later. This slow F minor middle movement from the Sonata is surrounded by two faster movements, both in F major. This piece is one of five inside this issue that is written in the Classical style. We hope that Jessica Duchen’s article, where she speaks to top Classical-style interpreters, will be of guidance and inspiration. Playing tips: This slow movement is indeed poignant, but it should always flow. Begin your work by concentrating on the RH/LH rhythm, getting it spot-on from the start – then you are almost there! The notes are not too challenging to master. We also suggest listening to…

INTERMEDIATE The Mazurkas Op 68 form a set of four mazurkas composed by Chopin between 1827 and 1849. They were posthumously published in 1855. A typical performance of all four mazurkas lasts around nine minutes. This fourth and final one from the set, in the ‘soulful’ key of F minor, is often regarded as Chopin’s last composition along with the Mazurka in G minor Op 67 No 2. Playing tips: Bring out your best legato singing tone in the RH melody, allowing the quieter LH accompaniment to almost follow it. There’s room for rubato within the melody line; just work out where the phrases lead. Make sure the trills blend in (they shouldn’t stick out). The melody becomes more ornamented from bar 9 and then opens out from bar 14…

INTERMEDIATE As mentioned earlier on, this issue of Pianist features a spotlight on the Classical-period style along with an in-depth article on the often ‘underrated’ Classical composer, Clementi. The article is written by Nils Franke, who has also chosen two Clementi scores for these pages. This second one, the first movement from his Sonata Op 1 No 5, reveals a composer full of pathos and lyricism; it’s a gorgeous piece of writing. Playing tips: In keeping with Clementi’s style of writing, there’s an absence of dynamics, phrase markings and pedal. The tempo marking has been added as a guide. The hardest thing to master in this elegant movement is the four-against-three polyrhythm, which is visible from the start. Chenyin Li, who plays the piece on the Pianist album, has chosen…

As soon as your student enters the music room, you know all is not well. It’s not just the sullen, sulky expression – it’s the lack of eye contact, the sense of exhausted negativity as well as the curt answers to initial pleasantries. All indicate that the lesson about to begin may well prove to be exceptionally trying and hard to manage. What to do? As teachers, our reflex response to an unhappy pupil may be to smile and radiate as much positivity as possible. We may start acting like stand-up comedians, cracking jokes, exuding joie de vivre and doing everything we can to show that piano can indeed be ‘fun.’ We might make up silly words to melodies in prepared pieces, dance around the piano as the miserable student…

ALESSIO BAX Forgotten Dances: Works by Bach, Bartók, Falla, Albéniz, Liszt, Ravel, Brahms Signum SIGCD 910 The first puzzle posed by Alessio Bax’s latest album on Signum is in the title: it’s hard to see in what sense Bach’s English Suite No 2, Ravel’s La valse, or Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No 6 are ‘forgotten’. I guess we could stretch a point for Liszt’s Valse oubliée No 1 in which ‘oubliée’ quite clearly signifies ‘one of the most performed pieces in the repertoire’, but – meh. That aside, the second puzzle is in some of Bax’s tempo choices. I can’t recall hearing the Prélude of the A minor English Suite going quite so hell-for-leather, or with such odd moments of hesitancy. These latter occur also in Rachmaninov’s transcription of the Gavotte…

We pianists tend to be much more comfortable interpreting repertoire composed for the modern piano rather than repertoire conceived for instruments with different characteristics. If we are to take ownership of works from the Baroque and Classical periods it is essential to have at least a basic knowledge of how to read a score that contains few (if any) markings (dynamics, articulation, pedalling), ornament symbols that can mean different things in different eras and other conventions that elude those players who are not members of the club. In this article, we will turn to some examples of repertoire by Viennese masters Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and others. Specifically, we’ll look at touch and articulation, ornamentation and embellishment, and pedalling (and I’ll make recommendations for further research). In the 18th century, mostly…

ABILITY RATING INTERMEDIATE Key G major Tempo ‘Happy, balanced, measured’ Style Romantic Will improve your ✓ Legato ✓ Phrasing ✓ Rubato When approaching a programmatic piece like Les deux écharpes (the two scarves), it is always prudent to investigate the inspiration behind it. The first of the two quotes which Venezuelan-born French composer Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947) places above the score is extracted from the poem ‘Il Bacio’ by French poet Paul Verlaine, describing the power of a kiss. The second refers to a celebrated poem where Verlaine asks forgiveness from his wife, following his scandalous affair with fellow poet Arthur Rimbaud. Various passages suggest a mixture of excitement, regret and ecstasy, and we should consider how to communicate these in our performance. Imagine the opening 12 bars as the tender…

BEGINNER Notes from the composer: I love the sea and hope I’m able to live near it one day. A seascape is an artwork depicting the ocean and in this little piece, the upward and downward movement of note patterns represent gently oscillating waves. Seascape is in the warm key of G major and is written in four-bar phrases. Start by ‘blocking out’ the notes – for example, play all the notes in bars 1 and 2 together at the same time (it’s a quick and convenient way to learn the notes and fingerings). The dotted-minim chords, as in bars 3 and 4 and other places, offer a sense of calm and tranquility. Hold them for their full value, and observe the tenuto markings over the first chord, giving it…

INTERMEDIATE French composer Gabriel Grovlez was taught by his mother (the child of one of Chopin’s students!) before attending the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied with such piano luminaries as Fauré and Diémer. He toured Europe as an accompanist and soloist, and from 1914 was director of the Opéra de Paris. Grovlez had an international career as a guest conductor, and worked at opera houses in Monte Carlo, Cairo, Lisbon, New York and Chicago. From 1939, he was a professor of chamber music at the Conservatoire. His compositions were mainly for voice and for the stage, including many ballets. However, he also wrote music for children, including the popular L’Almanach aux images (‘Book of pictures’), a collection of eight piano pieces after poems of Tristan Klingsor. Le pastour (The shepherd)…

INTERMEDIATE Composed between 1888-1896, Scriabin’s 24 Preludes Op 11 were modeled after Chopin’s own set of 24 Preludes Op 28. They cover all 24 major and minor keys and they follow the same key sequence: C major, A minor, G major, E minor, D major, B minor and so on, alternating major keys with their relative minors, and following the ascending circle of fifths. Scriabin himself never mentioned a conscious attempt to imitate Chopin’s set; by this time he had put aside his early enthusiasm for the Polish composer’s music. This sentimental and meandering No 13 is in the key of G flat major. Playing tips: A depth of tone and a good sense of phrasing are of the utmost importance. Lashings of rubato can of course be used, but…

INTERMEDIATE This issue of Pianist features a spotlight on the Classical-period style along with an in-depth article on the often ‘underrated’ Classical composer, Clementi. The article is written by Nils Franke, who has also chosen two Clementi scores for these pages. The first one, Tarantella, is based on a popular dance form and reveals Clementi’s charming side. In keeping with Clementi’s style of writing, there’s an absence of dynamics and phrase markings. Even the tempo marking has been added as a guide. Chenyin Li, who performs the piece on the Pianist album, says she uses the pedal purely to join certain notes that need it. Read Nils’s Clementi article for tips on how to play the Tarantella.…

INTERMEDIATE/ ADVANCED WATCH CHENYIN LI PERFORM THIS PIECE AT WWW.PIANISTMAGAZINE.COM Mozart’s Fantasia in D minor was composed in 1782. The original manuscript did not survive – the final bars having been lost or never completed by Mozart. The ending as it currently exists (last 10 bars) is believed to have been written by August Eberhard Müller, one of Mozart’s admirers. It is interesting to note that for her Philips recording, the great Mozartian Mitsuko Uchida wrote her own ending that is similar to the piece’s beginning, rather than using Müller’s. The Fantasia runs to just over 100 bars, in a single multi-tempo movement marked Andante – Adagio – Presto – Tempo primo – Presto – Tempo primo – Allegretto. Playing tips: With so many sections come so many techniques to…

Muzio Clementi (1752 -1832) is a name that resonates with pianists, piano teachers and piano students today. His reputation, however, rests on maybe half a dozen works that have secured a permanent place in the pianistic repertoire ever since they were first published over 200 years ago. What is less well known is the diverse range of piano music Clementi produced, and his plentiful commercial activities – all centred on music and music making. He was a composer, arranger, pianist, conductor, teacher, impresario, piano maker and music publisher. Try and fit that on a business card without looking somewhat suspect! Clementi was born four years before Mozart and died five years after Beethoven, at a point at which Chopin, Liszt and their contemporaries set dazzling new standards in performance. Just…

THE PIANO SCALE BOOK GRADES 1-3 Ben Andrew Hal Leonard These scale books are advertised as being ‘the modern way for learning scales and arpeggios.’ Written by a teacher and composer, Ben Andrew, the books use what it calls the ‘ScaleBlocks’ method, in which learners are instructed to play clusters of notes to ingrain the correct pathways. I have seen the method used effectively in learning C major and B major but wonder whether it works equally well with all other scales and arpeggios featured in these three books. The colourful graphic presentation is nevertheless easy to understand, and the notation for each scale/arpeggio as well as synthesia videos can be downloaded via a link provided in the book. I’m surprised the books make no mention of Ben Andrew’s novel…