Piano Street's Classical Piano Blog

John Field is generally regarded as the father and inventor of the Nocturne, and influenced several of the later romantics, most notably Chopin.
Rather simple in form, these pieces are mainly concerned with setting up a mood – usually rather melancholy – and a continuous flow of beautiful melody, with plenty of virtuosic embellishments.
Both Field and Chopin were in this respect very much under the influence of “bel canto”, the Italian vocal style of the 18th and early 19th centuries, which required a perfect legato production and featured extensive and florid ornamentation.

Piano Street has previously published the Ruthardt edition of all the 18 Nocturnes.
Three of Field’s most popular Nocturnes, no 5, 13 and 16 are now also available from the Piano Street Sheet Music Library in Piano Street Editions together with recordings by the pianist David Wärn.

Nocturne no 5 in B-flat Major

Nocturne no 13 in D Minor

Nocturne no 16 in F major

Artist Luke Jerram has put together street pianos installations in various cities.
The initiative comes as a reaction of a creative individual to the general rule, prohibiting anyone to play music in public places without special arrangement – no matter how skilful you are at playing your piano or how popular your music is with the audience.
Any musician would have been stopped immediately by security outside the City of London and Sing London festival.

Birmingham
In 2007 artist Luke Jerram installed 15 streetpianos across Birmingham, UK for the public to play. In just 3 weeks 140,000 people across the city played, listened and connected with one another.
Jerram said “Questioning the rules and ownership of public space ‘Play Me I’m yours’ is a provocation, inviting the public to engage with, activate and take ownership of their urban environment.”

São Paulo
13 pianos have been installed in São Paulo. Luke Jerram reported that many of those who stopped at the pianos had never played a real piano or even seen one.

Sydney
30 Street pianos were set up across Sydney for the Sydney Festival 2009. A website (www.streetpianos.com was set up for the public to upload and share their films, photos and stories of the pianos being played.

London
In June – July 2009 30 Play Me, I’m Yours painted pianos by Luke Jerram were installed across London “like a creative blank canvas” for members of the public to play. The painting on each paino was chosen to suit it’s location.
The project was produced by Sing London and City of London Festival at a cost of £14,000. A music license had to be obtained for the location of each piano.

Bristol
15 Street Pianos were located in and around Bristol in September 2009.

BBC coverage:

More info: http://www.streetpianos.com/

Stephen Kovacevich (born 1940), who has also been known as Stephen Bishop and Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich is an American classical pianist and conductor. He was born in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California, to a Croatian father and an American mother.
He made his concert debut as a pianist at the age of 11; then, at the age of 18 he moved to London to study under Dame Myra Hess on a scholarship, and has been a London resident ever since, and is currently living in Hampstead.

As a soloist and conductor, he is probably best known for his interpretations of the core classical repertoire, including Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Bartók. His international reputation has been built both on his concert appearances, renowned for their thoughtfulness and re-creative intensity, and on the highly acclaimed recordings he has made throughout his career.

In addition to his solo work, Stephen Kovacevich enjoys good relations with orchestras as a conductor and by directing from the piano. He has directed the London Mozart Players, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in this way. His chamber music partners have included Jacqueline du Pré, Martha Argerich, Steven Isserlis, Nigel Kennedy, Lynn Harrell, Sarah Chang, Gautier Capuçon, Renaud Capuçon, and Emmanuel Pahud.

Beethoven: Sonata no 32 in C Minor, Opus 111

Stephen Kovacevich performs the first movement of Beethoven Piano Sonata No.32 in C minor opus 111 at the La Roque d’Anthéron Festival in 2004.

Sheet music to download and print:

(free Silver Membership needed)

Watch the complete recital at Medici TV:
http://www.medici.tv/#/movie/27/
Program:
Beethoven – Two Sonatas (op 110 and op 111) and two Bagatelles
Schubert – Ländler

Schubert: Impromptu in G flat major, opus 90 no 3

Extract from Stephen Kovacevich’s masterclass on two of the Op 90 Schubert Impromptus. Full DVD will be shortly available from www.masterclassfoundation.org

Sheet music to download and print:

(Gold Membership needed)

Even though Isaac Albéniz actually never composed any music for guitar much of his piano music is part of the standard guitar repertoire.
Asturias (Leyenda), the fifth movement from Suite Española, opus 47, is one example.
He sometimes retitled movements and reused them in later works and this piece is also the first movement (”Prelude”) of his collection ”Cantos de España”
Albéniz music is of great rhytmical and virtuosic style and often influenced by the Spanish folk music and locations.

Today we have added 21 of Albéniz’s  piano compositions to our sheet music library.
Among them are the very nice Tango Espagnol, The Seasons, the complete Cantos de España and Rapsodia Espagñola.

See the complete list below and enjoy this dramatic and colourful music!

Cantos de España
The Seasons
Suite Ancienne No 3
Zortzico
Aragòn
Tango Espagnol
La Vega
Rapsodia Espagñola
Barcarolle Catalene
Rapsodia Cubana – op 66
Sérénade Espagnole – op 181
Mallorca (Barcarola) – op 202

Among the most famous and popular works by Edvard Grieg are the two Peer Gynt Suites and the piano suite From Holberg’s Time.

From Holberg’s Time, opus 40
Ludwig Holberg (1684-1754) was a key figure in early Danish literature, but was born in Norway, in Grieg’s native city Bergen.
Grieg composed two works for the celebrations of 1884, 200 years after Holberg’s birth: a cantata for male voices, now forgotten, and the Holberg Suite, which remains among his best-loved music, especially the arrangement for string orchestra, which appeared in 1885. In order to evoke Holberg’s time, Grieg models his work on the dance forms of the French Baroque suite.

Grieg – From Holberg’s Time (5 pieces)

Two Peer Gynt Suites, solo piano versions – op 46 and 55
Grieg wrote incidental music for Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt in 1875, but that score was not published until 1908, one year after the composer’s death. However, in 1888 and 1891 Grieg extracted some of the movements, creating two Concert Suites which became extremely successful and remain staples of the orchestral repertoire. He later arranged them for solo piano.
Grieg – Peer Gynt Suites (8 pieces)

The three suites have now been added to the Piano Street sheet music library together with 31 other solo piano pieces including
Moods (Stimmungen), opus 73 and Grieg’s own solo piano transcriptions of songs.

On September 13, Russia’s Sofya Gulyak was awarded the 1st prize and the Princess Mary Gold Medal at the Sixteenth Leeds International Piano Competition – the first woman to achieve this distinction in the history of the competition.
She returned to Leeds on Saturday 14 November to perform Mozart Piano Concerto No 18 with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. As well as the prestigious Leeds competition, Sofya Gulyak has won prizes at the William Kapell International piano competition (USA), Maj Lind Helsinki International piano competition and the Tivoli piano competition (Copenhagen). She studied at Kazan’s Special Music College for gifted children, Kazan State Conservatoire,
Italy’s Piano Academy and the Royal College of Music in London.

Results:
http://www.leedspiano.com/Home/Results.aspx

Listen to webcasts:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/pianocompetition/

Sofya plays Liszt’s Campanella from Long Thibaud Piano Competition 2007:

Together with Lang Lang and Yundi Li, Sa Chen (born 1979) is considered as one of today’s most important Chinese pianists and a veritable international sensation. Originally a student of Professor Dan Zhao, China’s most eminent piano teacher, she won first prize in the 1994 China International Piano Competition and fourth place in the 2000 International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Warszaw and a prize in the Leeds International Piano Competition.
Furthermore, she was a third place winner in the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. She has continued her training with Joan Havill in London and Arie Vardi in Hannover where she now resides.

Here we can hear her in the second movement of Chopin´s first Piano Concerto in E minor Op. 11 with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Lisbon conducted by Lawrence Foster.