The Moscow Conservatory piano school enjoys pride of place among Russia’s musical institutions. Its outstanding graduates have included Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Medtner, Richter, Gilels, Ashkenazy and Pletnev. Yet while their mastery transcends any process of formal teaching, behind these great names lies a teaching process whose workings are little known to the outside world – except in occasional publications such as Heinrich Neuhaus’ The Art of Piano Playing. The Russian Piano School offers a further and fuller insight into the views on technique and interpretation of several of the 20th century’s greatest Russian teachers and performers. Contributions come from the elder generation of Alexander Goldenweiser (a friend and contemporary of Rachmaninov), his pupil Samuel Feinberg, Heinrich Neuhaus and Konstantin Igumnov, as well as from a younger generation including Yakov Flier, Lev Oborin, Yakov Zak, and Grigorii Ginzburg, who tutored many master pianists of the present day. The book addresses several of the major technical and interpretative problems facing the pianist. This book should be of interest to both piano teachers and students, to professional performers, and also to many amateurs who aspire to reach beyond the first foothills of Parnassus.
Part One offers a series of writings that illustrate the philosophy and methods of the school:
The Road to Artistry, Samuil Feinberg
Advice from a Pianist and Teacher, Alexander Goldenweiser
Some Principles of Pianoforte Technique, Lev Oborin
Some Remarks on Technique, Konstantin Igumnov
Notes on Mastery of the Piano, Grigorii Ginzburg
Part Two gives a privileged insight into the classroom methods of various teachers as they work with students on that repertoire in which Russian artists have always particularly excelled – Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev:
Beethoven’s Appassionata: A Performer’s Commentary, Samuil Feinberg
Three Answers to Questions about Beethoven’s Sonata Appassionata, Sviatoslav Richter
Work on Beethoven’s Sonata in A major Opus 101, Heinrich Neuhaus
Chopin Etudes (based on classes with Samuil Feinberg), Maria Eshchenko
Reflections on Chopin’s Fourth Ballade, Yakov Flier
Notes on Chopin’s Ballade in F minor, Alexander Goldenweiser
Chopin’s Fourth Ballade in F minor, Konstantin Igumnov
Lessons with Yakov Flier (on Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No 1 and Prokofiev’s Sonata No 3), Nina Lelchuk Lelchuk
Yakov Zak as Teacher (on Liszt’s B-minor Sonata, Schumann’s Etudes Symphoniques, and Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody), Olga Stupakova
Christopher Barnes, professor of Slavic languages at the University of Toronto, has translated hitherto unavailable essays, critiques and lectures from the leading teaching lights at the Moscow Conservatoire. Pursuing a parallel interest in music, he studied piano privately and is known as a lecturer-recitalist and a broadcaster on Russian musical topics. He is currently at work on a monograph on Scriabin and a history of Russian pianism.
How about instant access on the go to 3000+ study scores from the standard classical piano repertoire?
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The mobile sheet music library gives convenient mobile access to all scores from www.pianostreet.com. It is a mobile application in the form of a website specifically adapted for mobile devices such as iPhone, iPad, Android devices and other smartphones. It also works well in many less advanced mobile phones with Internet access.
1. Visit m.pianostreet.com with your mobile device’s Internet browser.
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Charles Rosen is one of the world’s most talented pianists — and one of music’s most astute commentators. Known as a performer of Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, and Elliott Carter, he has also written highly acclaimed criticism for sophisticated students and professionals.
In Piano Notes, (Free Press, 2002) he writes for a broader audience about an old friend — the piano itself. Drawing upon a lifetime of wisdom and the accumulated lore of many great performers of the past, Rosen shows why the instrument demands such a stark combination of mental and physical prowess. Readers will gather many little-known insights — from how pianists vary their posture, to how splicings and microphone placements can ruin recordings, to how the history of composition was dominated by the piano for two centuries. Stories of many great musicians abound.
Rosen reveals Nadia Boulanger’s favorite way to avoid commenting on the performances of her friends (”You know what I think,” spoken with utmost earnestness), why Glenn Gould’s recordings suffer from “double-strike” touches, and how even Vladimir Horowitz became enamored of splicing multiple performances into a single recording.
Rosen’s explanation of the piano’s physical pleasures, demands, and discontents will delight and instruct anyone who has ever sat at a keyboard, as well as everyone who loves to listen to the instrument. In the end, he strikes a contemplative note.
Western music was built around the piano from the classical era until recently, and for a good part of that time the instrument was an essential acquisition for every middle-class household. Music making was part of the fabric of social life. Yet those days have ended. Fewer people learn the instrument today. The rise of recorded music has homogenized performance styles and greatly reduced the frequency of public concerts. Music will undoubtedly survive, but will the supremely physical experience of playing the piano ever be the same?
In early January this puzzling mystery gave a whole new meaning to the phrase “piano bar.”
A grand piano appeared on a sandbar in Biscayne Bay, Miami.
How and why the piano got there was a mystery.
A grand piano weighs at least 650 pounds and is unwieldly to move, said Bob Shapiro, a salesman at Piano Music Center in Pembroke Park. “You don’t take it out there in a rowboat,” Shapiro said.
A few days ago the mystery was solved:
In this Jan. 2, 2011 photo provided by Nicholas Harrington, Julian Kolevris-Roots, 18, is shown sitting at a piano on a sandbar in Miami's Biscayne Bay.
A young man – Nick Harrington, 16 – had intended to make a “surreal video” of the piano perched atop the sandbar’s highest point, with Miami’s glittering skyline as a backdrop, to impress the college admissions officers at the Cooper Union in Manhattan, where he hopes to study art or music.
On January 2, Nick, his older brother, and two neighbors lifted the instrument onto the family’s 22-foot boat and took it out on Biscayne Bay, leaving it on the sandbar’s highest spot.
The video was never made, although Nick and his family took some pictures of him pretending to play it while the piano was on fire. Not long afterward, boaters discovered it, and for days people guessed about the back story of the “piano bar.”
/nilsjohan
The Complete Liszt Piano Music with Leslie Howard to be released in February 2011
In 1986, to mark the centenary of Franz Liszt’s death, Leslie Howard gave a series of ten Liszt recitals in London’s Wigmore Hall. By excluding Liszt’s arrangements (fantasies and transcriptions) of other composers’ works, and by selecting only the final versions of Liszt’s original works for solo piano, Howard was able to represent Liszt’s entire solo piano oeuvre in these mammoth recital programmes. The founder and Managing Director of Hyperion Records was present at these recitals, and invited Howard to record for the label. This resulted in the largest recording project ever undertaken by a recording artist (including pop artists) – that of the complete music for solo piano of Liszt. All Liszt’s versions of his piano music were included, including more than 300 premiere performances and recordings, and pieces unheard since Liszt’s lifetime, and also all Liszt’s arrangements of other composers’ works. Four discs were given to Liszt’s seventeen works for piano and orchestra, about half of which were premiere recordings made from unpublished manuscripts.
The series ran at first to 94 full-length CDs, and earned Howard a place in the Guinness Book Of Records. (The second volume of works for piano and orchestra included a bonus disc, not counted in the series numbering, which contained Ungarische Zigeunerweisen, a work for piano and orchestra by Liszt’s favourite female student Sophie Menter: Liszt’s exact involvement in the work is unknown, but he probably helped Menter in the composition of the solo part in the year before his death; the work was orchestrated seven years later by Menter’s friend Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who conducted Menter in the premiere the following year).
The last disc of the Liszt series was recorded in December 1998, and released on 22 October 1999, Liszt’s birthday. Since completion of the project, two supplementary volumes have been released as further Liszt manuscripts have come to light. And a double-disc third supplementary volume has been recorded, and will be released in February 2011, bringing the total number of CDs in the series to 99.
“Piano Masterclass” sketch from “Hysteria! Hysteria! Hysteria!” AIDS benefit, featuring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie in 1988.
Fry and Laurie are Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, a successful English comedy double act mostly active in the 1980s and 1990s. Having met in 1980 through mutual friend Emma Thompson (whilst all attended the University of Cambridge), Fry and Laurie have since collaborated on numerous projects together, including Jeeves and Wooster in which Laurie portrayed Bertie Wooster and Fry portrayed Wooster’s valet Jeeves. They have also gained prominence through their performances in Blackadder, as well as their own sketch show A Bit of Fry and Laurie. Although they have accomplished numerous successful solo projects (in the fields of acting and writing, among others), and it has been a while since they have actively collaborated, both have expressed interest in a continued partnership.
After sell-out performances in 2008 at the Melbourne Concert Hall, the Sydney Opera House and QPAC Brisbane, The Steinway Spectacular returns for an extraordinary music event in Sidney today, Friday October 8 2010 at City Recital Hall Angel Place and on Sunday, October 17 at the Melbourne Town Hall.
 

The eight pianists will work as an ensemble to perform new arrangements of classical favourites, including Ravel’s Bolero, Rhapsody in Blue, Percy Grainger’s Merriment, Pictures at an Exhibition, Handel Medley, the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony and a new 80-finger version of Chopsticks!
Led by conductor and host Guy Noble, renowned musical director and former presenter of ABC Classic FM’s Breakfast show, The Steinway Spectacular is an once-in-a-lifetime musical event.
“It’s a very large affair,” says Noble. “Logistically, it’s a nightmare.”
The piano technician Ara Vartoukian will spend hours tuning the instruments. For past concerts in Melbourne the process sometimes took all night. “The pianos all, in essence, sound the same, so they have to be absolutely in tune with each other.” Even after the most careful tuning, things can go awry.
Conductor Guy Noble said, “This is one of the enjoyable concerts I’ve ever conducted – the sound of eight grand pianos all powering along together is amazing! We have a lot of fun and the audiences whoop for more. Eight pianos playing Ravel’s Bolero makes more noise than an orchestra!”
The Moscow Conservatory piano school enjoys pride of place among Russia’s musical institutions. Its outstanding graduates have included Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Medtner, Richter, Gilels, Ashkenazy and Pletnev. Yet while their mastery transcends any process of formal teaching, behind these great names lies a teaching process whose workings are little known to the outside world – except in occasional publications such as Heinrich Neuhaus’ The Art of Piano Playing.
