Classical Piano Music!

For the first time in the history of The Cliburn Competition, semifinalists were required to perform a Mozart concerto. This was not only based on the fact that the Cliburn Foundation’s CEO Jacques Marquis is a classical concerto fan, but rather from the aim of judging how competitors show musical maturity and the delicate world of the Austrian master. Read more...

The final round of quadrennial Van Cliburn Competition kicked off on Monday. The competition has moved into the 21st century. There are simulcasts on the competition’s website and the French classical music website medici.tv. Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe host the festivities. Read more...

Sir Andras Schiff's eloquence as a teacher and profound insights as a thinker about music make his Masterclass sessions irresistible to participants and audiences alike. Through the course of this event an outstanding young musician, chosen by Sir András himself, will explore some of the repertoire featured in the previous evening's concert. Read more...

A new issue of the magazine International Piano is out! Beatrice Rana, one of the brightest lights in a new generation of young stars, speaks to International Piano about her love of Bach’s Goldberg Variations; Bechstein’s new CEO brings energy and investment to the German piano-maker; our repertoire guide to Liszt’s otherworldly Bénédiction on disc; and Maurizio Pollini at 75. Read more...

In this video, eye-tracking glasses are used to show exactly where the gaze of a pianist is directed while playing. A professional concert pianist and his student take turns using the glasses, revealing interesting facts about how experience makes a great difference in terms of effective eye movement, both when playing from memory and from a piano score. Read more...

As part of its special day of programming for International Women’s Day, BBC Radio 3 broadcasted a live performance of the Easter Sonata, a major piano work which until recently had been attributed to Felix Mendelssohn, but is now proved to be the work of his sister Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. Read more...

Chopin inspires musicians to greater artistry and, as Barenboim says in this video, makes them want to sound as if the music is simply emanating from them as light from a candle. In this ballade, Chopin also takes us on a leisurely stroll through his own private musical world. Read more...

The Italian pianist Roberto Prosseda has previously recorded Mendelssohn’s complete piano works. Now he is embarking on a new, slightly less encyclopedic but equally ambitious project, that of recording Mozart’s complete sonatas. Read more...

2017-06-25It seems like Beethoven's tuning fork was passed on from violinist Bridgetower to one Ulysses Bolton, then to Paul Waddington and then from Waddington to John H. Balderstone who gave the fork to the composer Gustav Holst in 1921. Holst then passed it to composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose widow, Ursula, went on to present it to the British Library in 1992. Read more at classicfm.com

2017-06-24Pianist Klara Min maintains that there is not just one way for a musician to build his or her career. She wants to inspire young players to reach for their dreams in ways that best suit their personalities and goals. Read more at theepochtimes.com

2017-06-28Displaced by the catastrophe of the two World Wars and the Holocaust, driven from Germany, and reborn in America, Schnabel was inspired by the possibilities of a new kind of music — and a new way of living. The film explores the nuances behind the music of a quintessential modernist: the problem of identity, the disaster of war, the complications of romantic love, and spiritual possibilities of geography and landscape. Read more at vimeo.com

2017-06-27At the latest Cliburn competition, fire-and-brimstone pianists couldn't play Mozart well at all. Sokolov puts them all the shame in his latest live recording as he blends the titanic power of the Rachmaninoff third concerto with Mozart's adorable A-major concerto, K.488. He transfers some of that sprightly charm to the Rachmaninoff's lyrical sections and is completely successful and earnest in the sound he produces. Read more at dailytelegraph.com.au

2017-06-26Looking forward to his masterworks for clarinet and piano, Op. 120, Nos. 1 and 2, Brahms penned his A-major Intermezzo a year before those two giants of the repertoire. Brahms paints expansive phrases with burnished, bronze tones. Volodos brings out this autumnal flavor with loving kindness. Read more at npr.org

2017-06-23'Classical music isn't dead', said Jan Lisiecki, harking back to the 1974 film 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail', where the villager said, 'I'm not dead yet!' To Lisiecki, comprehensive music education that goes beyond simple singing or playing the recorder is essential to the complete development of school-age children. Read more at mcgilltribune.com

2017-06-22She never seemed to be as big as the sound she produced. Looking at her hands, it seemed impossible that she could play Rachmaninoff. Play it she did, however, and Alicia de Larrocha shines through on Decca's newest re-issues of her classic recordings. Read more at dailytelegraph.com.au

2017-06-21There was a time when every young lad or lass would learn to play the piano as part of his or her education. In the 21st century, many fewer people play than in the days of yore. Nevertheless, the well-to-do members of society see having a piano as a fashion statement and a showcase of one's societal position. Read more at thenational.ae