Piano Street's Classical Piano News

A new issue of the magazine International Piano is out!

In the January-February 2017 issue French superstar pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet brings erudition, insight and boundless energy to his complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas. Jeremy Nicholas can’t help but finding himself bowled over by the Gallic charm and boundless enthusiasm of this unique and stimulating talent.

Melvyn Tan needs no introduction. It is hard to believe that this extraordinary talent marks his 60th birthday this year with a project celebrating Romanticism’s greatest piano pedagogues. International Piano is very excited that Melvyn will be the first Rhinegold Live artist of 2017!

Plus, Mark Bebbington extols the piano music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Dr Carol Leone on the benefits of alternatively-sized piano keyboards and recital and concerto coverage from London, Belfast & Copenhagen.

Piano Street Gold members have instant online access to the digital version of the magazine.

We wish you a Happy New Year with a list of highly recommended reading from Piano Street’s Classical Piano Blog. These are the 10 most read, discussed or shared articles of 2016.

Beauty and Hope in the 21st Century

The recently published compilation “Beauty and Hope in the 21st Century” contains contemporary solo piano pieces from many internationally renowned composers. Nikolas Sideris and Editions Musica Ferrum generously give access to complete scores of new piano pieces from the compilation that are available to download and print for Piano Street members. Read more >>

Valentina Lisitsa on Searching for the Rachmaninoff Affinity

When Valentina Lisitsa came to Stockholm to play Rachmaninoff’s third piano concerto, it was a welcome fact not only for all her fans but also for anybody well aware of the enormous challenge this concerto means for any performer. In 2013 Lisitsa released her Complete Rachmaninoff Concertos (including the Paganini Rhapsody) on Decca and therefor this was a rare chance for Piano Street’s Patrick Jovell not to talk to her about YouTube but… Sergei Rachmaninoff. Read more >>

Google Builds One-Tone Piano

In their most recent “Be together – not the same” commercial for Android, Google doesn’t exactly choose the easy way of hammering home their message about the beauty of diversity. The video shows the pianist Ji playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on two different instruments, one normal piano and one that Google modified to have all 88 strings tuned to middle C. Read more >>

Italian and International Excellence in Cremona

Piano Street visited Cremona last weekend to meet with Italian and international pianists and piano brand representatives at the Piano Experience. Read more >>

Elisabeth Leonskaja In Conversation

When Johannes Brahms was celebrated in Malmö, Sweden, legendary pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja played both piano concertos at the very same concert. Piano Street talked to Ms. Leonskaja after one of the rehearsals. Read more >>

Ditching the Intermission?

British pianist Stephen Hough addressed the issue of shrinking and ageing classical music audiences. Admitting that it’s a complicated issue, and acknowledging that many ideas have been floated – better education, more creative repertoire, lower pricing etc – he went on to focus on one of the more practical aspects of the subject: the intermission. Read more >>

Explosive Piano and Percussion Rendezvous in Beijing

The rare combination of Yuja Wang and famous drummer and multi-percussionist Martin Grubinger performed together at the Concert Hall of NCPA in Beijing on August 18th. In this exceptional and particular formation, a special version of Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion was presented along with “One Study One Summary” by John Psathas. Read more >>

Piano Music to Cleanse the Soul – Pietro De Maria on Bach’s 48

At the Cremona Mondomusica Piano Experience in October, the Italian pianist Pietro De Maria performed selected preludes and fugues from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC), as part of the exhibition’s Decca/Deutsche Grammophon showcase series. After the concert, Piano Street’s David Wärn had the chance to talk to De Maria about the challenges pianists face when tackling Bach’s legendary “forty-eight”. Read more >>

Schiff Horses Around in Master Class

In a piano masterclass on Schubert’s Moments Musical at The International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove, Andras Schiff noted, for one of his students, that, in Schubert’s time, horse-drawn conveyances were the norm instead of just a tourist attraction. Read more >>

Trifonov Live in Carnegie Hall

Hear Trifonovs captivating recital at Carnegie Hall as of December 7th in works by Schumann, Shostakovich, Stravinsky and encores by Medtner.

The music on this program requires poetry and passion that only a master pianist can deliver. “Daniil Trifonov’s playing has it all … he leaves you struggling for superlatives,” said The Guardian. Read more >>

Free tickets for Piano Street’s members

Thanks to a continuous collaboration with the Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall, all Piano Street members enjoy free access for 7 days to the Digital Concert Hall. Log in to your Piano Street account to get your free voucher code (value $10) which gives you instant access to the Digital Concert Hall. Take the opportunity to hear a live concert with pianist Daniil Trifonov, Sir Simon Rattle and Berliner Philharmoniker on Saturday December 31 and to access all concerts in the archive for seven days!
No Piano Street account? Sign up for free here to get your concert ticket!

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New Year’s Eve: LIVE STREAM from Berlin

Saturday, December 31, 2016
5 P.M. Berlin time (London: 4 P.M. / New York: 11 A.M.)

Before the champagne corks pop to celebrate the turn of the year 2016/2017, you can experience first-class virtuosic piano playing when Daniil Trifonov steps up to the podium at the New Year’s Eve concert of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Dmitri Kabalevsky:
 Overture to Colas Breugnon op. 90
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor op. 30
William Walton: 
Orchestral Pieces from Façade
Antonín Dvořák
: Slavonic Dances (Selection) op. 72

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Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov received acclaim when he won First Prize at both the Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein Competitions in 2011 at the age of 20. Trifonov has since then been in demand as a concert soloist and for solo recitals throughout the world. He has performed with many leading orchestras and conductors at prestigious concert halls and festivals.
The 2016–17 season brings the release of Transcendental, a double album that represents Mr. Trifonov’s third title as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, and is the first time that Liszt’s complete concert études have been recorded for the label. Winner of Gramophone’s 2016 Artist of the Year award, his upcoming performances include Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with Riccardo Muti in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s 125th anniversary gala finale. Having scored his second Grammy Award nomination with Rachmaninoff Variations, he now performs Rachmaninoff in his Berlin Philharmonic debut led by Sir Simon Rattle at the orchestra’s New Year’s Eve concerts, scheduled to air live in cinemas throughout Europe. Mr. Trifonov also performs Rachmaninoff in his debuts with the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Gustavo Dudamel and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and appears in the Munich Philharmonic’s Rachmaninoff Cycle tour with longtime collaborator Valery Gergiev.

Sir Simon Rattle was born in Liverpool and studied at the Royal Academy of Music. For some years Principal Guest Conductor of the Rotterdam and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras, in 1980 he became Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, stepping up to Music Director from September 1990 until August 1998. He is also Founding Patron of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and since the early 1990s, has been a Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. As guest conductor, he appears regularly in the United States, London and Europe, with close links to a number of orchestras most notably with the Vienna Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestras. In September 2002 he became Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Berliner Philharmoniker where he leads regular tours in Europe, North America and the Far East and has recently conducted in Lucerne, Salzburg and London’s BBC Proms. His most recent opera includes the Staatsoper Berlin, Wiener Staatsoper, the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.
From 2017, Simon Rattle will take up the position of Music Director of the London Symphony Orchestra.

About the Digital Concert Hall

In 2008, the Berlin Philharmonic, in partnership with Deutsche Bank and Sony, started posting its live performances on the Internet via the Digital Concert Hall, or DCH. Seven high-definition cameras capture all the musical action within the Philharmonie. Highlighting the intriguing interpretations of principal conductor Sir Simon Rattle, the fantastic audio quality of the multimedia files is at once accurate and thrilling. The operators inside the video studio make the recordings available a few days after each performance. More than 1.5 million people have taken advantage of the streamed offerings over the last five years. With access to a combination of almost 400 recordings that include concerts, educational programming and interviews with conductors, soloists and orchestra members, site visitors can enjoy the entire gamut of Berlin Philharmonic musical experiences. The institution has been awarded with the LeadAward 2009 in the category ‘WebTV’, in gold, with the DMMA OnlineStar 2009, in bronze and numerous other awards.

Each season, around 40 concerts are broadcasted live and they can also be viewed at a later date in the concert archive. The archive already contains hundreds of recordings with all the great artists of classical music. There are also fascinating documentaries and bonus films. The site also provides extensive program notes for each piece; conductors and soloists often speak about both the program in question and about their careers. Many world-renowned pianists count themselves among the interviewed, and keyboardists the world over can virtually pick their brains regarding a wide range of material. The website catalogs everything, and web surfers can use a powerful search tool to find artists, pieces and specific performances they want. Concerts and projects from the orchestra’s education programme are also transmitted (free of charge) and made available in the video archive. This creates the potential to introduce famous works of music visually in the classroom.

A vast number of piano concertos with top performers are available in the DCH archive. Artists include: Argerich, Zimerman, Kissin, Wang, Pires, Vogt, Barenboim, Volodos, Uchida, Perahia, Schiff, Aimard, Grimaud, Matsuev, Bronfman, Andsnes, Ax, Pollini, Hamelin, Lang, Fellner, Berezovsky, Pressler, Cooper, Anderszewski, Thibaudet, Gerstein, Lugansky, Buchbinder and Katia and Marielle Labèque.

The 2016 classical music calendar will be brought to a close by what promises to be the highlight of the year, the Berliner Philharmoniker orchestra’s New Year’s Eve concert. Music lovers in the Berlin Philharmonie concert hall on 31 December will be joined by audiences at live screenings in more than 240 cinemas in 15 European countries, including no less than 114 cinemas in Germany.

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Ludwig van Beethoven wrote a large number of easy dance pieces for piano. These pieces often remained unpublished; when this is the case they are catalogued as “WoO” (Werke ohne Opuszahl), “works without opus numbers”. For the piano student, these pieces are of course of great value. They offer the opportunity to get a taste of Beethoven’s piano writing, and can function as a preparation for larger works like sonatinas and variations.

Cornelius Gurlitt was perhaps a lesser genius than Beethoven, but a genius nevertheless. His particular talent was to write extremely useful teaching pieces for piano, the best of which are also very beautiful, imaginative and fun to play, and have been used by generations of piano teachers.

Piano Street now adds scores and recordings of six pieces by Beethoven and seven pieces by Gurlitt to our catalogue of easy and intermediate pieces. Click the score previews below to hear recordings and download the sheet music.

View all easy pieces by Beethoven >>
View all easy pieces by Gurlitt >>

Ludwig van Beethoven – 6 new pieces

German Dance, WoO 13 no 6

Ecossaise, WoO 23

German Dance, WoO 42 no 1

German Dance, WoO 42 no 2

German Dance, WoO 42 no 4

Russian Folk Song, op 107 no 7

Cornelius Gurlitt – 7 new pieces

Little Waltz, opus 82, no 18

Night Journey, opus 82, no 65

The Chase, opus 117, no 15

The Return, op 117, no 24

In the Garden, op 140 no 4

Rose Rock, op 205 no 8

A Little Flower, op 205, no 11

A new issue of the magazine International Piano is out!

Nelson Goerner, described as ‘the poet-philosopher of the piano’, brings depth and delight to his take on Beethoven’s mighty Hammerklavier Sonata; we celebrate Alfred Brendel’s 85th birthday year with an assessment of his vast discography; IP’s pick of international competitions in 2017; and women pianists who blazed a trail in the early years of recording. Plus, competition coverage from Cliburn and Cleveland; Louis Schwizgebel prepares for his International Piano Series debut in London; Llŷr Williams on his latest concert series devised around music and pictures; a newly discovered Bill Evans album reveals the jazz master at the height of his powers; the pros and cons of competitions; learning to love scales; Charles Owen introduces his new Bach album; Christmas gift ideas for pianophiles; and free sheet music of two contemporary pieces from EVC Publications.

Piano Street Gold members have instant online access to the digital version of the magazine.