Piano Street's Classical Piano News

With music venues on lock down across the world and many of us spending a lot more time at home, we can now enjoy the growing supply of concerts via live stream to watch from home on our TV, computer or smartphone.

The trend took off quickly, with production values ranging from tinny iPhone videos to cinema-ready sophistication. On March 12, the day New York theaters shuttered, the pianist Igor Levit gave his first lo-fi performance from his living room, while the Berlin Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra played to empty halls and audiences at home. Since then, a day hasn’t gone by without something new to watch.

Many of these online broadcasts have been more personal than a typical classical concert, with a casual dress code, pianos out of tune and imperfect production. It is a unique opportunity to hear what it sounds like when great artists are practicing at their own piano at home – perhaps a realistic chance to compare how your own piano playing is measuring up!

The new list of upcoming livestreams

Piano Street has now launced a new feature to help you keep track of upcoming livestreamed piano events. Watch the new ticker on our homepage >>

Note that all start times are given in GMT (UTC). We wish you best of luck with the challenging work to convert them to your own time zone!

The latest addition to our already vast piano sheet music library almost doubles the number of pieces by Franz Liszt. Last week, we added 193 pieces by this multifaceted composer, taking a significant step towards our goal of publishing a complete library of the classical piano repertoire. Our Liszt section is now nearly complete, but more will follow – with this extremely productive and hard-working composer-pianist it’s hard to know where to stop!

Getting a grip on Liszt’s complete works is a complicated business, not least because of his many reworkings and revisions – many pieces exist in two or three versions. Among our new additions are some early versions of pieces from the important cycle Années de pèlerinage. These works were conceived during the young Liszt’s years of travel, collected in the early Album d’un voyageur, and finalized in his mature period.

Liszt’s pianistic language was incredibly rich, and he wrote pieces in a lot of different genres. As one of history’s greatest touring virtuosos, much of his music is notoriously difficult to play. But there are exceptions, not least among the sacred pieces like the transcription of Arcadelt’s Ave Maria, or some of the late works like Abschied, Wiegenlied, or En rêve. Works from this period are also notable for their forward-looking harmonic language.

We’ve added many of the great fantasies and paraphrases, a specialty of Liszt, who was always very interested in promoting other composers’ works, either by including them in his recitals or by making all sorts of piano arrangements and transcriptions. Among the new opera fantasies on site are the Réminiscences of Mozart’s Don Juan, Bellini’s Norma and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and the Concert Paraphrases on Verdi’s Rigoletto and Ernani. There are also a large number of more straightforward transcriptions: 39 Schubert songs and 14 Wagner opera excerpts, to name some of them.

The new pieces are also available in the AST, where you can listen to handpicked recordings from Naxos Music Library while following along in the score – an excellent way of broadening your repertoire knowledge, and a chance to get a fuller picture of a composer who was one of music’s greatest innovators but tends to be known by only a tiny fraction of his work.

Se all recently added pieces

For instant unlimited access to the sheet music library and AST, you need a Piano Street Gold membership.

We wish you a Happy New Year with a list of highly recommended reading from Piano Street. These are the 15 most read, discussed or shared articles of 2019.

/The Piano Street Team

P.S. The top list is also published on our Facebook page. Feel free to share the list your piano playing friends!

Digital Piano? Oh No – 100% Analogue!

What happens when innovative acoustical ideas come across a vintage broken piano? Well, Ukrainian musicians transformed it into a unique and completely analog hybrid of 20 different instruments that are each connected and controlled by the piano keys. Read more >>

Igor Levit’s Eternal Transcendence: “Life”

Igor Levit’s acclaimed album “Life” has attracted a lot of attention and its selected works have also been included in Levit’s recent recital programs worldwide. This is a profound, versatile and firm reaction to the death and loss of his best friend reflecting inner calm elaborating on an existential level. Read more >>

What’s Inside Steinway’s Secret Vault?

To get inside Steinways’s new secret addition to their New York Factory, you must be invited. “The Vault” has over $3 million in exotic veneers, waiting for the right buyer at the right time. Read more >>

Claire Huangci’s Complete Perspective: The Rachmaninoff Preludes

Pianist Claire Huangci, winner of the Geza Anda Competition 2018, just played in New York celebrating the launch of her new Rachmaninoff Preludes album on Berlin Classics. Like her complete Chopin Nocturnes album before that – for the same label – the complete Rachmaninoff 24 Preludes has been received with great acclaim internationally. Piano Street asked the ever touring pianist a few questions about her latest release. Read more >>

David Klavins Exploring the Limits of Piano Construction

Back in 1987, the German-Latvian piano maker David Klavins introduced the world’s largest upright piano; Model 370, which is two floors high. On display to the public for the first time on Friday this week, the even bigger Model 470i has already created a buzz among piano enthusiasts. Piano Street’s Patrick Jovell had a talk with David Klavins about his latest innovations. Read more >>

Piano Practice and the 10,000-hour Rule

A recent study seems to have dealt a blow to the often cited idea that 10,000 hours of practice will make an expert of anyone. “The idea has become really entrenched in our culture, but it’s an oversimplification,” says Brooke Macnamara, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Read more >>

Keep Track of the Latest Piano Albums with Piano Street

Piano Street’s mission is to promote classical piano music, and we are always looking for new ways to enable you to listen, learn, and play. There’s no question that piano playing is thriving all over the world, and on the World Wide Web – just look at the flood of new recordings, videos, and streamed concerts constantly available just a few clicks away. Read more >>

200+ Pieces Added to Piano Street’s Sheet Music Library

There is no end to our efforts to render the Piano Street sheet music library more and more complete. In recent months, we’ve added a large number of pieces by some of the greatest composers – Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, and Grieg. Read more >>

Chopin and His Europe

The whole piano world is teaming up for the 18th International Chopin Competition to be held in Warsaw, 2 to 23 October 2020. Stanislaw Leszczynski of The Chopin Institute talked to Piano Street’s Patrick Jovell at the Philharmonie in Warsaw. Read more >>

Build a Paper Piano with Nintendo Labo!

Not enough space for a piano? A foldable paper piano may solve that particular problem but don’t expect to play your favourite piano pieces on it. Read more >>

Through Nupen’s Eyes: Young Legends Play Mozart

On 11 March 1966, two great young pianists appeared together in public for the first time: Daniel Barenboim and Vladimir Ashkenazy played Mozart’s Concerto for two pianos at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon. Looking in the back mirror we realize the unique importance of this performance hi-lighting the two young pianists in the middle of building world famous careers. Read more >>

Alexander Gadjiev – To Save the World

Our meeting took place in Krefeld, at Kawai – the Japanese make of piano with which Alexander Gadjiev has become so familiar since his success at the Hamamatsu competition. Now his career is really taking off in Europe too: Gadjiev is a BBC New Generation Artist until the end of 2021 and is also one of the 25 chosen contestants at the upcoming 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition, 17-29 June in Moscow. Read more >>

Success, or Just a Sensation? Stuart Isacoff on Van Cliburn’s Moscow Win — 60 Years On

Piano Street has met the author of When the World Stopped to Listen: Van Cliburn’s Cold War Triumph and Its Aftermath, a personal and moving book presenting a sympathetic but honest account of the life of the legendary American pianist. Read more >>

The World of Piano Competitions – New Issue

As a collaborating partner Piano Street is proud to present the second issue of The World of Piano Competitions, a new magazine initiated by PIANIST Magazine (Netherlands and Germany) and its Editor-in-Chief Eric Schoones. Here we get a rich insight into the world of international piano competitions through the eyes of its producers and participants. Read more >>

Nelson Goerner – Exploring the depths

Nelson Goerner is a sort of ‘rare bird’ on the concert platform. Each of his concerts is a unique experience. His most recent CDs featuring major works by Brahms, Godowsky and Paderewski are simply breathtaking. Eric Schoones met him in Groningen to discuss his recordings, his views on his artistry and about Maria Tipo, with whom he studied. Read more >>

As you all know, the classical piano repertoire is endless. As a consequence, there is no end to our efforts to render the Piano Street sheet music library more and more complete. In recent months, we’ve added a large number of pieces by some of the greatest composers – Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, and Grieg. Some of these pieces are well-known masterpieces, others may be new acquaintances.

In our quest for completeness, an obvious place to start is the various collections belonging to the core repertoire. For example, it can be hard to know the exact point when you’ve published Chopin’s complete works – how many sketches, variants, or unpublished manuscripts should this include? But important milestones can be reached on the way – after adding several posthumous waltzes, mazurkas and polonaises, as well as the “Three New Etudes” and a number of other pieces, our Chopin library is, for all practical purposes, complete. (Although we would be happy to hear from knowledgeable readers about suggested further additions!)

Other significant new scores on Piano Street include Beethoven’s popular showpiece The Rage Over a Lost Penny, Mozart’s beautiful Adagio in B minor K. 540, Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto, many of Grieg’s Norwegian folk tunes and dances, and several Debussy works, composed or arranged for two pianos (En blanc et noir, Lindaraja, La mer etc).

See all 202 recently added pieces >>

Two free scores to download

Today we are making two of these newly published scores available to download for free (with Silver membership).

A song by Chopin
Wiosna (Spring) is Chopin’s arrangement of one of his own songs, a setting of a poem by the composer’s friend Stefan Witwicki. This is one of our PS Instructive Editions, with extensive instructions, a “Practice Guide” and “Practice Score”.

Debussy’s very last piano piece
The other piece we would like to share with you is Debussy’s very last work for piano, Les soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon, discovered as late as in 2001. During the harsh wartime winter of 1916-17, Debussy’s coal merchant managed to divert scarce supplies of fuel to the Debussy household. As thanks, he received the beautifully written manuscript of this piece.

Piano Street’s mission is to promote classical piano music, and we are always looking for new ways to enable you to listen, learn, and play. There’s no question that piano playing is thriving all over the world, and on the World Wide Web – just look at the flood of new recordings, videos, and streamed concerts constantly available just a few clicks away.

Focusing on new piano albums, we’ve found that there are at least a handful every week that are definitely worthy of our members’ attention. We wanted to offer you an easy way to keep informed of these recordings when they are released.

The result is now visible on the home page, under the heading Latest Piano Albums. This section will be updated each week – clicking at the bottom of the list will take you to the archive, where you can see and listen to previous weeks’ selections. Here you will find not only the latest high-profile albums with the most famous names on the cover, but also exceptional recordings by lesser known pianists, debut albums with tomorrow’s stars, new interpretations of the central piano repertoire, and interesting but neglected keyboard music, contemporary as well as ancient.

While website visitors and Silver members can follow the list of new releases on the home page, Gold members get exclusive access to listen to the full albums directly in our high resolution audio streaming library.

We all have our favorite recordings of favorite pieces that we return to again and again. But life undoubtedly gets more interesting if now and then we listen to something new – you never know when you’ll find that new favorite! And even if you end up concluding that you still think, say, Gould is the ultimate Bach player, listening to Federico Colli might still give you new insights.