Suggestions, please!

[piccolo]

I'm just starting to take my piano playing a bit more seriously (for the record, I'm an orchestral standard flute and piccolo player, also play clarinet and sing) and am looking for some beginner's pieces that are still musically interesting. Being a classically trained musician already, I'm already working at scales, and a friend gave me Hanon and some Czerny, so I'm looking at them, but let's face it, they're not particularly interesting!

I'm looking for some relatively simple pieces to play which will help me develop my technical skills while keeping me musically interested! I like Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Faure, Poulenc, but will also be looking to play jazz and blues as well as classical so would like some modern composers too.

Any ideas appreciated!

[bernhard]

If you want studies, you can try:

1. Burgmuller - Op. 100 is the easiest set, and Peters Young Classical edition comes with a CD, so you can listen to the pieces to see if you like them. Op. 105 and 109 are also interesting but a bit more difficult.

2. Stephan Heller. There are several sets, and as far as I know no one has ever recorded them (if anyone knows about CDs of Heller studies, I would be interested). These studies try to emphasise musicality over technique (although there are plenty of technical challeges for the beginner). Op. 45 - 46 and 47 are considered the most useful. They are highly romantic in style and prepare the way for the Chopin studies.

Easy pieces (of great artistic merit):

1. The ABRSM has published a series of books called "Easier Piano pieces", mostly by obscure composers. There is a full list of the volumes available in their website. They have a volume on Chopin, several on J.S.Bach, Tchaikovsky, etc.

2. Mendelssohn - Songs Without Words. There are 48 of them, varying in difficulty from easy to reasonably difficult. All very musical. They have been recorded by several pianists, including Daniel Baremboin (the full set) and Murray Perahia (a small selection).

3. Schumann - Album for the young [op. 48] and Scenes from Childhood (op. 13). There are lots of recordings for Scenes from Childhood [more difficult than op. 48]. and only rare ones of op. 48. The two I like best are Michel Endres (Arte Nova) and Rico Gulda (Naxos).

4. Grieg - Lyric Pieces. There are ten books with different opus numbers, each containing six to eight pieces. Like Mendelssohn's SWW, they vary in difficulty. There are several recordings of selections of them, most notably by Emil Giles and Leif Ove Andsnes

5. Prokofiev - Sikorsky has published an album of Prokofiev pieces called "First Piano Compositions". These are reasonably easy and yet very effective musically (they sound more difficult than they actually are). You can listen to them also: Frederic Chiu has recorded all Prokofiev's piano works  for Harmonia Mundi. Prokofiev also wrote a set of children's pieces (Musique Pour enfants. op. 65)

6. Shostakovitch: Easy pieces for the piano (Schirmer's Library of Musical Classics, vol. 1887). There is a CD with some of these pieces (not all) played by Rimma Bobritskaia ("Miniatures for young pianists" - Le Chant du Monde).

7. Modern pieces - Try (again) the ABRSM collection of comtemporary pieces for piano "Spectrum" There are three volumes at the moment, with more planned.

As you can imagine there is alot more out there, but this should get you started!

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[BoliverAllmon]

I just bought a book of heller studies today. While i didn't get it, I did see an edition that came with a CD. IT was either schirmer or dover. I don't recall. It was a bit out of my range for the day (still only 13 bucks). It was just op. 46. hope this helps.

wow I was using the search function and did not realize that thread was nearly two years old. Oh well, thought bernhard could use the info.

[BoliverAllmon]

by the way bernhard do you find the Heller studies useful? My teacher wants to me to learn the first one of Op. 46.

boliver