Help me plan my musical education!

[jayeckz]

I've decided to properly educate myself in music . In your opinion, what are essential resources for classical pianists and music students?

I’ve ordered the following:
Resources Dealing with Technique
-Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing by Lhevinne
-Pianism by Onishi
-Famous Pianists and Their Technique by Geric

Commentary on Repertoire
-Playing the Beethoven Piano Sonatas
-A Companion to Beethoven’s Pianoforte Sonatas

Repertoire
-Beethoven Sonatas edited by Schnabel
-Beethoven Sonatas edited by Cooper

General Resources



I’m still looking for:
1) A book explaining the different classical music periods and the “important” keyboard composers.
2) Any important texts about Western or non-Western music.
3) Bach WTC Edition with extensive commentary (I’m tempted to get the ABRSM edition, but I don’t know what else is out there)
4) More Bach works (I’m only familiar with his WTC)
5) Any classical sheet music editions with extensive commentary in English and exercise suggestions like the Cortot Editions for any composer.
6) Music theory books
7) Ear training books

Any suggestions?

[sleepapnea]

I see absolutely no reason to buy Bach books from Henle-Verlag when you can get clean scores for a quarter of the price from Dover.

You can build a fairly extensive music library from Dover Publications - search on Amazon for their books and buy them used if you are looking for a deal.

1) Look through Dover Publications, they have a few books on the history of keyboard instruments and keyboard music. Check out CPE Bach's Essay on the True Art of Playing keyboard instruments
2) Just search Amazon for "history of western music". Dover also has publications in this area.
3) I'm not sure on this one. What you might be interested in is buying books on period performance like "Dance and the Music of JS Bach" that will teach to you identify patterns in Bach's music and play it in exciting ways.
4) Dover publishes pretty much all the Bach keyboard works that most people will learn in a life-time. If you buy all their Bach books you'll definitely be using them for at least 5-10 more years. If not a lifetime.

[jayeckz]

@sleepapnea Thanks for the input, your suggestions were really helpful.

The Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments looks really good.  I'm definitely going to purchase this.

Your suggestion for the amazon search led me to History of Western Music by Burkholder, an Oxford 5 volume set, and a Norton anthology.  I'm still deciding on which to get, so if anyone has any opinions/experiences on these texts please share!

I have a question about the various Bach WTC editions.  I already have a WTC set from Henle; would it be worthwhile to purchase different editions?  I'm curious about the ABRSM edition because supposedly it has extensive commentary and analysis, but I'm not 100% sure.  Can anyone shed some light on this?

[sleepapnea]

Barenheiter (sp) publishes Urtext of all of Bach's keyboard works. You might benefit from buying their 2-volume publication of the Well Tempered Clavier, Books 1 & 2, *and* buying their publication entitled "Preludes and Fugues composed in conjunction with the Well Tempered Clavier" (or something to that extent). You can find it on www.sheetmusicplus.com.

If you already have a Henle, there's no point in buying a Dover.