The first movement of Beethoven’s 4th concerto opens with the solo piano, playing simple chords in the tonic key before coming to rest on a dominant chord. Can recognize who is who of the 10 famous pianists in this recording?
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Western music was built around the piano from the classical era until recently, and for a good part of that time the instrument was an essential acquisition for every middle-class household. Music making was part of the fabric of social life. Yet those days have ended. Fewer people learn the instrument today. The rise of recorded music has homogenized performance styles and greatly reduced the frequency of public concerts. Music will undoubtedly survive, but will the supremely physical experience of playing the piano ever be the same?
In Piano Notes, (Free Press, 2002) he writes for a broader audience about an old friend — the piano itself.
We celebrate your birthday, Mozart, with a little gift to all your fans, a facsimile of one of your first pieces, Minuet in G, K 1.
Print out and play!!
Download free PDF of Mozart’s Minuet in G, K. 1 (autograph facsimile) and join the celebration party:
http://ping.fm/OQPHD
Software entrepreneur John Q. Walker uses computers to bring piano legends back to life — digitally reconstructing their performances from audio tracks and playing them on real instruments, live.
Listen to the presentation on TED: http://on.ted.com/8iej
This video documentary provides a survey of 18 extraordinary keyboard artists that dominated the concert world in the mid 20th century, from Ignaz Paderewski to Claudio Arrau. Sir John Tusa narrates this comprehensive overview of some of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. 
The program effectively blends archival film with video clips, concert footage and rare artist interviews. Featured performers are Vladimir Horowitz, Artur Rubinstein, Sviatoslav Richter, Sergei Rachmaninov, Glenn Gould, Edwin Fischer, Claudio Arrau, Georges Cziffra, Wilhelm Backhaus, Alfred Cortot, Ignacy Jan Paderewski and Francis Plante performing live and on film.
Watch the movie online:
Have you thought about what’s involved with writing piano sheet music?
There are many ways to manage the writing of piano sheet music, even if all you want is to begin with simple notes. It doesn’t really matter if you are a composer or not, the task of creating piano music text is a learning experience. From including articulation, touch instructions or notes about pedalling, there are many variations. Some may well lead to complications.
Composers seem to have become more and more ambitious about putting down all sorts of detailed instructions to the performer in their scores - if you compare a score by Bach with one by Messiaen you will quickly realise how much more explicit information the latter of these two gives you. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you can stop looking for information in early piano music. On the contrary, you need to learn to identify all the subtle hints that the earlier composers put in their scores. And beware of piano sheet music editions that try to add the “missing” info - sometimes this can be very helpful, but it is more likely to be misleading.
Mozart is a particularly relevant example. His piano music typically contained all the information needed to perform his music precisely. Beware of possible misinterpretation of this idea. Mozart trusted the musical conventions of his time, which in some cases may have meant that he didn’t have to include all the details of performance. The basic premise was that he wrote to meet the expectations of the people of his own culture, referencing common themes and education. That is why you need to know something about historical performance practises. Otherwise you will not know where to look for the clues he left. But you must also remember that Mozart sometimes did allow for a variety of approaches: he left the decision up to the presenter.
The well defined traditions of the old masters, such as Mozart, probably don’t translate to the current 21st century or even the 20th for that matter. Composers now face the reality of writing for the whole world as if they are speaking about something just invented to someone on the opposite side of the globe. This means that they have a need to explain what they mean in greater detail. The modern composer is engaged in writing piano music that is often entirely new.
Understanding master composers, really understanding someone like Liszt, Chopin or Beethoven requires deep reflection. Thinking about why they wrote their piano music the way they did is a must. What does that mean for learning? Well, at the least that it is crucial to consider the details, learning as much as possible about historical notation. Its important to use urtext editions that are reliable sources of what the composer actually wrote.
Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Classics are delighted to announce the signing of a wide-ranging recording agreement with conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim. Music director of Berlin’s Staatsoper and Staatskapelle and Maestro Scaligero at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala – with projects including a new Ring production at both houses – Barenboim has been called by The Times (London) “one of the few musicians in the world today who could accurately be described as legendary”.
Deutsche Grammophon renews a collaboration with the artist which previously yielded landmark recordings of solo music by Beethoven, Chopin and Mendelssohn, and of orchestral works by Bruckner, Debussy and Ravel. For Decca Classics, this brand new collaboration with Maestro Barenboim marks an exciting chapter in its programme of expansion as a world-class core classical label.
- complains pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, distraught. This is a typical sentence in Steinway & Sons’ chief technician and Master Tuner Stefan Knupfer’s normal work day. Each piano has its own personality, each piece demands its own timbre, and every interpretation has a particular temperament. The film Pianomania takes the viewer along on a humorous journey into the secret world of sounds, and accompanies Stefan Knüpfer at his unusual job with world famous pianists like Lang Lang, Alfred Brendel, Rudolf Buchbinder, Till Fellner and Pierre-Laurent Aimard, among others. Pianomania - the movie
buttonPiano Sonata No. 14 “Moonlight Sonata”
Beethoven
I’d like to share with you all my favourite piece of music. Yes, I prefer this one song over anything else we hear today.
There are a few pieces I have started learning, but never really finished:
