Piano The Books

John Gillespie has written an invaluable resource for anyone interested in solo keyboard music. There are brief biographies of the most important composers, and the author's recommendations of each composer's best solo keyboard works. Gillespie also mentions minor composers, and summarizes the "mood" of each musical period. I don't always agree with his critiques, but that just makes it more interesting. If you are a pianist, teacher, or student, you should own this book

Gillespie was professor of Music at the Indiana University. He endeavored to satisfy a wide range of interests. From the clavier literature student to the musical gourmet , he presents the different phases of keyboard development . Beware about the organ music . He prevents the organ music has its own niche and requires a separate volume .
Individual chapters and articles will be helpful in quickly locating information about particular composers , even the most unknown and sometimes neglected composers of the different countries and periods . Footnotes and bibliographies will be important for the professional , student , performer or simply casual investigator .
As result of the final reading you will obtain a precise scope about the development of the works for the solo keyboard , traditions , interconnections from the first works of the sixteenth century to the new composers of today.
A real must for the music lovers and every person sincerely interested in the evolution of the instrument.

Cheryl Shantz's Folk Songs for Piano has been a welcome addition to our set pieces at Coathanger Theory. We have 50 students of varying expertise and the variety of material contained in this folio has slotted very nicely into our curriculum. We had been looking for material with an Australian slant for some time now. Hopefully Cheryl will continue the series.

Connie Person Coathanger Theory

This book shows exceptional creativity. Ms. Shantz has produced some very unique, light and fun interpretations of Australian folksongs - a delight!

We were so excited about the book about Disney Concert Hall, and its accompanying CD, that we sent copies to several of our organist friends. They were thrilled with it!

It's only the Gehry Organ, but I like it. It is in the Walt Disney Concert Hall, in Los Angeles.

Yes, it is called, "a forest of pipes." Or a "log jam of pipes." Or "french fries." Or "a startling array of cockeyed organ pipes." And one detractor said that "it will set back organ building a hundred years."

In this book, we see photos of early study models, with metal pipes, then with a façade of straight but angled wooden pipes, and then with the trumpets at the top, and finally with the curved and angled wooden pipes and the trumpets below. The longer pipes are indeed wooden (and used as part of the façade), with pipes behind the façade being made of alloys of tin and lead.

We often measure the size of an organ by the number of pipes, or by the number of sets of pipes that produce a given timbre, called "ranks." These ranks are controlled by the organist using "stop controls" (generally tabs or knobs) at the keyboard.

Originally, the proposed cost was one million dollars. But Manuel Rosales pointed out that this would only be enough for a small organ, of about 25 ranks. Finally, a budget of 3 million dollars was agreed on. It took $999,509 just for the materials, shipping, and insurance. Anyway, the budget was used, and the result was a 4-manual organ with 72 stops, 109 ranks, and 6125 pipes, the longest being 32-feet (which has a frequency of 16 Hertz).

How does this compare with other pipe organs? I'll mention twelve others to compare it with to give you an idea. The organ I remember best is the one in MIT's Kresge auditorium, where I heard E. Power Biggs practice. That has 3 manuals and 41 stops.

What about other concert hall organs? The Dallas symphony orchestra has a 4-manual organ with 65 stops, 84 ranks and 4535 pipes. It was built a little before the Gehry organ. The Cooper Organ in Philadelphia's Kimmel Center is 4-manual, with 111 stops, 125 ranks, and 6938 pipes. It was built a little after the Gehry organ. The organ in Sydney's Opera House has 5 manuals with 131 stops, 205 ranks, and 10,154 pipes. The Royal Albert Hall organ in London has 4 manuals, 147 stops, 177 ranks, and 9997 pipes.

Other pipe organs are even bigger. The Los Angeles First Congregational Church organ has 5 manuals, 265 stops, 346 ranks and about 22,000 pipes. In Szeged, Hugary, the Fogalmi Templom organ is 5-manual with 171 stops and 9040 pipes. Washington DC's National Cathedral has a 4-manual organ with 155 stops, 186 ranks and 10,650 pipes. The Sydney Town Hall has a 5-manual organ with 126 stops, 160 ranks, and 8756 pipes and has a longest pipe of 64-feet. The Mormon Tabernacle organ, in Salt Lake City, has 5 manuals, 170 stops, 206 ranks and 11,623 pipes.

The very biggest organs are the 6-manual Wanamaker Grand Court Organ in Philadelphia (386 stops 461 ranks and 28,482 pipes) and the 7-manual Convention Hall Organ in Atlantic City (852 stops, 452 ranks, and 33,112 pipes, and with a 64-foot longest pipe).

In this book, we see comments from several of the people involved in producing this organ and first using it. Organist Cherry Rhodes calls it "an experience-and-a-half!" As she says, when you play on the upper console, the sound is "quite immediate." But when you play on the smaller remote console, on stage, there's a delay due to the distance that one has to take into account.

Anyway, she found the organ easy to use. In particular, she liked the sequencer button, that allows the organist to progress through the succession of registrations from the beginning to the end of the piece.

This book, by Jennifer Zobelein, is a fine tribute to a superb musical instrument.

First, meet the reviewer. I'm a proficient rocker that can read music with effort, but I prefer lead sheets. I'm learning jazz now for fun and profit. For me, this book was a real find, especially in the bargain bin. The following established giants are well represented: Bill Evans (my hero, includes A Time For Love, from his Grammy-winning Alone), Art Tatum (the original jazz piano monster), Dave Brubeck (includes famous hits Take Five and Blue Rondo), plus others better known to piano geeks, like George Shearing, Marian McPartland and Duke Ellington (better known as a band leader). The transcriptions appear as accurate as anything available, and most are solo arangements that won't suffer from lack of a bass player (though I spotted one Bill Evans number from a trio arrangement). The difficulty level veers toward intermediate, with some passages and selections that are quite advanced and require more time that I have to master. There are some spots that would probably challenge an accomplished player. I don't think that I'd play many of these arrangements note-for-note in public (the light's bad where I play and I don't plan to memorize them), but there's plenty to learn from here. Great stuff!

This book is really great. It contains complete transcriptions of standards as they were played by famous jazz pianists (Bill Evans, Ellington, Art Tatum, Brubeck). In particular, I loved the versions of 'The Shadow of your smile' (a la J.S.-Bach), and 'Over the Rainbow' (completely reharmonized) by Shearing.

This book can help pianists who don't know jazz and would like to learn it: it gives them an idea of what piano jazz is like (of course, it won't teach them how to improvise).

It can also be of help to jazz pianists, as inspiration for their own improvisations.

This superb collection brings together some of Enrique Granados' most wonderful solo piano music. "Goyescas" is a sprawling suite of six pieces inspired by impressions of Goya's paintings. Its wild, sprawling textures are redolent of Rachmaninoff or Debussy, but with flamboyant and passionate Spanish temperament, wild and soaring melodies. They are deeply moving, enormously challenging to play, and richly rewarding for performer and listener alike.

Also in the collection are some of his early, delicate "Spanish Dances" as well as the "Escenas Poeticas" and "Escenas Romanticas." These are more reminiscent of the character pieces of Schumann or Grieg, but imbued with Granados' unique harmonic flavors and temperament.

Wonderful music, in a definitive edition, reprinted by Dover "for a song," this volume is a treasure for lovers of great piano music.

mike@media.mit.edu

The songs are all gorgeous and fun to play but it's more for intermediate piano players though.

I was lucky enough to study with one of Mme. Marcus former students (a graduate of Julliard and a Carniege Hall Almuni), and the book really helped to capture a side of her I had only heard about. Plus, the interviews are wonderful!! Very insightful!

I was lucky enough to study with one of Mme. Marcus former students (a graduate of Julliard and a Carniege Hall Almuni), and the book really helped to capture a side of her I had only heard about. Plus, the interviews are wonderful!! Very insightful!

I am very satisfied with the buying and delivering experience at amazon.com. Instead of 3-5 weeks it took only 1(!) week to get my order.
Thank you!

Top. But do not buy it unless a master Piano performer. Rachmaninoff is NOT easy!

Milton Okun's collection has long been the benchmark in Sixties music compilations. Nearly every important song and songwriter is featured. The arrangements are easy to play, without being the stripped-down versions found in "easy piano" and "easy guitar" collections. The introduction offers excellent insight into the social and political upheaval that made the music of the Sixties more than just entertainment. If you play guitar or piano and want to learn (or relearn) the music of our most fascinating recent decade, this book will enthrall and delight you.

If you want one book that captures the songs of the 1960's, this is the book. The arrangements for piano are the best I've seen.

My son plays the piano and his favorite piano book is just about anything by Narada, especially this book! He knows just about every song in it and our whole family enjoys listening to him play! This is an all out fantastic book of piano solos and I recommend it to all!

I liked almost every piece in this collection. Some of the featured composers are: Ira Stein, Michael Jones, Spencer Brewer, Wayne Gratz, Kostia and Nancy Rumbel. Many of the pieces are of a lyrical nature and somewhat impressionistic. Some selections are technically challenging and one suggests improvisation, but the majority of the pieces can be easily mastered by an experienced player. The music is a joy to play and allows for a great deal of personal interpretation.

Fiddlercrab's review says it all, as does fiddler Rodney Miller, who says in his foreword, "'Harding's All-Round Collection' maintains a distinguished place in the American Fiddle music archive and is a must-have tune book." Most useful to piano players in particular, is the inclusion of bass clef parts; a feature scarce in these collections. I particularly enjoyed discovering familiar tunes in slightly different versions, different keys, and under different titles. Producing the book with a stapled binding kept the cost down, and since the book is more likely to be used for reference, that suits me just fine. Kudos to Marguerite Plank and Double Dagger Press for making available a facsimile of this interesting early 20th C publication.

This book is a snapshot of American dance music of 100 years ago, and it's fascinating to see so many classic tunes in their 1905 versions.

Very readable facsimile, written in piano score format (treble and bass clef). Rodney Miller's foreword is enjoyable reading. The only feature I don't care for in this edition is the binding; it's stapled rather than spiral and so a little more difficult to keep open. The antiquarian-looking font of the pages adds to the historical feel, without having to worry about the crumbling and yellowing pages of a real antique book. For the most part the tunes are in fiddle-friendly keys.

I suspect I will spend many hours here revisiting old friends and making some new ones. Marguerite has done a great service by reprinting this collection.