Piano The Books

The "Classics in Context" series by Maurice Hinson introduces students to the historical context and personal motivations of classic composers. [6pps of history in the 32 pg collection]

Includes Berceuse, First Version, Funf Klavierstucke (Five Pieces), Harmonies poetiques et religieuses, No.2 Ave Maria, No. 5, Pater noster, and Impromptu--all by Franz Liszt (1811-1886).

Hinson served as the Chair of Church Music at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Lousisville, Kentucky.

I really like this piece. With the accompanying CD I can actually play the pieces the way they should be played. Some pieces are hard to play, though, but practice makes perfect, everytime.....

For the longest time the clavichord has been the most overshadowed of all keyboard instruments. However, the clavichord, is the most intimate of all. The Clavichord (Cambridge Musical Texts and Monographs) is the only book that begins with the origin of the clavichord (Monochord) to the nineteenth century revival. The book comes with beautiful pictures of the clavichord along with monographs. This happens to be the most elaborate and sought out book for all clavichord enthusiasts.

Great music! Love having the CD so I know what I should aspire to as I learn the songs.

Excellent seclection and mix of music. Some are easy enough for beginners and some are more challenging. Visual of guitar fingering as well as music notes encourage less than proficient players to give it a try. Fun to use it for simple piano/guitar duets. Great value. Enjoyed the time span of the selections. Easy to read words and music.

This is a good book for those who are intermediate and higher. Many of the songs are well known and the arranger has added jazz chords to provide a very rich sound. I am a professional pianist who uses this book at weddings, parties and receptions.

Came in fast, book was in good condition, songs were transposed well, it was a good product

Howard Skempton was part of the Scratch Orchestra, one of its founders, he moved to London in the late Sixties to study with Cornelius Cardew, then largley a mentor, activist, primary shaker-mover of souls of the avant-garde in England, recall that the paradigm of modernity never touched the Queen's Plot at full-tilt,as France and Germany(even today modernity in England(a la Cage, Boulez,Birtwistle) is somewhat of a transgression of the human spirit).The British avant-garde interestingly had other agendas within working class formations,as The Scratch Orch.and AMM(to provide music to those who need it) there must always be some collective expression of what you are doing and where you are going, things must be clearly seen, perceived within a heartbeat, and thought through within a social class context, very self-conscious orientations.
Skempton found his own voice within this mileau, of social and political paradigm that touched England in the late Sixties, early Seventies, he had a proclivity for pure lyrical gestures,not really a tunesmith, more a timbral lensgrinder with conceptual inheritances from Erik Satie and Morton Feldman, yet Skempton's music founded its own sets of values visions, materials, and social fragments. All have found their way into common lifeworlds.His music is always linearly directed with discreet shapes,evocative never overdone as Feldman succombed later in life for different reasons,or artistically libertarian, "Off" as Satie and never exposing freely deployed pointillistic timbral spaces as Feldman, there is more bread n'butter function to Skempton, even more than that found in the salon music of Erik Satie, he weaves a metaphorical space in between,and finds his"other" voice there. His music's signature is its actual length, sometimes a mere two lines of music,one-two minutes, a Mahlerian length engaged a full 7 minutes as his "Lento for orchestra" a BBC commission from the Eighties.

There are two volumes of "Collected Piano Solos", incredible music scouring the internal dimensions of genres,revistations allowing the simplicity of a melody exist to inhabit its own space,framed so that it can, never dissected virtuostically as Rzewski or Wolff, elegantly gently unadorned,untampered with to some degree, Skempton works with the "hanging" time, durations that slowly allow timbre to be free, this often times comes from what we know already as in his "campanellas",or "una barcarola eccentrica", or purely generic offerings as "postlude" simply "Piano Piece for . . . " "senza licenza","One for Molly", but melody, and melos is not all that is here, as in the more political examples as "The Mold Riots", and the "Durham Strike", written insolidarity with the Miner's Strike for fundraisers,against Thatcher's mindless assault on the Miners and their children;we hear an old Welsh folk song,also from a strike in the 1800s, timeless events diverted to the present, this melody becomes impacted within gorgeously situated rolled chords, or simply stated in threadbard counterpoint as in the "Mold Riots" there are then exhibited large massive chords, I suppose a natural reference to the geometric masses of coal rock mined by humans for surplus profit at sometimes the expense of life. There is a nice "seascape"herein long a harbor for escape from the growing mindless,jobless, fragmented lifeworlds within the cities in England.
To his teacher then a touching "Well,well,Cornelius" has a depth of moment, Cardew was struke by a hit n'run driver in December 1981,killing him; although a tribute a memorial piece, it has a positive ring to it,with its rolling quarters/quavers accompaniment;not simply languishing in despair.
Skempton learned well from Cardew that something else should be within part of what you do,a lifeworld view,innovation has many guises, a philosophy to impart, beyond the strictures and vigours of modernity; we learn here that modernity has long since past us by, time to simple make reference to where you are to the special place you live; you should never stop the contemplation of your music, it should function on many levels simultaneously. . .

This is a fine edition of the tuneful music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk. The Banjo Player and other famous concert pieces are here. The edition stays well on the piano, compared to a thicker book by Dover, so if I am playing Gottschalk, I prefer the Schirmer. It is also easier to read the notes.

This book is a complete and precise collection of Scott Joplin's works. The book also gives a summary of the composers lifetime.

I highly recommend this book.