Sheet Music Reviews – Page 15

Celebrating Disney

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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As the Disney centenary draws to a close, I don’t want to miss the opportunity to highlight some of the recent publications from Hal Leonard celebrating the studio’s unrivalled catalogue of hit songs, spanning the decades.

Having previously reviewed Disney Goes Classical (read the review), which offers a wonderful selection for late intermediate (UK Grade 5-6) players, I have picked three easier collections for this celebration, delivering outstanding selections of great songs for elementary to intermediate players.

These collections are equally prime examples of the larger series in which they appear; those interested in exploring Hal Leonard’s various easy piano songbook series can thus use this review, and these books, as a jumping off point for doing so…

Schubert • The Piano Sonatas

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Once in a while we enjoy the arrival of a genuine milestone in classical music publishing. Bärenreiter’s stunning 2019 release of Jonathan Del Mar’s new edition of the complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas was such and occasion, and I reviewed that publication here.

Though not introduced with so loud a fanfare, Bärenreiter have also recently completed their new three-volume survey of the complete Schubert Piano Sonatas, a project several years in the making.

Edited by Walburga Litschauer and based on the urtext of the New Schubert-Edition, this set of publications breaks new ground in scholarship while also offering unrivalled performing editions of this seminal, if still too little-known, cycle of masterpieces…

Peaceful Pop Piano Solos

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Hal Leonard’s popular Peaceful Piano Solos series has been a deserved success over the last few years. I reviewed the original series here, while Peaceful Christmas Piano Solos was reviewed here, and the recent Peaceful Jazz Piano Solos reviewed here.

Peaceful Pop Piano Solos has just joined this growing series, and makes an obvious and very welcome addition to the existing range. The publishers introduce it thus:

“Relax at the piano with this exceptional collection of satisfying and profoundly beautiful pieces to play.”

Quite a claim, but the book is an easy recommendation for those who have enjoyed previous titles, and to teenage and adult players looking for decent late intermediate arrangements of well known hit songs.

Yiruma • 20th Anniversary Solo

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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“These works were the simplest way of capturing a specific moment and feeling when I wrote them. I would like to share these moments with you now and wish sincerely that my music be a hand to hold along the winding path of life.”

So says Lee Ru-ma, the South Korean pianist and composer better known by his stage name Yiruma, in his introduction to the 20th Anniversary collections of his piano scores just published by Faber Music.

Yiruma first came to my attention, and that of many piano teachers around the world, through his composition River Flows in You, a runaway hit in the new easy listening piano firmament, for a time even eclipsing the ubiquitous music of Ludovico Einaudi and others in that space.

River Flows in You has appeared in (and subsequently disappeared from) a number of popular piano collections in recent years, and in different guises, sometimes accompanied by other popular hits by Yiruma, notably Kiss the Rain and If I Could See You Again, which have similarly become favourites with players and listeners alike.

For the new Faber Music 20th Anniversary publications, Yiruma has scored 14 of his personal favourites himself, and not once but twice, because his definitive versions now appear in both Original and Easy versions.

For their part, Faber Music have given the two alternative editions a matching and lavish presentation that double as gorgeous commemorations of this milestone and practical scores that are a joy to play from…

Phillip Keveren Carol Anthology

The Christmas Shortlist

Selected and reviewed by Andrew Eales
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When the top US piano arranger Phillip Keveren tells us that Christmas music is a genre of which he never tires, we can easily believe him, because his catalogue of Hal Leonard publications includes an almost bewildering array of seasonal titles.

The question of where to start an exploration of these publications is made easier by the arrival of another. The Essential Christmas Carol Anthology offers “36 Stunning Seasonal Arrangements”, selected from five previous titles, and including five new arrangements.

As such, and though offering a sampler from which the player might then want to go and explore more of Keveren’s Christmas fare, this could be the only Christmas collection late intermediate players (around UK Grades 5-6) need. Let’s find out….

Rachel Portman • Beyond the Screen

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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British composer Rachel Portman refers to the piano as her best friend, and tells us,

“I spend all day with it, most days. I think probably I’m pianistic in my soul.”

Her superb 2020 album Ask the River, the music publication of which I reviewed here, certainly seems to confirm this. At the time I wrote,

“These consummately composed pieces offer a beautiful and evocative sound world, at once accessible, but with plenty of personality… One of 2020’s best “new classical” releases, this is not simply a soundtrack in search of a movie. In a year which has seen many of us compelled to live less frenetic, more localised lives, I suspect that many will find Portman’s latest music gives serene expression to both our outer and inner worlds.”

Certainly it was a recording I listened to on repeat for months, and a music book which several students have loved, so I was excited to see a new piano album appear from Portman a couple of months ago, the music book of which is now available.

Brian Davidson’s Nursery Suite

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Earlier this year I reviewed Scottish composer Brian Davidson’s Music Box, published by Kevin Mayhew, and wrote that,

“This is truly worthwhile music, equally rewarding for player and listener alike, and an enjoyable addition to the developing pianist’s repertoire.”

You can read the full review here.

Now Davidson is back with another collection, again from Kevin Mayhew. His Nursery Suite delivers five original piano pieces aimed at late intermediate adult players, and its evocative reimagining of traditional nursery rhymes could have wide appeal.

Read on to find out more and listen to a couple of the pieces…

Notebook for J.C. Bach

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Piano teachers, students and players the world over are familiar with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach of 1722 and 1725, and it is no surprise that there was considerable interest when I reviewed Edition Peters superb new edition of them (the first complete new critical edition for some 60 years). You can read that review here.

Given the universal appreciation of the Anna Magdalena Notebook, it is odd that there is less awareness of the notebooks he compiled for his other family members. Of these, the Notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach has survived fully in tact. Following the success of their new Anna Magdalena Notebook edition, Edition Peters brought out a stunning edition of this also, which I have reviewed here.

We don’t know for certain how many other notebooks Bach compiled, but there is sufficient evidence for a Notebook for Johann Christian Bach, and a probable surviving source. Now Christoph Wolff, the leading Bach scholar responsible for the previous two publications, has pieced this together to complete the trilogy, based on extensive research and compelling evidence to authenticate the material.

Make no mistake: this is a landmark publication. So let’s find out more…