Early Advanced Repertoire

Arise and Shine

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Back in 2023 I reviewed two collections of Piano Music of Black Composers compiled by the American performer, scholar, and educator Leah Claiborne for Hal Leonard’s Expanding the Repertoire series.

The two books offered a varied and engaging, if in hindsight slightly inconsistent, potpourri of little-known music by Black composers, and at the time I concluded,

“It’s a great pity that this fabulous pedagogic repertoire hasn’t been a standard feature of our piano education culture, and Leah Claiborne has done us a superb service in providing these slender volumes. We must hope more will follow.”

More has indeed followed, and I was delighted to receive Claiborne’s latest anthology, Arise and Shine, which offers 28 piano solos by Black composers suitable for intermediate to early advanced players (I would estimate UK Grades 2-8).

The LOTR Piano Anthology

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Faber Music have now been producing their series of deluxe piano anthologies for around a decade, with one or two new titles appearing each year, each volume generally bringing together an eclectic but appealing mix of music grouped around a specific theme: Christmas, Jazz Standards, Women Composers, and so on.

You can explore my reviews of the series here.

A previous title in the series broke the usual pattern by focusing on a specific movie series. The Harry Potter Piano Anthology was produced in association with the US publishers Alfred Music, who own the rights and arrangements, and in my review of that title, I concluded that it was “an exceptional publication which is unlikely to disappoint”.

Revisiting that partnership, Faber Music now bring us The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit Piano Anthology, again in partnership with Alfred. The cover announces that the book includes:

“The best-loved themes from Howard Shore’s landmark scores along with other featured songs, arranged for intermediate piano solo.”

The anthology is as lavishly presented as ever, and likely to tempt all those who appreciate Shore’s superb movie scores, so let’s take a look…

Echoes of the Orient

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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In the last three years, I have reviewed five collections of intermediate piano music by the UK-based Malaysian piano teacher Angeline Bell, during which time she has quickly established her name as an educational composer. Her accessible pieces have also begun to feature on streaming sites and on the radio, where their warm, relaxing vibe is proving popular.

Bell’s sixth and latest publication is Echoes of the Orient. The score again appears from Editions Musica Ferrum, with cover artwork by Rebecca Harrie to match Bell’s previous Notebooks, but this time there is also a CD recording of the music by upcoming concert artist Katie Yao Morgan on the ARC Music Productions label, distributed by Naxos World.

These pieces were composed with early advanced performers in mind, and evoke Bell’s nostalgic reflections and personal recollections of growing up in East Asia. As such, this is a very different collection to its predecessors, so let’s take a look…

ABRSM Jazz Piano Solos

Educational Resources

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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When ABRSM announced their Jazz Piano syllabus Grades 1-5 back in 1998, and published a raft of outstanding books and recordings to support it, I was at the front of the queue for copies, and one of the many who rejoiced at the arrival of such a superb resource.

Here, at last, was a well-thought out, superbly paced approach for introducing swing, blues, Latin and modern jazz styles, all with integrated improvisations, relevant scales, aural, and technical development.

In the years since, while I’ve not used the actual exams, many of my students have enjoyed the excellent music, learning core jazz skills from the course materials. I have still enjoyed playing and teaching the accessible jazzy pieces and arrangements available elsewhere, but these ABRSM books have been a mainstay for teaching jazz “properly”.

An update of the lower grades, and continuation into the higher ones, has long been requested. In the meantime ABRSM have released three music books in their Nikki Iles & Friends series (reviewed here).

Now, more than a quarter of a century after their first five grades appeared, they have published a syllabus specification for new, video assessed Jazz ‘Performance Grades’ 6-8, together with a Jazz Piano Solo Pieces Grades 6-8 book including five pieces from each Grade level. Let’s take a look…

Mendelssohn • Masterpieces

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Edition Peters’ Masterpieces for Piano series launched last year with three initial titles devoted to the great keyboard works of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, expertly compiled by Roland Erben and given fresh modern engravings based on the publisher’s esteemed legacy editions.

Each of the beautifully presented bumper books in the series so far offers a significant selection of core repertoire, suitable for (predominantly) early advanced players. And they proved to be one of the music publishing highlights of the last year.

Now Erben is back, with a volume of music by Clara Schumann coming soon, but firstly a new collection of Felix Mendelssohn’s most popular works. How many of them have you played?

Bearing in mind Mendelssohn’s importance and popularity, it may come as a surprise that in the last ten years of reviewing music on Pianodao, this is the first time I have been sent a new publication of his music for consideration.

Happily, this might be the only one you will ever need. Let’s find out…

John Rutter • Complete Piano Album

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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One of the most extraordinarily popular and successful British composers of his generation, John Rutter’s choral works, anthems, hymns and carols are beloved the world over for their distinctive mix of French choral, English pastoral, and American popular influences.

John Rutter has enjoyed a long career at the pinnacle of the English choral world, from his appearance as a chorister in the 1963 recording of Britten’s War Requiem conducted by the composer, through his time at Cambridge and his numerous prestigious appointments and accomplishments up to the present day.

As he enjoys his 80th birthday year, Rutter is rightly considered a national treasure, and his publishers OUP Music are celebrating with a fresh compilation of his two recent solo piano albums in one superb book of 16 pieces, as well as the publication of his piano concerto, Reflections.

The Complete John Rutter Piano Album brings together his transcriptions first published as Piano Collection: A Flower Remembered in 2020, along with those that make up the subsequent John Rutter Christmas Piano Album.

For fans of his music, the Complete John Rutter Piano Album is an obvious and more cost-effective choice, so the review that follows draws from and replaces my earlier reviews of the initial, separate publications.

The Winter Piano Anthology

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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The Faber Music Piano Anthology series of deluxe bumper books have proven one of the popular publishing successes of recent years, and certainly these robust collections combine excellent value for money with a compelling mix of piano music for late intermediate to advanced players.

With more than a dozen titles now in the series, the anthologies cover a wide range of musical styles and tastes. Some home in on specific genres, such as pop ballads, jazz standards, and piano duets, while others mix core and lesser-known classics, piano arrangements, and relaxed contemporary solos.

For a look at previous titles, you can explore the series here, but let’s now turn to the latest addition, a seasonal chilled Winter Piano Anthology…

Christmas Boogie and Jazz

The Christmas Shortlist

Selected and reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Brent Edstrom’s stunning series of Jazz Piano Solos collections has reached its sixty seventh volume with Hal Leonard’s publication of the new Boogie Woogie Christmas.

I have previously praised several titles from this series, and in this review I am going to look at the new addition as well as recapping previous three more Christmas books in the series that I have looked at in the past, bringing them together here to help readers decide where to start and which to choose.

Together, these four cover an extraordinary amount of ground, freshly dusted with deep, crisp, and evenly festive brilliance. These Jazz Piano Solos will undoubtedly keep advanced players engaged with their superbly stylish boogie and jazzed up reimaginings of the Christmas canon…