Diploma Repertoire – Page 2

Liszt: Années de pèlerinage

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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As a teenage pianist entering the Bedford Festival back in the early 1980’s, I was told that I “didn’t have the right touch for Chopin”, a misty and slightly absurd put-down that somehow embedded its way into my psyche. My young mind decided that perhaps I should switch allegiance to Liszt, whose epic Sonata in B minor was already on my bucket list (where it remains).

Having already enjoyed the ever-lovely D flat major Consolation, I tried my hand at the somewhat absurd St.François de Paulo marchant sur les flots, which quickly established itself as my party piece (and with which I exacted my revenge), before turning my attentions to Liszt’s seminal (if still underrated) cycle, the Années de pèlerinage.

Edition Peters were my go-to publisher for this music, and their edition by the great Liszt student Emil Von Sauer seemed as authoritative as they came. My fixation with Liszt gave way to a fascination with the French Baroque long before I had learnt most of these variously eloquent and virtuosic pieces, but Sauer’s single volume tome has seen plenty of abuse over the years, finally becoming ripe for replacement.

How brilliant to find that Edition Peters have brought out a brand new critical performing edition of all three volumes of the Années de pèlerinage, this time edited by Leslie Howard, a towering authority whose deep knowledge and advocacy of this repertoire has extended to recording a definitive set of Liszt’s complete piano works across 99 compact discs.

Whether you have an older edition or not, this new one in three volumes and with additional pieces more than lives up to expectations…

Discovering Smetana

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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In March 2024, we celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884), esteemed Czech composer and pivotal figure in the development of the national style during the Romantic Era.

Smetana’s compositions, including his epic tone poem cycle “Má vlast”, not only captured the essence of Bohemian landscapes and folklore but also encapsulated the national spirit during a period of intense political and cultural awakening in the region.

Smetana’s remarkable talent persisted despite hardships. By late 1874, he became completely deaf, but he continued composing until a mental breakdown in early 1884 led to his confinement in an asylum and subsequent decline.

Today, Smetana’s works remain cherished emblems of Czech cultural identity. But what of his piano music? Like many, I have remained largely unfamiliar with the significant body of solo repertoire Smetana composed, the bicentenary year thus providing an opportunity for discovery.

I am most grateful to publishers Bärenreiter for helping me evaluate Smetana’s legacy, kindly supplying me with their editions of his piano works, which presently appear in the seven volumes reviewed below…

Chinese Piano Music

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
Find out more: About Pianodao Reviews

Classical piano playing has become hugely popular in China in recent years, its cultural popularity contributing to the rise of many impressive concert artists. Chinese pianists are becoming ever more prominent in music schools, international competitions, and concert halls worldwide.

It’s no surprise that the music of Chinese composers is also getting more attention. Riding this wave, Henle’s newly released Chinese Piano Music: Works of the 20th Century brings us superb scores of ten of the most pivotal works to emerge between 1947 and 1979, music that was formative in the development of a popular national style.

Curated by concert pianist Jingxian (Jane) Xie, this compilation includes music suitable for late intermediate to diploma level players, showpieces that combine a beautiful understanding of pianism with the captivating flavour of traditional Chinese music and culture. Many are already appearing as encores in the world’s most distinguished concert halls; all are likely to do so in the coming years.

While these composer names and piece titles may be new to many, it is clearly time to discover them, and the familiar Henle Urtext house style brings its own assurance that this is music which should not be ignored…

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…

Learn to Play Ragtime Piano

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Most pianists at some point will want to try their hand at playing Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer, but the wider world of Ragtime remains, for many, something of a mystery. How does the style actually work, who were its main purveyors, and where does it fit within the evolution of jazz piano?

Happily, there is an expert to guide us. Terry Waldo is considered to be the foremost living performer, producer, and historian of authentic ragtime. A producer and arranger of over fifty albums, he has appeared on hundreds of TV, film and radio programmes including his own historic series on NPR, This is Ragtime, latterly also a podcast.

Now, Waldo has blessed us with a straightforward guide to help the more advanced player interested in Ragtime to find their way with the genre.

Ragtime Piano: A Guide to Playing the Best Rags, published worldwide by Hal Leonard, is one of those books which does exactly what it says on the cover. Nevertheless, let’s take a peek!…

Scott Joplin • 20 Ragtimes

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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The Chicago World Fair of 1893 established Ragtime music as a national craze in the US, and by the end of the decade, the “King of Ragtime” Scott Joplin (1868-1917) was enjoying immense success as the composer of the genre’s biggest hits, most notably the Maple Leaf Rag, published in 1899.

Joplin died at the age of just 49, by which point he had composed just 53 piano pieces pieces, ten songs, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. Nevertheless, his impact on music was seismic, and a number of his works remain among the best loved in the whole piano repertoire.

It is, of course, for his Ragtime pieces that Joplin is particularly remembered, and a newly reissued publication in the Schott Piano Classics series presents 20 of the best known in a superb performers edition.

These are seminally important works in the solo piano repertoire, the emergence of jazz, and in the broader cultural history of the 20th century. And yet they remain somewhat under-represented in the music catalogue, as they do on exam lists and in concert. So this arrival is happy news indeed…

Chopin • Etudes Op.10

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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I think it is fair to say that Chopin’s Etudes Op.10 are, along with the second published set Op.25, among the few genuinely iconic works within the piano repertoire. An expected requirement in music conservatoires, a mainstay of Licentiate Diploma syllabi and competition programmes, they are comfortably ensconced alongside Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Beethoven’s Sonatas at the core of the standard professional repertoire.

As such, these twelve marvellous concert studies hardly need introduction; Roy Howat’s freshly published edition, however, does. The latest arrival in Edition Peters’ Complete Chopin: New Critical Edition, this is a publication which will be of interest and importance to all students of the work, and is the focus of this review.

The Restoration of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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The piano music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) is surely one of the great treasures of the solo repertoire, too long overlooked but now rightly being rediscovered and brought back into the spotlight.

Schott Music, who published many of these works during the composer’s lifetime, have begun painstakingly re-releasing Coleridge-Taylor’s output in modern performing editions. Among the piano scores restored to the Schott catalogue, and the subject of this review, are the Three Humoresques Op.31 (1898), Three Cameos Op.56 (1904), and (perhaps best-known), Three Fours: Valse-Suite Op.71 (1909).

These pieces all offer wonderful examples of Coleridge-Taylor’s art, and would suit players at around UK Grade 8 to Associate Diploma level. So let’s take a closer look, and reflect on their value…