Bärenreiter – Pianodao

Jakub Metelka • Puppet Theatre

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Jakub Metelka is one of the notable new names contributing to the burgeoning piano education literature in recent years. His distinctive music stands out by avoiding clichés, presenting imaginative and thoughtful challenge, earning him recognition as a significant voice in the developing pianist’s repertoire.

I have reviewed all three of Metelka’s previous collections:

Jakub Metelka: Modern Piano Studies

These imaginative and appealing miniatures cover every major and minor key, addressing important aspects of technique and notation-reading at upper intermediate level.

Jakub Metelka: Little Virtuoso

Metelka has created a superb resource for the ‘Little Virtuosos’ of the title: I cannot think of another collection that so imaginatively caters for eager youngsters who have quickly reached early advanced level.

Jakub Metelka • The Secret Garden

Jakob Metelka’s ‘Secret Garden’ presents 15 “modern nocturnes” for prodigious youngsters, and is thus a more lyrical counterpoint to his ‘Little Virtuoso’ collection. And these pieces are again superb…

Metelka’s pieces often have a clear learning objective, combined with appealing musical content. But many of them prove to be rather harder to play than first impressions suggest: he clearly aims to challenge learners, while expanding their musical understanding, technique, and expressive engagement.

Now he brings us a fourth collection. Puppet Theatre is aimed at less advanced players, delivering his easiest pieces to date. But are they really all that easy, or is Metelka up to his usual tricks? Let’s find out!

Dvořák • Suite in A major

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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The significant and superb solo piano output of Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) remains one of the most neglected of any major Romantic Era composer, so when a new recording or edition appears it is always cause for joy.

Among the publishers, it is no surprise that Bärenreiter are the most dedicated to promoting Dvořák’s work, as they are with all Czech composers, and the most recent addition to their catalogue of this composer’s piano music arrived a few months back: a new edition of the Suite in A major Op.98, a substantial five-movement work suitable for players at diploma level.

Fanny Hensel • Easter Sonata

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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With a reawakened interest in the music of forgotten women composers, evidenced by the numerous collections and books published over recent years, it’s no wonder that the music of Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy, later Hensel, (1805-1847) is enjoying a long-overdue renaissance.

Fanny Hensel’s “Ostersonate” (Easter Sonata) was composed in 1828, but remarkably, the recent edition from Bärenreiter is actually the first ever urtext version of this beguiling music, based on an autograph which was long inaccessible due to being in private hands.

Combining excellence with innovation, the typically superb Bärenreiter critical edition itself is accompanied by an included second volume, which offers a complete facsimile reproduction in colour of Fanny’s autograph manuscript.

Nearly two centuries after its composition, it’s surely now time to rediscover and celebrate this tremendous work, which is suitable for performance by players at associate diploma level and beyond…

Smetana • Easy Piano Pieces

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Earlier in this, the year in which we mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Czech Romantic Era composer Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884), I wrote an overview of his most significant solo piano works, which are published by Bärenreiter.

Noting that most of Smetana’s output is virtuosic, I mentioned that for those in search of some easier pieces, Bärenreiter were planning a collection in their Easy Piano Pieces and Dances series. That more accessible collection is now available, so I am bringing you this review.

Josef Suk • Easy Piano Pieces

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Josef Suk (1874-1935) was a prominent Czech composer and violinist, born in Křečovice, near Prague. A student of the famous composer Antonín Dvořák, he expertly bridged the gap between the late Romantic era and the emerging modernist style of the next generation; he is celebrated for seamlessly infusing Czech music with a sense of modernity while preserving its nationalistic roots.

Suk composed much for the piano, and twelve of his more accessible works have now been brought together for a new collection in Bärenreiter’s popular Easy Piano Pieces and Dances series, offering an ideal introduction to this repertoire…

Beethoven • The Complete Bagatelles

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Music publishers Bärenreiter have rightly received loud applause for their recent scholarly performing urtext editions of Beethoven’s music.

Of particular interest to Pianodao readers, Jonathan Del Mar’s edition of the complete Piano Sonatas (reviewed here) was a milestone that was soon joined in the catalogue by Mario Aschauer’s landmark Diabelli Variations edition (reviewed here).

Aschauer has now brought as an exhaustively Complete Bagatelles edition that further consolidates the publisher’s lead in this repertoire.

A Bagatelle (French, “trifle”) is by definition a “short piece in a lighter style”, and Beethoven’s, which include the evergreen Für Elise, are surely among the most famous of all. Indeed, it is probably not overstating their importance to say that they set the musical scene for the character pieces which became such a popular staple of the domestic piano repertoire in the Romantic Era.

For the developing pianist, meanwhile, these pieces offer an important bridge between Beethoven’s easy dances and his monumental Sonata cycle. No wonder that they have long been recognised as an indispensable part of the early advanced repertoire, essential for players at around UK Grades 6-7.

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…

Jakub Metelka • The Secret Garden

Pianodao Music Library

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

Jakub Metelka has proven one of the most interesting piano composers to emerge in recent years, his educational music offering genuinely useful content embedded in attractive pieces which are enjoyable to play, and notably concise.

Metelka’s latest offering is The Secret Garden, brought to us by Bärenreiter, who previously also published his Modern Piano Studies (2019) reviewed here and Little Virtuoso (2021) reviewed here.

This new collection is, in common with Little Virtuoso, suitable for early advanced players at around UK Grade 7 level, and it will undoubtedly further enhance Metelka’s growing international standing.

As with his previous work, I quickly found myself drawn into his imaginative sound world and delighted by what I discovered within…