Baroque Keyboard Music

My First Handel

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Schott Music’s My First Composers series, put together by Wilhelm Ohmen, have been with us for some time now, and I have previously reviewed several titles here.

The most recent to appear, My First Handel repeats the trick of several previous titles in the series, delivering a superbly curated and presented collection of intermediate pieces by a great keyboard composer whose contribution to the repertoire is often, and too easily overlooked.

And once again, this is a music compilation which doesn’t have an obvious rival in the piano education catalogue, so let’s take a serious look…

Couperin’s Troisième Livre

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Reviewing the new Denis Herlin edition of the Second Livre of Pièces de Clavecin by François Couperin ‘le grand’ (1668-1733) when it was published by Bärenreiter back in 2019, I concluded:

Occasionally I receive for review a volume that is, quite simply, above any reproach. This is one such edition. For any harpsichord player, this must surely be an essential and immediate purchase; for pianists keen to explore this too-little-known keyboard repertoire, this new edition must also be the one to seek out and highly prize.

• READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE

Three years later, and the next volume of this incomparable benchmark edition has appeared, and once again I have no hesitation in lavishing it with praise…

Martin Stadtfeld’s Händel Variations

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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At the age of seven, Martin Stadtfeld had a clear vision of his career goal: to become a concert pianist. From his first piano lessons with Hubertus Weimar he explored counterpoint and harmony. At 14 he went on to study with Lev Natochenny in Frankfurt, and by the age of just 22 he had signed to SONY Music Germany and released his debut CD: a recording of Bach’s monumental Goldberg Variations.

Fast forward a decade and a half, and with a string of successful recordings behind him (including Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Chopin), Stadtfeld turned to Handel for inspiration for his 2019 Händel Variations recording. Transcribing the great Baroque composer’s themes to produce fresh new piano showpieces, much as he had previously done for his Hommage to Bach album the previous year, Stadtfeld scored another hit.

And now, following the album’s popularity, Schott Music have delivered the official sheet music score of Stadtfeld’s “transcriptions for piano solo on themes by Georg Friedrich Händel”. Let’s have a look…

J.S. Bach: The Six Partitas

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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The Six Partitas BWV 825-30 of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) have long been regarded as one of the most important milestones of the Baroque keyboard repertoire, and exist in many editions.

The latest, edited by Ullrich Scheideler, with fingering added by concert pianist William Youn, and published by Henle (HN 518), replaces the same publisher’s 1979 Rudolf Steglich/Hans-Martin Theopold edition (HN 28), and aims to deliver the latest scholarship in a practical performing edition…

Couperin: Pièces de clavecin

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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François Couperin ‘le grand’ (1668-1733) was undoubtedly one of the great keyboard composers. His seminal influence is not only evident in the music of later French composers from Rameau to Ravel, but as an antecedent finds echoes in Chopin’s piano miniatures and even perhaps (by way of Creole migrants) the rhythms of New Orleans Jazz.

And yet his music remains too little known, and too rarely performed. But now we have an even better chance to explore his glorious solo keyboard output, thanks to Bärenreiter’s recent publication of a stunning new edition of the Second Livre (1717) of Couperin’s Pièces de clavecin.