Karen Marshall – Pianodao

The Intermediate Piano Sonata Collection

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

The Intermediate Pianist is an award-winning set of three books co-written by Karen Marshall and Heather Hammond, published by Faber Music in 2017. They launched Marshall’s Piano Trainer Series, which grew to include the Foundation Pianist (with David Blackwell, 2018), the Advanced Pianist (with Mark Tanner, 2019), and supplemented by the Piano Trainer Scales Workbook (2021).

Between them, these eight books deliver a fully self-contained curriculum for piano players from elementary to advanced level, but they have now been joined by another important supplementary book. The Intermediate Piano Sonata Collection has been written, compiled and edited by Marshall, and the publishers tell us,

“This collection gathers together nine complete sonatas that are all intermediate to early advanced (Grades 4 to 6) in standard. Featuring works by Beethoven, Anna Bon, Haydn, Mozart and Robert Schumann, it provides the highest quality of music and many years of study. Each sonata is accompanied by a live recording, background information, playing tips and musicianship activities; students are also encouraged to use the Sonata Music Map to analyse each work in detail themselves.”

Let’s start to unpack all this…

ABRSM Piano Star

Pianodao Music Library

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

ABRSM’s colourful Piano Star series of books for elementary players has been one of their most popular successes of recent years, and I was happy to be a contributor, my original compositions featuring in all four core music books.

I have previously written independent reviews of two series extras in which I had no involvement, Piano Star Theory and Piano Star Duets, but have yet to introduce the core series.

As with the Mosaic Series, even though I cannot independently review these publications they clearly belong in the Pianodao Music Library. This article will therefore offer a basic series overview, personal insight into the music I contributed, and I hope, enough information for readers to decide whether to take a closer look for themselves…

HerStory: The Piano Collection

Pianodao Music Library

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

Best-selling author Karen Marshall has been a driving force behind some of the most popular and useful piano education titles of recent years, including the Piano Star and Encore series (both ABRSM), Get Set! Piano method books (Collins Music) and Piano Trainer series (Faber Music).

To get the measure of this achievement, you can browse and read all of my previous reviews of Marshall’s work by clicking on this tag.

Marshall’s latest project is HerStory from Faber Music, and will appeal to a wider catchment of piano players beyond the education market, being a compilation of 30 works by female composers who thus far have not received the recognition they have deserved. But HerStory is so much more than simply another repertoire collection, as I will explain in this review.

The Piano Trainer Scales Workbook

Educational Resources

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

A couple of years ago I suggested to author Karen Marshall and publishers Faber Music that it would be really useful to have an all-in-one scales manual within the popular Piano Trainer series. And here it is!

According to Faber Music,

“This all-in-one workbook for scales, arpeggios and broken chords includes all the keys and basic shapes piano students should learn. With clear scale notation, easy-to-visualise keyboard diagrams and excellent theory activities to consolidate understanding and underline the importance of writing music. It is ideal for developing a bespoke scale curriculum.”

The Piano Trainer Scales Workbook is certainly all of this, and the 72-page book is chock-full of neat ideas and judiciously selected material, so let’s take a closer look…