Modern Classics – Page 2

Schönberg • The Piano Works

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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When music publisher Universal Edition was founded in Vienna in 1901, its goal was to provide core classical and educational works to an enthusiastic Austrian market, but the company soon became associated with some of the most radical modernist composers of the age.

Within ten years, UE had signed contracts to publish new music by Mahler, Bartók, Schönberg, Webern, Zemlinsky, and in subsequent decades the company became the publishers of Kurtág, Ligetti, Stockhausen, Berio and Boulez among many others.

Austrian copyright ownership lasts for 70 years after a composer’s death, and since Bartók’s music came out of copyright in 2015, leading publisher G. Henle Verlag have been quick to produce new urtext editions which significantly improve on the scores previously available.

Now the turn of Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951), Henle bring us his complete piano works in a major new volume, the four most important sets of pieces also available to purchase individually, all additionally available digitally within the Henle app.

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…

Ravel • Valses Nobles et Sentimentales

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Valses Nobles et Sentimentales is undoubtedly one of Ravel’s most magnificent solo piano works, and after an inauspicious start it has steadily grown in popularity over the course of the last century, both in its original form and subsequent orchestration.

Though two of the easier movements have appeared in the UK Grade 7 and 8 syllabus, the complete work comprises eight short movements which present considerable challenge, both technically and musically.

Those at diploma level or beyond who are preparing to perform it will want to be diligent in sourcing an edition which combines an accurate musical text with a presentation that is equally suited to study and performance. There are several to choose from.

I have previously relied on the excellent Edition Peters urtext (edited by Roger Nichols, 2008). There’s also a more recent edition from Bärenreiter (2015). In this review however, I will be considering a superb new publication from Durand in their Musique française series.

Durand published the first edition in 1911; this new publication updates their 1921 reprint, giving that authorised musical text a spacious modern engraving, and including an introduction with performing notes by eminent French musicologist Edmond Lemaître. Read on to find out more…

Debussy: Préludes pour piano

Pianodao Music Library

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

The two books of Préludes by Claude Debussy (1862 -1918) are undoubtedly among the most important and popular piano compositions of the early twentieth century, and have exercised a truly seminal influence on the piano music of subsequent generations.

Published in 1910 and 1913 respectively, each book contains 12 pieces, each one of them an invitation to another unique, fully imagined world. In many ways a summation of Debussy’s extraordinarily vivid piano writing, these miniatures are self-contained miracles of sonority, impressionistic and colourific effect; they are equally a lesson in taut compositional clarity and structural genius.

Originally published by Durand, the Préludes are now available in various combinations and editions from most of the major publishing houses, including Henle Verlag, Wiener Urtext, Edition Peters, Schirmer, Alfred and Dover.

In this review I am looking at the new urtext edition by Thomas Kabisch, published by Bärenreiter in two volumes; both volumes are exemplary in their scholarship, also including helpful editorial fingering supplied by the pianist Martin Widmaier.

Discovering Janáček

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) lived a life of music, but it was in his mature phase that he created the most enduring of his masterpieces.

Works such as The Cunning Little Vixen, the orchestral Sinfonietta and Taras Bulba, the Glagolitic Mass, and two popular string quartets have ensured that Janáček’s reputation is now immortalised as one of the greatest ever Czech composers, and a leading figure in the narrative of European music in the early twentieth century.

Janáček composed for the piano throughout his career, from his younger days as a student in Leipzig through to Vzpomínka [Reminiscence], composed in his final year. However, his major published works date from between 1900-1912:

On an Overgrown Path (1900, 1908, 1911)
Sonata I. X. 1905 (1905) and
In the Mists (1912).

In this survey I will take a look at each of these works, followed by a recent compilation of Janáček’s less well-known solo piano music.

In all cases, I will be turning to the benchmark editions from Bärenreiter, which can be regarded as the authoritative performing versions.