PWM Edition – Pianodao

Krystyna Gowik: Fives for Piano

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

Music from Chopin’s Land
In 2020, I was commissioned by PWM Edition to record five films showcasing educational piano music by Polish composers. Captivated by my new musical discoveries, I have continued to independently explore and review the music of Chopin’s land…

Since visiting the Kraków headquarters of Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne (PWM Edition) to make a series of educational films back in 2020, I have been continuing my deeper dive into the educational piano music of Poland, discovering some fascinating and often enchanting gems along the way.

When reviewing PWM’s many excellent publications on Pianodao, I have of course been aware that they are rather “niche” in terms of the UK market, most of the composers being relatively unknown outside their homeland. There are exceptions: Feliks Rybicki and Janina Garścia being examples of Polish educational composers whose music has circulated more widely.

Krystyna Gowik deserves a spot on that list. When I discovered My Little World and My Favourites, both collections reviewed here (including my film introducing them), I was immediately struck by the appeal and pedagogic quality of her music.

Gowik’s latest collection is called Piątki na fortepiano, in English, Fives for Piano. The book is aimed at relative beginners, and contains 25 new compositions which are all written in five-note positions, but in a surprising range of keys and modes…

Kassern • Candy Music Box

Pianodao Music Library

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

PWM Edition continue to revive outstanding pedagogic piano music from their rich archives, most recently bringing us a colourful new edition of Kassern’s wonderful Słodki Kramik, or Candy Music Box.

Appearing in PWM’s superb CAT series and in landscape format, the book delivers 12 character pieces with a confectionary theme, suitable for early intermediate players, around UK Grades 3-4…

Maria Szymanowska: 20 Etudes & Preludes

Pianodao Music Library

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

Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne (PWM Edition) continue to live up to their remit of promoting Polish music with regular, excellent editions whose primary aim is to shine a light both on greater- and lesser-known works.

Having set new standards with Jan Ekier’s Chopin National Edition (while also preserving for posterity the revered Paderewski Edition of Chopin’s works), they have recently launched the first volume in a new edition of the works of Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831).

The sturdy, superbly presented and surprisingly inexpensive volume delivers Szymanowska’s Twenty Etudes and Preludes, dating from 1819.

In this review I will briefly consider the significance both of the composer and of the work itself, as well as appraising the new publication…

Stanisław Prószyński: Easy Pieces for Piano

Pianodao Music Library

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

Stanisław Prószyński’s name will be new to many readers, as it was to me when I found a copy of his Easy Pieces for piano on the shelf at the PWM headquarters during my visit to the publisher in Kraków in 2020.

Then freshly reprinted with a lovely new cover design by Joanna Rusinek, the book includes 15 pieces suitable for elementary players (UK Grades 1-2), and I brought a copy home (along with the many other books which I have been introducing here over the months).

Let’s find out a little more about the composer and these pieces…

Mirosław Gąsieniec: Album for Children

Pianodao Music Library

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

Of the many beautifully presented intermediate piano collections in the PWM Edition catalogue, the Album for Children by Mirosław Gąsieniec deserves special attention. Published in 2020, the book includes twelve superbly crafted, varied and original, melodic pieces.

In this review I will also consider the same composer’s earlier Collection of Dances for Piano (2013) which delivers another, similarly enticing set of ten Gąsieniec originals composed in a neo-classical manner, and again suited to players at upper intermediate level (around UK Grade 3-6).

Rybicki: Young Modernist

Pianodao Music Library

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

Introducing Polish composer Feliks Rybicki’s educational piano books as part of my Music from Chopin’s Land series, I noted:

“The piano educational music of Feliks Rybicki is one of the great treasures of the pedagogic repertoire, and deserves to be known by teachers and students everywhere…”

In that review I considered his trilogy I Begin to Play, I Am Already Playing and I Can Play Everything for piano, published worldwide by PWM Edition, who have now reissued another of Rybicki’s early intermediate collections, Young Modernist.

This edition once again appears in the “CAT” series aimed at children, in landscape format, and with superb colour illustrations within…

Janina Garścia: Ikebana

Pianodao Music Library

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

I have previously highlighted several publications by leading 20th century music educator and composer Janina Garścia.

You can read my review of the titles included in the Music from Chopin’s Land promotion, and watch PWM’s educational videos, filmed to support piano teachers as part of a project in which I was myself also a presenter.

I’m happy to let you know that PWM Edition have more recently reissued another Garścia classic. Ikebana Op.70 is a series of eleven intermediate piano solos which the composer dedicated ‘to the children and youngsters of the distant land of Japan’, the music itself inspired by Japanese culture…

Musical Treasures from Chopin’s Land

Pianodao Music Library

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

At the start of this series I gave an account of my surprise 2020 visit to Poland, and in subsequent articles I have discussed some of the best piano music I discovered on my trip, together with the tutorial films that I and a team of international colleagues created to showcase this music to the piano teaching community worldwide.

As the series draws to a close, I would like to share a couple more books that were featured in the PWM promotion, as well as a series of three special collections which actually bear the project name, Music from Chopin’s Land.

And then the punchline! I will end this final post in the series with a short reflection on the lasting lessons I have learnt about piano pedagogy following on from my visit to Chopin’s land…

So, firstly, a few extra reviews and videos for your interest and enjoyment…