PWM Edition – Pianodao

Krystyna Gowik: Fives for Piano

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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 obvious examples of Polish educational composers whose music has circulated 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…

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Kassern • Candy Music Box

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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…

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…

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Maria Szymanowska: 20 Etudes & Preludes

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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…

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…

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Stanisław Prószyński: Easy Pieces for Piano

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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…

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…

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Mirosław Gąsieniec: Album for Children

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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…

Of the many beautifully presented piano collections suitable for intermediate players 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).

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Rybicki: Young Modernist

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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…

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…

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Janina Garścia: Ikebana

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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…

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

You can read my review here of the titles included in the original 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…

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Musical Treasures from Chopin’s Land

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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…

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…

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Zbigniew Bargielski: A Flea Market

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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…

Polish composer Zbigniew Bargielski was born in 1937 in Łomża and initially trained in law, until switching his focus to more serious music studies in his twenties. After his years at the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw and then Katowice, he took composition classes with the great Nadia Boulanger in Paris and then at the Hochschule für Musik in Graz.

Bargielski has enjoyed a long and successful career as a composer, with a prolific body of chamber and solo works to his name. He has also distinguished himself as a teacher (lecturing in composition at the Academies of Music in Kraków and Bydgoszcz) and music journalist.

PWM have collected a range of his quirky and highly varied piano pieces in three volumes called A Flea Market, and in this review I will be particularly looking at the first of these, which brings together a range of works suitable for late intermediate to early advanced students.

Featured in the Music from Chopin’s Land international promotional project, this article will include tutorials from French pianist Ernestine Bluteau and recordings of some of the highlights from this unique and rather wonderful collection…

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Exploring Janina Garścia’s Educational Music

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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…

Janina Garścia (1920-2004) was one of Poland’s great piano educators. In addition to teaching in primary schools for close to 50 years, she composed around 700 pieces for younger players, mostly for piano.

Much of her best educational piano music remains in print from PWM Edition, and in this review I will focus on three collections which were selected to feature in the recent Music from Chopin’s Land promotion, together with tutorial and demonstration videos filmed as part of that project.

The three collections I’ll look at here are:

Musical Pictures for the Youngest
Teasers for piano
Little Sonatinas for piano

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Wojciech Kilar: Film Music for Piano

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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…

Wojciech Kilar (1932-2012) was surely the best known and most respected Polish movie composer, his music not only enriching the films of Polish and international directors but in many cases also finding a second life in the concert hall.

To celebrate this popular music, PWM have produced two books of accessible piano transcriptions arranged by Michał Jakub Papara…

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Karol Kurpiński: Polonaises

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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…

Karol Kurpiński (1785-1857) was a leading figure in the musical life of Warsaw in the early nineteenth century, and a significant inspiration to his younger compatriot Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849).

So much so that Chopin’s enduring respect for Kurpiński is evidenced in his use of quotations from his senior colleague’s works in his Fantasy on Polish Airs Op.13 and Fantasy in F minor Op.49. But perhaps the most direct influence of all is in his adoption, following Kurpińsky’s example, or the Mazurka and Polonaise as regular forms in his piano music.

Now PWM Edition bring us Three Polonaises for piano, all suitable for the early advanced player (around UK Grade 6-7) so that we can discover for ourselves this music which had such a decisive impact on Chopin’s musical development, and hence on the piano repertoire…

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Łuciuk: Children’s Improvisations

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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…

Of the many excellent educational books in the PWM Edition “cat” range for young learners, Julius Łuciuk’s Children’s Improvisations for Piano is one of the most striking in every sense, from the stunning cover to the extraordinary music within.

In this article I will introduce the book, as well as including the PWM tutorial video featuring my French colleague and friend Ernestine Bluteau (with English subtitles).

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Discovering Chopin

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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…

Frederic Chopin is of course one of the most beloved of all piano composers, and many players are eager to play his music as soon as they possibly can; in the case of adult learners, often when they have only been learning for a few months.

PWM Edition offer several collections and anthologies that provide the perfect introduction to the music of Poland’s most celebrated composer, as well as two revered complete editions.

In this post I will give a quick overview of this range, together with tutorial videos from PWM’s Music from Chopin’s Land series…

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Krystyna Gowik: My Little World

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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…

Krystyna Gowic is a well-known composer and educator in Poland, and it’s clear from her music that she has a deep understanding and commitment to education, alongside a real artistic flair.

In this article I will be considering her two collections published by PWM Edition: My Little World and My Favourites, as well as sharing the tutorial videos that I and my Japanese colleague Marie Kiyone have made to support teachers using this music…

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‘The Maiden’s Prayer’ and beyond

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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…

While The Maiden’s Prayer is one of the most beloved piano pieces of all time, its composer Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska remains one of the many great female composers of the early 19^th century whose music was largely ignored in the 20th.

In this article I will try to find out who she was, what else she wrote, introduce a wonderful collection of her pieces from PWM edition, Memories of my Cottage, and share the tutorial video that I filmed for PWM offering tips on playing and teaching The Maiden’s Prayer itself…

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The Most Beautiful Paderewski

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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…

Most piano lovers will of course have heard of Ignacy Paderewski: a seminal figure from the “golden age” of the piano whose brilliant career as a touring virtuoso was interrupted when he became Poland’s Prime Minister from 1919-21.

Aside from the popular Minuet in G (which I will be discussing in the tutorial film below) however, his fabulous and highly accessible piano music is far too little-known…

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Feliks Rybicki: I Begin to Play

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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…

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. Let me tell you more…

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Filming “Music from Chopin’s Land”

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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…

Back in May, I received an email from my friend Tracey Connell suggesting I might be interested in a collaborative project with the legendary Polish publishing house PWM Edition: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne. And so began an unexpected journey…

PWM Edition (for short) were commissioning well-known piano teachers from France, Italy, Germany, Japan and the UK to film a short series of promotional tutorial videos supporting their range of educational piano music.

Would I like to fly out to Poland and feature in the English films?

Though this seemed a slightly surreal suggestion in the middle of a global pandemic, I sensed that taking part would give me something to shift my focus in a positive direction. And my excitement grew further when, a few days later, an enticing box of music arrived from Kraków.

Quite apart from selecting the five pieces/collections that I would like to discuss in my films, I was immediately taken with many of the other titles. How come this music isn’t better known here in the UK?

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Bacewicz: Children’s Suite

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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…

Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) is at last gaining the recognition she deserves as one of the great composers of the mid-twentieth century, her towering Second Sonata rightly applauded as one of the significant piano masterpieces of the last century.

Among the composer’s many smaller-scale piano works the Suita dziecięca or Children’s Suite is a delightful highlight, its eight charming miniatures for the late-intermediate pianist a fascinating progression from the educational piano music of Bartók, Kabalevsky and Prokofiev (whose popular Musiques d’enfants appeared just one year after Bacewicz’s Suite).

Poland’s major publishing house Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, PWM Edition, have recently delivered a delightful new edition of the work, edited by Monika Dziurawiec and with a gorgeous cover design by Joanna Rusinek.

Let’s look at this new publication and delve into the imaginative pianism of Bacewicz, not least because this important work surely deserves a place within the core pedagogic repertoire that every piano teacher should try to be aware of…

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