Format : Sheet music
SKU: BT.FORF2
Walter Carrolls two book series of First Lessons in Bach is an ideal introduction to the works of the great master that will challenge and inform the improving player. Walter Carroll was the Beatrix Potter of learner piano music, and his use ofmusic, poetry and art in his now classic albums have appealed to successive generations of children. As a result they are still widely used on exam syllabi and by teachers around the world nearly a century after they were written. Suggested grade 4.
SKU: BT.PMC3865
The Two Songs on American Poems were composed in late May and early June of 2011 by candlelight at my rustic waterfront cabin on a remote island off the northwest coast of Washington State. It was in this locale that I havecompleted a number of works over the years, including the Lux Aeterna, O Magnum Mysterium, Nocturnes, Canticle/O Vos Omnes and others. Prayer was written in memory of Michael Jasper Gioia, Dana and Mary Gioia's infant son, whosebrief life was tragically ended by SIDS.Mr. Gioia served as Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003-2010 and has authored several books of poems, numerous anthologies, articles, essays and two opera libretti. Amonghis many awards are the American Book Award and Presidential Citizens Medal. He currently holds the Judge Widney Chair of Poetry and Public Policy at the University of Southern California. Sure on this Shining Night was originallycomposed as a choral piece, the third movement of my Nocturnes on poems by Rilke, Neruda and Agee. Rod Gilfry, an international star of opera, recital and musical theater, premiered the mixed duet version with his daughter, Carin,in 2009. He is Professor of Vocal Studies at the USC Thornton School of Music. Both he and Mr. Gioia are national treasures. The Two Songs are designed as a pair but may be sung independently - when paired, Sure On This ShiningNight should begin immediatelyfollowing the final, sustained chord of Prayer with no break in between the songs. Both of these songs, premiered by Mr. Gilfry accompanied by the composer at a USC Visions & Voices tribute to DanaGioia on September 27, 2011, have their roots in the American musical theater and should be sung as such.
SKU: BR.EB-6761
ISBN 9790004169629. 9 x 12 inches.
This series of easy piano pieces for teaching purposes presents pupils in the early and early-middle stages with a careful selection from well-known and less-known compositions by important masters. The individual volumes are deliberately kept small in extent, since it is more stimulating for children if the literature used for instruction is changed frequently. Of all Grieg's piano music, it is the Lyric Pieces (EB 8832) that enjoy the greatest popularity. These character pieces, which are very varied in their difficulty and their length, preoccupied the composer throughout his creative life. The easiest pieces from the first three books (op. 12, 38 and 43) have been chosen for the present volume. In the musical sense, however, they are by no means light-weight. Only someone who has made the art of playing expressively in the Romantic style his own with the help of Schumann's Scenes from childhood (EB 8436) will be able to interpret this poetry filled with the soul of nordic peoples appropriately. Interpretative indications have been partly added to; fingerings and the distribution of the music between the hands have, as far as possible, been adapted to smaller hands. Sensitive use of the pedal and a tempo rubato imbued with the sense of the music are prerequisites. Heinz Walter, Salzburg, Summer 1977.
