Piano – Pianodao

Einaudi • The Summer Portraits

Selected and reviewed by ANDREW EALES
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Ludovico Einaudi is without doubt one of the most globally successful piano composers of our time. His latest single amassed a record breaking 2.5 million streams in a single day. His music is ubiquitous in film, television, and media. It is performed at your local school, and in the world’s most hallowed classical venues.

At the same time, Einaudi’s music continues to divide opinion. Some in the piano education community and classical establishment still dismiss his work as dull, derivative, poorly written, and even cast him as a charlatan.

In my article The Appeal of Einaudi’s Music, I explored what it could be that makes his piano recordings so widely and wildly popular, concluding:

“Music can occupy and fill many different spaces in our lives. Fundamentally, it can be truly accessible to us all. Einaudi’s compositions remind us that music does not always need to be intellectually supercharged, even though his pieces are cleverly and carefully crafted. Nor perhaps should we equate the best composition with a dazzling display of technical expertise, or the best performance with physical pyrotechnics. Great music can equally be driven by the flow of emotion, simple connection, and a quest for lingering beauty.”

If this seems a rather hyperbolic preamble for a sheet music review, it is in part because Einaudi’s latest album The Summer Portraits must be evaluated in the context of this larger cultural phenomenon. When he releases new material, it is always something of an event, but does his latest project meaningfully add to the larger narrative of his body of work?

A Piano Teacher’s Foibles

THE FERMATA SERIES

Reflections on Piano Education
Written by ANDREW EALES

Which of the incredible teachers in this picture would you like to sign up to have piano lessons with?

Finding the “right” match can certainly prove challenging for some. Writing in a recent issue of Pianist Magazine, Warwick Thompson sagely advises:

“A teacher is actually a human being, surprising as that fact may sound, with foibles, prejudices, blind spots, strengths, and wonders within them.
If those foibles and wonders don’t align with yours, it doesn’t mean you’ll never progress at the piano. It simply means you’ve had the wrong teacher (or rather, to spin the mirror, it means your unfortunate teacher had the wrong student).”

Relief all around, then!

Fanny Hensel • Easter Sonata

PIANODAO MUSIC LIBRARY

Selected and reviewed by ANDREW EALES
Find out more: ABOUT PIANODAO REVIEWS

With a reawakened interest in the music of forgotten women composers, evidenced by the numerous collections and books published over recent years, it’s no wonder that the music of Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy, later Hensel, (1805-1847) is enjoying a long-overdue renaissance.

Fanny Hensel’s “Ostersonate” (Easter Sonata) was composed in 1828, but remarkably, the recent edition from Bärenreiter is actually the first ever urtext version of this beguiling music, based on an autograph which was long inaccessible due to being in private hands.

Combining excellence with innovation, the typically superb Bärenreiter critical edition itself is accompanied by an included second volume, which offers a complete facsimile reproduction in colour of Fanny’s autograph manuscript.

Nearly two centuries after its composition, it’s surely now time to rediscover and celebrate this tremendous work, which is suitable for performance by players at associate diploma level and beyond…

The Schumann Effect

THE FERMATA SERIES

Reflections on Piano Education
Written by ANDREW EALES

In his Advice to Young Musicians, the composer Robert Schumann wrote,

“Consider it an abomination to alter works of good composers, to omit parts of them, or to insert new-fashioned ornaments. This is the greatest insult you can offer to Art.”

At face value, these are pretty strong words, implying we cultivate a reverence for music notation and rigidity in performance. In his exposition of Schumann’s thoughts, however, the cellist Steven Isserlis wisely suggests,

“Schumann’s general point here is that we must avoid inappropriate additions or alterations to the musical text… Some composers have left us specific instructions, which we have to follow to the letter; others, particularly in earlier periods, have left most of the interpretative decisions to us. In much baroque music it is almost essential to add ornamentation at times; composers would have expected it.”

The Gradebusters Mixtape

PIANODAO MUSIC LIBRARY

Selected and reviewed by ANDREW EALES
Find out more: ABOUT PIANODAO REVIEWS

Hal Leonard’s Gradebusters series has been one of the highlights of recent years, and the publications have proven popular with learners and players of all ages.

Reviewing the series, I described the five graded books of pop song arrangements for solo piano as offering,

“A hugely inviting and immediate mix of famous songs… this is top stuff!”

Offering “25 Awesome Solos from Taylor Swift to Einaudi”, the Gradebusters Piano Mixtape is the latest addition to the series, delivering a compendium of highlights from the five graded books, with six exclusive new pieces thrown in as an added bonus.

For those who want to dip into these quality arrangements without necessarily wanting to take the deep dive offered by the whole set of books, the Piano Mixtape collection represents great value, so let’s take a quick look…

Matthew Hindson • Sad Piano

PIANODAO MUSIC LIBRARY

Selected and reviewed by ANDREW EALES
Find out more: ABOUT PIANODAO REVIEWS

Matthew Hindson is one of Australia’s most dynamic, successful, and widely-performed composers. His atmospheric soundworld is both immediate and direct, and his orchestral and ballet music have been performed by many of the world’s leading orchestras.

For his latest project, Hindson has turned to the piano. Sad Piano offers 13 captivating solo pieces, published last year by Faber Music, and recently followed by a recording featuring his compatriot, the pianist Andrea Lam.

I have been dipping into Faber’s handsome publication for several months, but with the arrival of Lam’s mesmerising recording, this is a perfect time to take a closer look…

The Advanced Pianist

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

Selected and Reviewed by ANDREW EALES
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Karen Marshall’s Piano Trainer Series for Faber Music, which includes The Foundation Pianist (with David Blackwell, reviewed here) and The Intermediate Pianist (with Heather Hammond, reviewed here), has reached its conclusion with the publication of The Advanced Pianist (Books 1 and 2, with Mark Tanner).

Taken as a whole, the complete series of seven books can be used as a core curriculum that can be interspersed with the eight grades of the UK examination boards, or used standalone by those skipping exams.

In this review I will firstly take a look at The Advanced Pianist before drawing a few conclusions about the Piano Trainer series as a whole…

Slow Progress

THE FERMATA SERIES

Reflections on Piano Education
Written by ANDREW EALES

“Often we find ourselves in trouble simply because we are going too fast, disregarding signs of trouble that we would have seen if only we had been going a little slower.
All too often we get caught up in the rush; our whole culture is based on it. Get ahead! Do it now!
Sometimes the right thing to do is not to do anything.”

Solala Towler, Cha Dao (Singing Dragon, 2010)

These comments (which are taken from a book about the preparation and consumption of tea) offer golden advice which can be applied to pretty much any aspect of our lives. And no wonder so many of us feel completely worn out most of the time!

For our purposes, I want to touch on the value of taking our time in two areas:

• firstly teaching and learning
• and then our personal piano practice…