Performance videos

Today is part two of my series on Schubert’s unfinished F# minor sonata, covering movements 2 and 3. The 2nd movement I play here is the standard choice that is usually associated with this piece, but for the 3rd movement, I prefer to use a minuet and trio that was Continue Reading

Today we have a bright, lively bit of music from Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz. Composed in the 1880’s, it was pieces like this that first really made Albéniz’s name, although it was his masterwork, the Iberia suite for solo piano, composed from 1905-1909, that gave him the reputation he continues Continue Reading

In today’s post we are looking at what I consider to be the greatest among Schubert’s unfinished piano Sonatas. He wrote this piece in 1817, at the tender age of 20, and it is one of the first pieces that he wrote in this genre that seems to be looking Continue Reading

Today’s post is one of my favorite Schubert pieces. Schubert’s Impromptus are short to moderately long character pieces that were an inspiration to the next generation of Romantic composers like Schumann, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Brahms and others. This one starts out having almost the character of a Ländler (a popular Austrian Continue Reading

In today’s post, we are dipping into the world of the piano etude. An etude ostensibly exists for the sole purpose of developing the pianist’s technical skill while at the same time providing interesting musical material, and Chopin was preceded in the genre by composers like Clementi, Cramer and Czerny. Continue Reading

My very first (of many) posts featuring the music of George Gershwin. This is the composer’s own arrangement (from 1932) of this unforgettable tune. Percy Grainger made his own slightly altered version of this arrangement in 1944, which is what I am playing today. In the video I also touch Continue Reading

Happy New Year! Today’s post completes my recording of Rachmaninoff’s 1st concerto, with the 2nd and 3rd movements.  Be sure to also check out my first post covering movement 1 here. The 2nd movement of this concerto is a sentimental favorite of mine, and is probably my favorite single work Continue Reading

  Today’s post features a short masterwork by Fanny Mendelssohn.  For a long time she was mostly famous as Felix Mendelssohn’s sister, and as the composer of a few beautiful songs that were published under her brother’s name—but in recent years, as the full extent of her enormous compositional oeuvre Continue Reading

Today’s post features Rachmaninoff’s great 1917 revision of his Piano Concerto No. 1.  This piece was originally written in 1891, when Rachmaninoff was only 18 and still a student at the Moscow Conservatory.  I talk a bit about the differences between the original and the revision and also about some Continue Reading

In today’s post I talk about an exquisite miniature by Selim Palmgren (1878-1951), his “Snöflingor” or “Snowflakes” Op. 57 no. 2.  Palmgren was a highly regarded composer, pianist and conductor in his time—he was one of the generation of composers after Sibelius who made some mark with his hauntingly beautiful Continue Reading