Performance videos

Today’s post is my first from the Australian/American pianist, composer, inventor, and eccentric Percy Grainger.  Grainger was a simply marvelous and strikingly imaginative musician, and his real contributions to the preservation of folk music and to the development of various experimental musical trends are unfortunately undervalued. Today I post his Continue Reading

Today’s piece is Wagner’s Piano Sonata in Ab major—written for the album of Mathilde Wesendonk.  Mathilde Wesendonk, along with her husband, Otto Wesendonk, was a generous supporter of Wagner during the difficult period of his exile from Germany. Mathilde Wesendonk was a major inspiration for Wagner’s work in the ring Continue Reading

Today’s piece is the Ballade in G minor op. 24 by Edvard Grieg.  Grieg is most famous to pianists for his delightful smaller miniatures, such as the lyric pieces—but he also wrote some impressive larger scale works including a piano sonata, the famous piano concerto, and of course this ballade. Continue Reading

Today’s post is one of the lesser-played among Liszt’s Soirées de Vienne.  All nine of these pieces are as delightful as you can imagine—full of color, virtuosity, and unforgettable melody.  No. 6 was made famous by Rosenthal and Horowitz of course, but it’s a shame that the others are not Continue Reading

Cantabile from Sonata in B minor W. 55/3 by C.P.E. Bach.  I present 3 versions: as played by György Cziffra, the original by Bach, and a two-piano version by Johannes Doebber.  Cziffra based his version off of the Doebber arrangement.  You can download a copy of the Cziffra version here. Continue Reading

This is the first post of my new channel!  Every week I will post a new video of a great piano repertoire piece, with analysis and commentary.  Today’s piece is Granados’s Valses Poéticos, from 1887.