Two more ebooks of classical music analysis and performances:
Musical Musings Volume 4 - Music For Keyboard
This is the 4
th
volume in my series of articles about classical music. All of these articles
originally appeared on my classical music blog
Musical Musings. As with
the other volumes in the series, there is a link to a performance of the
musical work discussed in the article.
This volume
contains works for keyboard; works for organ, clavichord, harpsichord and
piano. There are examples of all 4 instruments in articles that begin with the
Italian composer Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583 - 1643)
and end with the American composer Henry Cowell
(1897-1965). By the way, the work by Cowell that is included,
The Banshee,
is to be played on the piano, but by using the fingers of the ‘pianist’
directly on the strings, so it isn’t actually for a
keyboard per
se.
The repertoire for piano
alone is enormous. Add the repertoire for other keyboard instruments and the
number grows to gigantic proportions.
This collection is but a miniscule scratch in the vast repertoire of
keyboard music, and as such it is hardly representative. The pieces contained
herein are some of my favorites, some familiar, some not so much, and some have
been added purely for their uniqueness.
This 5
th
volume in the series of ebooks taken from my music blog
Musical Musings contains
articles concerning works for orchestra that are not symphonies or concertos.
This primarily means that that works in this volume are overtures from operas
or concert overtures, and symphonic poems.
The most heavily
represented composer in this volume is Franz Liszt. While Liszt was not the
first composer by any means to write music inspired by other arts, he was the
first to label them as symphonic poems. Nine of his thirteen symphonic poems
are in this volume. Along with Liszt are 22 other composers from Beethoven
(born in 1770) to Penderecki (born in 1933).
As with other volumes in this ebook series,
there is a link at the end of each article to a performance of the work
discussed.