Yesterday, I have been going through my music bookshelves, digging for a piano concerto. I was looking for something really specific as it has to be something fitting the requirements of an emerging community orchestra and my practice schedule. My friend the conductor Jaemi Loeb initiated the project and created the Houston Heights Orchestra and I immediately offered her my help.
Two years ago, I published a post entitled The 5 most difficult piano pieces trying to determine the top 5 most difficult solo works for piano. I got lots of comments mentioning piano concertos, and today I wanted to take a look at these pieces for piano and orchestra. Remember this ranking does not thus escape my subjectivity – these are the most difficult piano concertos according to me.
So here it is, you are close to your dream: owning you own new piano. You get the impression to reach a stage, but I tell you, the adventure has only just begun. You will see that choosing a piano isn’t that easy. What range of price, which size? It is not that easy to find one’s way around as each manufacturer has very convincing argument points.
It is a question I’m often asked and find it quite hard to give an answer. The notion of difficulty is a subjective one, and what may seem difficult to you may seem easy to someone else. This ranking does not thus escape my subjectivity – these are the most difficult piano pieces according to me.
Today, after a few days off for personal reasons, I’m going to talk about piano moving. Being pianist and moving is not always that simple. A piano is a very heavy piece requiring particular care.
Some of you asked me following my article on memory and piano performance what are my tips for improving memory at the piano. This is what I am going to share with you today. How to optimize memorization of works? How do I do learn by heart scores I play?
So today I’d like to talk about memory and piano performance. A problem, which scares all of us, amateurs as professionals. Since Liszt, “the inventor” of modern recital, it has become compulsory to do without score on stage. Did Liszt had in mind that he was going to torment generations of pianists? I don’t hope so, but the result is here: we must play by heart.
It occurs to me that I haven’t dedicated a post to Brad Mehldau yet. Consider it done with this video from “resignation”, in which you can listen to the American Pianist playing in trio with Jorge Rossy and Larry Grenadier. Born in 1970 in Jacksonville, FL, Brad Mehldau recorded his first opus in 1995 for [...]
The keyboard: we find it enjoyable or we hate it because too heavy, we blame it for all evil or we praise it because it has let us play well. Each mechanics is different and gives the pianist a different feeling when playing. I received several questions about this topic from a reader, which I will try to answer.
You certainly recognized him: it’s Czerny. Why Czerny? Well, Czerny’s work encompasses 861 opuses, but nowadays the only “works” for which he’s remained famous are his exercises, which worried many budding pianists. Allow me to wonder about these well-known exercises, not only those by Czerny but by others as well.