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In 1857 Rossini presented "Musique Anodine", a prelude and six songs, to his wife Olimpe, in gratitude for her care during his long illness. This was the 13th in a collection of 14 unpublished albums. The first was "Album Italiano", a dozen pieces for one, two or four voices with piano. Among the best-known of these pieces is "La Regata Veneziano", three canzonettas for mezzo-soprano in Venetian dialect, in which the heroine encourages her racing gondolier. Another song, "Le Gittane", has never...

The Best of Grade 5 Piano comprise pieces selected by the major examination boards in one volume that have captured the imaginations of teachers and students over the years, including some old favourites and some forgotten gems. All the pieces are tried and tested and perfectly graded and fingered for Grade 5. This book also provides top-quality music that is ideal as a sight-reading resource for more advanced students. The music has been carefully selected and edited by Anthony Williams, a l...

Samuel Barber (1910-1981) is one of the most admired and honored American composers of the twentieth century. An unabashed Romantic, largely independent of worldwide trends and the avant-garde, he infused his works with poetic lyricism and gave tonal language and forms new vitality. His rich legacy includes every genre, including the famous Adagio for Strings, Knoxville: Summer of 1915, three concertos, a plethora of songs, and two operas, the Pulitzer prize-winning Vanessa, and Antony and Cleop...

Now appearing in an English translation, this book by Szymon Paczkowski is the first in-depth exploration of the Polish style in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach spent almost thirty years living and working in Leipzig in Saxony, a country ruled by Friedrich August I and his son Friedrich August II, who were also kings of Poland (as August II and August III). This period of close Polish-Saxon relations left a significant imprint on Bach's music. Paczkowski's meticulous account of this c...

Through a musical language involving symbols, numbers, and tonality, J. S. Bach created emotional dimension in the preludes and fugues of ""The Well-Tempered Clavier"". This book explores the use of that musical language, revealing how Bach used harmonic design and melodic and rhythmic motivic formulas to adhere to the basic doctrine of the Theory of Affects - i.e., that one mood will govern one piece. The book examines the significance of key and the emotional dimension Bach discerned in each t...

In 1934, Stravinsky was fifty-two, a Russian expatriate living in Paris and already regarded by many as the most important composer of his generation. "Stravinsky: The Second Exile" follows Stravinsky through the remainder of his long life, which he would spend largely in the United States. These are the years during which he would compose such masterworks as "The Rake's Progress" and "Symphony in C", and achieve a new level of fame as a conductor and concert pianist in his own right. In this se...