Piano Print Music - By Composer

(b Eisenach, 1685; d Leipzig, 1750). German composer and organist. The dramatic and emotional force of his music, as evidenced in the Passions, was remarkable in its day and has spoken to succeeding generations with increasing power. Suffice it to say that for many composers and for countless listeners, Bach's music is supreme.

• Bach

• Bartok

• Beethoven

• Brahms

• Burgmuller

• Chopin

• Clementi

• Czerny

• Debussy

• Dvorak

• Gershwin

• Grieg

• Handel

• Haydn

• Heller

• Joplin

• Kabalevsky

• Liszt

• MacDowell

• Mozart

• Mendelssohn

• Mussorgsky

• Rachmaninoff

• Ravel

• Satie

• Scarlatti, D.

• Schubert

• Schumann

• Shostakovich

• Tchaikovsky

• Vivaldi

(b Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary (now Romania), 1881; d NY, 1945). Hungarian composer, pianist, and folklorist. Bartók's music is a highly individual blend of elements transformed from his own admirations: Liszt, Strauss, Debussy and Stravinsky.

(b Bonn, 1770; d Vienna, 1827). German composer and pianist. Beethoven's significance in the history and development of music is immense. He emancipated and democratized the art, composing out of spiritual inner necessity rather than as provider of virtuoso display material. It is probably true to say that today his music is the most frequently performed of any composer's.

(b Hamburg, 1833; d Vienna, 1897). German composer and pianist. Brahms was a master in every form of composition except opera, which he never attempted. He eschewed programme-music and wrote in the classical forms, yet his nature was essentially romantic.

Burgmuller (1806-1874) was born into a German musical family: both his father and brother were also well-known composers. Settling in Paris after 1832, his light and intimate playing style won popularity in the salons of the day. Originally titled 25 Etudes faciles et progressives, composees et doigtees expressement pour l'etendue des petites mains, his Opus 100 pieces are perennial favorites among piano students and their teachers.

(b Zelazowa Wola, 1810; d Paris, 1849). Polish composer and pianist. His playing was both powerful and rhythmically subtle, with astonishing evenness of touch. There are bold, prophetic passages in his music, ornamentation derived from his admiration for it.

(b Rome, 1752; d Evesham, 1832). English pianist and composer of Italian birth. Composed collection of 100 studies, Gradus ad Parnassum, which remains a foundation of pianoforte technique. Composed over 100 piano sonatas, some of them valued highly by Beethoven, whom Clementi met in 1807

(b. Vienna 1791, d. Vienna 1857) A young student of Beethoven, it is not an overstatement to say that Czerny was a central figure in the transmission of Beethoven's legacy to a new generation of composers. However, his most valuable contribution to generations of pianists through his systematic composition of thousands of technical studies remains his most enduring creation.

(b St Germain-en-Laye, 1862; d Paris, 1918). French composer and critic. Debussy was among the greatest and most important of 20th-century composers both by reason of his own achievement and by the paths he opened for others to explore, hence the homage to him paid by later composers such as Boulez, Messiaen, Webern, Bartók, Stravinsky, and many others.

(b Nelahozeves, Bohemia, 1841; d Prague, 1904). Czech (Bohem.) composer. Dvořák's music is a particularly happy result of the major influences on his art: Wagner, Brahms, and folk music. His innate gift for melody was Schubertian and his felicitous orchestration, often reflecting natural and pastoral elements, is of an art that conceals art. His mastery of form and his contrapuntal and harmonic skill are the manifestations of a powerful musical intellect.

(b Brooklyn, NY, 1898; d Hollywood, Calif., 1937). American composer and pianist. Gershwin's melodic gift was phenomenal. His songs contain the essence of NY in the 1920s and have deservedly become classics of their kind. His mixture of the primitive and the sophisticated gives his music individuality and an appeal which shows no sign of diminishing.

(b Bergen, 1843; d Bergen, 1907). Norwegian composer, conductor, and pianist. Grieg's music eschews the larger forms of opera and symphonies, but within his chosen scale it is deeply poetic, superbly fashioned, and, in the songs especially, emotionally passionate. His nationalist idiom transcends local boundaries by reason of the strong individuality of his work.

(b Halle, 1685; d London, 1759). German-born composer and organist (English citizen 1726). Superb as are Handel's instrumental compositions such as the concerti grossi, sonatas, and suites, it is in the operas and oratorios that the nobility, expressiveness, invention, and captivation of his art are found at their highest degree of development.

Haydn, Franz Joseph (b Rohrau, 1732; d Vienna, 1809). Austrian-born composer of pure German stock. A good friend of Mozart and a teacher of Beethoven. His vast output of music is notable for the number of delights and surprises contained in almost every work. Yet though the number and magnitude of Haydn masterpieces are constantly amazing, his music failed to exert as powerful a sway over the public as that of Mozart and Beethoven.

Stephen Heller (1813-1888), a Hungarian-born concert pianist and composer, counted Chopin, Schumann and Liszt among his friends and admirers. Settling in Paris, he produced more than 160 published piano works. The beautifully evocative Studies, Op. 45 & 46 are among the compositions of Heller which are most familiar to pianists today

(c.1867 - d.1917) There is no question as to Joplin’s greatness, his talent, his importance in the history of ragtime and American music. The frenzy of the 1970s revival is long over, but Scott Joplin and ragtime are not about to be forgotten. Ragtime has once again become a living language and its substantial public is not about to relinquish it. Ragtime is now a permanent part of the American musical landscape.

(b St Petersburg, 1904; d Moscow, 1987). Russian composer and pianist. During World War II he wrote numerous patriotic works, having joined Communist party in 1940. His post-war works reflected the official policy of ‘Socialist realism’. His works composed specially for young musicians are regarded as of particular significance.

(b Raiding, Hungary, 1811; d Bayreuth, 1886). Hungarian composer and pianist. A child prodigy, he gave his first pianoforte recital at age 9. As a pianist, Liszt was, from all reliable accounts, among the greatest, if not the greatest, there has ever been. His compositions have taken longer to win a rightful place, but they are now recognized as occupying a high place for their own virtues as well as for their undoubted influence on Wagner, R. Strauss, and subsequent composers.

Edward MacDowell (1860-1908) was the first American composer to achieve an international reputation. His music is lyrical, intimate, uncluttered, and with a unique and quickly recognizable harmonic palette. MacDowell's music does not aim for virtuosic display and obscure intellectual pleasures but, rather, it is about what is personal and what is felt by the individual in common circumstances.

(b Hamburg, 1809; d Leipzig, 1847). German composer, pianist, organist, and conductor. Mendelssohn's gifts were phenomenal. He was a good painter, had wide literary knowledge, and wrote brilliantly. He was a superb pianist, a good violist, an exceptional organist, and an inspiring conductor. He had an amazing music memory. His genius as a composer led Bülow to describe him as the most complete master of form after Mozart.

(b Salzburg, 1756; d Vienna, 1791). Austrian composer, keyboard-player, violinist, violist, and conductor. The extent and range of Mozart's genius are so vast and so bewildering that any concise summing-up of his achievement must risk being trite. He took the music small-change of his day, learned from childhood in the courts of Europe, and transformed it into a mint of gold.

(b Karevo, Pskov, 1839; d St Petersburg, 1881). Russian composer. He was one of the group of 5 Russian composers of nationalist tendencies known as the ‘Mighty handful’. After his death his works were completed and ‘improved’ by Rimsky-Korsakov and others, but in the 20th century his realistic and progressive qualities have been recognized and his original scores have been restored where possible.

(b Semyonovo, Starorussky, 1873; d Beverly Hills, Calif., 1943). Russian composer, pianist, and conductor (American citizen 1943). Rachmaninov was one of the greatest of pianists, as is proved by his recordings not only of his own concerts but of other composers’ music, including sonatas with the violinist Kreisler. But it is as a composer that his name will live longest.

(b Ciboure, 1875; d Paris, 1937). French composer and pianist. Dance rhythms frequently occur in his works. His harmonies, often ‘impressionist’ in technique, extended the range of tonality by the exploitation of unusual chords and by the use of bitonality. He was one of the great innovators in writing for the pianoforte works.

(b Honfleur, 1866; d Paris, 1925). French composer and pianist. Satie's importance lay in directing a new generation of French composers away from Wagner-influenced impressionism towards a leaner, more epigrammatic style. His harmony is often characterized by unresolved chords, which may have influenced Debussy (or he may have learned the device from Debussy—nobody knows). Melody is simple, sometimes slightly archaic, and scoring economical.

(b Naples, 1685; d Madrid, 1757). Italian composer and harpsichordist. Domenico did for keyboard-playing what his father (Scarlatti, A) did for opera, by imparting to it a hitherto unsuspected freedom of style. Introduced many new technical devices (rapid repetitions, crossed hands, double-note passages, etc.)

(b Vienna, 1797; d Vienna, 1828). Austrian composer. As a composer of songs he has no equal in fertility of melodic invention, but all his work is so graced with melody of the most seraphic kind that there was at one time a tendency to regard him as an ‘undisciplined’ composer for whom form meant little. How wrong a judgement this was can be realized simply by studying the great chamber works and late pianoforte sonatas alone. He ranks among the very greatest of composers in all forms except opera.

(b Zwickau, 1810; d Endenich, 1856). German composer, pianist, conductor, and critic. Schumann was one of the greatest composers for pianoforte, enriching its literature with a series of poetic works in which classical structure and Romantic expression are combined. His vocal and chamber music is of comparable quality, with the freshness, vitality, and lyricism which also characterize the orchestral works.

(b St Petersburg, 1906; d Moscow, 1975). Russian composer and pianist. Many consider that Shostakovich is the greatest 20th-century composer. He demonstrated mastery of the largest and most challenging forms with music of great emotional power and technical invention. All his works are marked by emotional extremes—tragic intensity, grotesque and bizarre wit, humour, parody, and savage sarcasm.

(b Votkinsk, 1840; d St Petersburg, 1893). Russian composer and conductor. Few composers are more popular with audiences than Tchaikovsky; the reasons are several and understandable. His music is extremely tuneful, luxuriously and colourfully scored, and filled with emotional fervour directed to the heart rather than to the head.

(b Venice, 1678; d Vienna, 1741). Italian composer and violinist. No composer did more to establish the cello as a solo instrument, and he displayed a keen interest in the use of unusual instruments: it is the infinite variety and invention of his work that has made it so beloved 300 years after his birth.