PIANO

The piano is a keyboard instrument in which felt-covered hammers strike strings, allowing the player to control both pitch and dynamics. It became one of the central instruments of the Classical and Romantic periods. The piano is equally important in solo music, chamber works, orchestral writing, jazz, film music, and popular song.

52 articles related to PIANO:

PIANO

Wiegenlied: folk poem behind Brahms' Lullaby

Wiegenlied (Eng: Lullaby or Cradle Song) is one of Johannes Brahms' best-known pieces and probably the most famous...
PIANO

Estampes: the world cultures of Debussy's imagination

Estampes, conceived as a three-piece piano suite by the French Impressionist Claude Debussy, is rightfully recognized as...
PIANO

Je te veux: Satie's love song refashioned as piano piece

Je te veux is one of the best-known pieces by the French Romantic composer Erik Satie, famous for popularizing his...
PIANO

Für Elise: 2 versions of Beethoven's best-known piano piece

Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor, commonly known as Für Elise, is undoubtedly Beethoven's best-known piano work as well as...
PIANO

Two Arabesques: the fledgling impressionism of Debussy's early work

Deux arabesques are two piano pieces written by Claude Debussy in the late 1880s and are now considered to be one of the...
PIANO

Ständchen from Schwanengesang serenade as Schubert's last testament

Originating in Europe in the Middle Ages, the serenade (ger. ständchen) is a love song composed for one vocal line and a...
PIANO

Nuvole Blanche: the critical simplicity of Einaudi's best-known piece

Nuvole Blanche is one of the best-known piano pieces by the Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi released on his 2004 album...
PIANO

Alla Turca: Janissary-music piano inspired by Mozart's best-known piece

Alla Turca, also known as the Turkish Rondo or Turkish March, is undoubtedly Mozart's most famous piano composition....
PIANO

La fille aux cheveux de lin: Parnassian poem behind Debussy's most recorded piece

La fille aux cheveux de lin or The Girl with the Flaxen Hair is the best-known piano prelude by the French impressionist...
PIANO

Berceuse: Chopin's variations on his mother's favorite lullaby

Berceuse is a lyrical piano piece written by Frédéric Chopin late in his career and first published in 1844. The work...
FLUTE

Flute Sonata: canonical performance of Poulenc's best-known piece

The Sonate pour flûte et piano or Flute Sonata is among Francis Poulenc's best-known works, a French composer whose...
PIANO

Le Tombeau de Couperin: Ravel's only wartime piece shaped by Baroque canons

The musical output of the leading French impressionist Maurice Ravel was almost completely halted by the arrival of...
PIANO

Miroirs: Ravel's piano suite that put his avant-garde friends to work

Miroirs or Mirrors is an essential piano suite by the French impressionist Maurice Ravel, each movement of which is...
PIANO

Suite bergamasque: did Debussy record his best-known piano piece?

Suite bergamasque is one of the best-known piano works of the French impressionist Claude Debussy written in 1890 and... 1 comment
PIANO

Pavane for a Dead Princess: who inspired Ravel's early piano piece?

Pavane pour une infante défunte or Pavane for a Dead Princess is a well-known piano piece with a leisurely and charming...
SONGWRITER

Lawdy Miss Clawdy: how Lloyd Price's first hit mixes blues and classics

Lawdy Miss Clawdy is a rhythm and blues track that kicked off the career of the prolific New Orleans songwriter Lloyd...
PIANO

Kinderszenen and Schumann's metronome mystery

Kinderszenen or Scenes from Childhood is a set of short piano pieces written by Robert Schumann in 1838. Although these...
SONGWRITER

Bennie and the Jets: the opening piano chord and disastrous recording sessions in Jamaica

Bennie and the Jets is inarguably one of Elton John's most popular songs first released on the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road...
Music Theory

Locrian mode: music examples and harmonic structure

Music theory describes seven diatonic scales of which the major and minor scales are the most functional and therefore...
Music Theory

Picardy third: cadence for a happy ending in classical music and popular songs

In musical theory, the term Picardy third is used to refer to a special way of ending a minor piece with a major chord....
PIANO

Fantasiestucke: three famous piano opuses by Robert Schumann

The influential German composer Robert Schumann repeatedly used the title Fantasiestüske as a thematic description of a...
PIANO

Scandalous piano experiments by George Antheil shocked early avant-garde scene

George Antheil was an American pianist and composer whose extraordinary works are mainly associated with the avant-garde...
PIANO

Germaine Tailleferre as a member of Les Six composers group guided by Jean Cocteau

Germaine Tailleferre was a gifted pianist and composer whose role in the search for new French musical aesthetics of the...
Music Theory

Lydian mode: famous examples throughout the music history

Major and minor modes are the most used diatonic scales in classical and popular music due to their versatile structure...
PIANO

The avant-garde tango by Horacio Salgán that shocked audiences in the 1950s

Horacio Salgán was an Argentinean pianist who took the concept of how tango should sound and flipped it on its head by...
PIANO

Ferruccio Busoni as a great piano transcriber of Bach's keyboard music

Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian pianist, composer and theoretical writer whose creative period fell on the transitional... 1 comment
Violin

Devil's Trill Sonata: Giuseppe Tartini was unable to recreate Lucifer's music played in his dream

Despite its ominous title, the Devil's Trill Sonata is a gentle and peaceful Baroque piece for solo violin accompanied...
PIANO

Spanish motifs contributed by Emmanuel Chabrier to the rise of Impressionism in France

Emmanuel Chabrier was a French composer of the Romantic era whose legal career forced him to study and write music... 1 comment
PIANO

Songs for Drella: the minimalistic tribute to Andy Warhol that united his beloved artists for the first time since 1960s

As an absolutely iconic figure in the visual art movement known as pop art, Andy Warhol had a profound influence on the...
TECHNOLOGIES

Pianola: the reproducing piano as the first Hi-Fi player and preservation capsule for recitals on piano rolls

Long before the recording era, mankind was already looking for ways to play music automatically. The earliest known... 1 comment

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