Top 10 Classical piano favorites for the Beginner-Intermediate pianists
Classical piano works may seem like light-years away when listening to the great pianists on spotify or youtube… but there are popular works that can be learnt and performed for those who have been learning for only a number of years! The following list of pieces from the Baroque period to the 21st century are a crowd-pleaser for your next performance for friends and family.
Download: https://ks.imslp.net/files/imglnks/usimg/7/75/IMSLP03213-Satie-GymnopediesOrEd.pdf
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-sWkmBoU3Q
Loved for their calm, atmospheric, and French aesthetics, Érik Satie’s compositions are a popular choice for film soundtracks. This work is the first of a set of 3 Gymnopédies, all in a slow and lilting ¾ time. Satie may have wanted to invoke the mood of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes’ symbolist paintings.
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzM7bOJ-tT0
Although this work wasn’t published until 40 years after the composer’s death, Bagatelle No.25 in Aminor WoO59, also known as Für Elise, is one of Beethoven’s most well known and popular piano works for it’s catchy repetitive tune, and low level of difficulty. The piece is in Rondo ABACA form, each lettered section being a different theme; As in a pop song where verse and chorus have different chords and melodies that make them sound like different sections. Note that section A is easy, but section B and C is more difficult as chords and arpeggios are introduced!
Download [Page 1-3] https://ks.imslp.net/files/imglnks/usimg/1/10/IMSLP32718-PMLP01458-Beethoven_Sonaten_Piano_Band1_Peters_9452_14_Op27_No2_1200dpi.pdf
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irkraA_KkcQ
The name Moonlight Sonata was coined by the German music critic Ludwig Rellstab in 1832, 5 years after the composer’s death. Rellstab likened the first movement to the effect of the moonlight shining upon Lake Lucerne. This sonata in full has an opening Fantasy (Op.27 No.1) and 3 movements, but the 1st movement has pushed this work to become the most widely known of Beethoven Piano sonatas.
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eujpw5VUuB0
This fan favorite is the first prelude and fugue of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, a series of 48preludes paired with fugues that lead you through all 24 major and minor keys. Preludes are an introductory movement that is improvisatory in nature, and in this case prefacing the fugue, an intricate technique of interweaving and connecting multiple individual voices/ lines of music.
Download: https://imslp.simssa.ca/files/imglnks/usimg/e/ed/IMSLP117176-WIMA.5157-canon.pdf
Originally composed for three violins and Basso Continuo in the 1600s, Pachelbel Canon in Dmajor has become a popular music choice for weddings over the past decades.Although this work was not intentionally composed as a wedding song, the use of Baroque music in Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding in 1981 catapulted the trend to search for other Baroque compositions that could be transcribed (a 19th/20th century trend) and performed for weddings.There are many transcriptions available, cello+ piano, 4 ukuleles, string instruments only etc.
Download: https://ks.imslp.net/files/imglnks/usimg/1/14/IMSLP61906-PMLP02312-Chopin-Op09n2rje.pdf
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu48Z45ibxQ
Chopin’s 21 Nocturnes evoke the night with it’s arpeggiated accompaniment and the composer’s signature beautiful singing melodies. This piece has made it’s way into the soundtracks of films and shows such as Bones, Dexter, Mad Men, and the Simpsons.
Download: https://imslp.simssa.ca/files/imglnks/usimg/f/fe/IMSLP127777-WIMA.c2b3-Chopin_Prelude_Eminor.pdf
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHGHhYZCIQI
This piece was performed at Chopin’s funeral at the composer’s request. The Prelude had become an independent short character piece by the 19th century. This prelude is said to have been titled “Quelles larmes au fond du cloître humide?” translated to “What tears [are shed] from the depths of the damp monastery?”. Can you hear the title when listening to this piece?
Download [Page 5]: https://imslp.simssa.ca/files/imglnks/usimg/b/be/IMSLP51559-PMLP02930-RS70.pdf
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwSPwUV3c_0
Waldszenen “Forest Scenes” is a collection of 9 short pieces composed by German composer, Robert Schumann, between 1848 and 1849.Einsame Blumen is the 3rd piece of the set, and the title translates as “The Lonely Flower”
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv8iHEM4g7QThe eighth of his first book of Preludes (1909-1910) is called “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair”, named after the poem by Leconte de Lisle. Originally written in French, the poem translates to English as:On the lucerne midst flowers in bloom,
Who sings praises to morning?
It is the girl with golden hair,
The beauty with lips of cherry.
For, love, in clear summer sunlight,
Has soared with the lark and sung now.
Your mouth has such colours divine,
My dear, so tempting to kisses.
On grass in bloom, talk to me, please,
Girl with fine curls and long lashes.
For, love, in clear summer sunlight,
Has soared with the lark and sung now.
Do not say no, cruel maiden.
Do not say yes. Better to know
The long lasting gaze of your eyes
And your rosy lips, oh, my belle.
For, love, in clear summer sunlight,
Has soared with the lark and sung now.
Farewell, you deer, farewell you hares
And the red partridge. I want
To stroke the gold of your tresses
Smothering lips with my kisses.
For, love, in clear summer sunlight,
Has soared with the lark and sung now
Download: http://en.scorser.com/Out/300575927.html
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heu9tD0dzkY
All of the following were composed specifically for the film “The Hours” starring Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Meryl Streep. The soundtrack album won the BAFTA Award for Best film Music, and also nominated for Best original score/ soundtrack at the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, and the Grammy Award.American composer, Philip Glass, is recognized as one of the most important composer of the 20th century, with his works being associated with minimalism.Due to their minimalistic simplicity and repetitive structures, his works are easily readable.
The soundtrack consists of the following 11 works:
The poet acts
Morning passages
Something she has to do
I’m going to make a cake
An unwelcome friend
Dead Things
Why does someone have to die?
Tearing herself away
Escape!
Choosing Life
The Hours