Music has always been important to me, especially piano music. Here are some interesting free sources of piano sheet music and performers’ sites.
- The Piano Society
- International Music Score Library Project – huge collection of free sheet music!
- James Rhodes – weird, talented and a pretty cool sort of guy.
- Valentina Lisitsa, youtube
Interests (that is to say that I occasionally “have a go at”):
Beethoven Sonatas
No1 FMin.
No 25 GMaj is jolly set of right hand octave and arpeggios though I have to play it much slower than it should be and this also save me from having to be unknotted after the hand cross-overs from bar 59!
No 27 EMin mainly cos I like the theme of E Maj 2nd movement although it gets too difficult for me as around bar 210.
Bach
I do play some arias from the SATB score with piano of the St Matthew Passion as this is one of the most stirring pieces of all time (ok, the Mozart and Brahms Requiems come close IMHO).
Some of the Bach’s French Suite (odd that I didn’t know this music until 2013).
I believe there is a strange mindset and maturity required to play much of Bach. It would appear to better to play and then stick with Back for a while; immerse oneself seems best. I have found initially some of Bach’s patterns completely opposite to the way my fingers wanted to work. I don’t know why this is but I think that one learns general patterns of fingering at some subconscious level over time so that when he doesn’t do what you would expect it really throws you. So I look at these piece not just as wonderful to play and listen to but also as coordination challenge as well as having a beautiful mathematical elegance in the way he manages to weave the lines together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x67DKDJEiwQ&noredirect=1
Another benefit which I hadn’t considered with this music apart from better coordination is the improved strengthening of the outer fingers as there is often really no choice of using an easier fingering with the many ornamentations in Bach’s works.
Also, the 6 Clavier Partitas BWV 625-630
Two examples of my favourite Bach performers are shown below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS_KPNTAz44
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELShZDVjoFw
I also have recently ‘discovered’ that I do like some Mendelssohn, after all, as I found a copy of Songs Without Words and other music for Piano.
