I recorded and submitted Grade 6 today. Yesterday, for reasons, I had a look at TCL’s diploma lists and something interesting caught my eye.
I’ve already more or less decided what I would play for the FTCL/FRSM level provided it is compliant with the time requirements. But I still take a look at the list and what caught my eye on the FTCL list yesterday was that one of the repertoire pieces was the Volodos arrangement of Malaguena by Ernesto Lecuono. It’s a great piece of music, have loved it both as an orchestral piece and as a solo piano piece for a long time. This is the kind of thing that would pique my interest under any normal circumstances. The thing is, I don’t think it’s been published.
I can’t find it on stretta which is my go to source for any published music, it’s not on nkoda which absolutely is not. The only place it is turning up is Musescore. I don’t like their subscription model and anyway, a lot of what is there is transcriptions done by X, retranscribed by way. TCL call for “any reliable edition”.
What is a reliable edition of a transcription done by Volodos, but not published anywhere?
Chenyin Li plays Rustle of Spring by Christian Sinding
Someone mentioned to me that they liked this piece today so I went looking. It’s in Pianist 102 which I don’t have but it is also on IMSLP so now I do have it as well, all ten pages of it.
It’s in D flat. My all time favourite key. Having then wandered into Sinding Google Exploration I wound up with this by Cecile Chaminade.
Autumn by Cecile Chaminade
This is also in D flat. I need to work in that key anyway thanks to Rach but anyway…,
Some time ago, some years ago, I picked up an album called Autograph by Alexandre Tharaud. It’s the sort of album I like – a random selection of short pieces he uses for encores (note to passing concert pianists, collections like this are inspiring – I will never be able to aspire to doing all 24 preludes by Chopin but what follows is why people like me still play the piano, years after our dreams of Carnegie Hall bite the dust). Anyway, one of the pieces that is on that album is a piece from a Gluck opera, and I think it’s labelled Dance of the Blessed Spirits.
It took a while to find it but I discovered (after finding the wrong one first) that it was a transcription by Alexandre Siloti, about whom I knew the sum total of nothing. It’s somewhere on IMSLP, but not easy to find and I haven’t got the link handy. I discovered later he had done a load of transcriptions, and one which kept popping up was a Bach transcription from a piece in E minor (there seems to be some disagreement on which Bach E minor it is with some people claiming it is not the one in WTC. Anyway, peu importe. I also discovered he did Air on a G string and in a bunch of discussions on Un Sospiro (which I bought last week), his transcription is recommended as being more accessible than Liszt’s. Apparently there is some thought that it more reflects what Liszt was playing, at least in the later days, for Siloti knew Liszt.
Anyway, his transcriptions aren’t always easy to find, but at some point, there was a comprehensive overview done, so I bought it yesterday.
It is not cheap.
The Alexandre Siloti Collection in sheet music form.
While coughing up for that I also had a look to see if by any chance they had Fauré’s Three Romances without Words for piano, because that too was on the Alexandre Tharaud Autograph album and I have troubled to find it in a bricks and mortar. However, here too I was victorious. So victorious, I forgot to see if the Liszt Sonata I wanted was there but as I only want one movement from that, I will look to see if it’s in Henle’s app and pick up the paper later if/when I start learning it in all seriousness.
Music by Fauré
The shop also sold pasta, so I also bought pasta in the shape of various music shapey things. Treble clef carbonara may be in my future.
