I’m kind of fascinated by piano magazines. I regularly pick up Pianist if I can, and here in Belgium, Pianiste (in French) turns up every once in a while. I’m keeping an eye out for something in Dutch. However, a couple of weeks ago I picked up two German magazines and they differed from the French and English publications in one very critical way and that was the lack of sheet music. Neither German magazine provided scores.
In itself, this is not such a bad thing (although there tends to be a really nice choice of music and guidance for same in the French and English magazines) but it was unusual. On the other hand, Germany seems to have a lot of sheet music shops and there is always IMSLP.
One of the articles which caught my eye in one of them was an article on the place of the piano in the life and writing of Jane Austen. For me that was interesting: it mentioned that [like me] she played a lot of Scottish and Irish dance melodies, gave an overview of where the piano cropped up in the novels. Of course, having more or less learned Pride & Prejudice by heart, you cannot fail to see the place of the piano in the society of that book, on several levels, Lizzie Bennett’s tendency not to practice, her sister Mary’s desperation to practice and show off, and of course, the piano bought by Mr Darcy for his sister. But equally, in the Emma, there is the question of the piano delivered to Jane Fairfax. Writing of that nature is not something I happen across very often. Very much more tends to be on current pianists and repertoire, so some essays on the place of piano in society is really interesting.
The other highlight was the vast number of release reviews which, where possible, includes the model of the chosen piano. I’ll do a piece of data analysis on that later.
I’m interested in any more piano magazines in EN, FR, DE, NL or ES, all of which I have a fighting chance of reading.