"'Must' reading for any pianist concerned with Beethoven's music, which is to say almost every pianist alive." --William Rothstein, Musical Times

These rollicking, easy-to-play ragtime favorites include "Maple Leaf Rag," "The Entertainer," "Tiger Rag," and other melodies by such favorites as Scott Joplin, James Scott, Joseph Lamb, and Eubie Blake. All songs available as downloadable MP3s.

(Piano). 22 intermediate and early advanced-level selections, including Fur Elise, Six Ecossaises, various German Dances, Bagatelles, Sonatines, and more. Contents: Ecossaise in E-flat Major, WoO86 * German Dance in C Major, WoO8 * German Dance in F Major, WoO8 * German Dance in G Major, WoO8 * Landler Dance in D Major, WoO 11/1 * Landler Dance in D Major, WoO 11/3 * Landler Dance in D Major, WoO 11/5 * Landler Dance in D Major, WoO 11/6 * Landler Dance in D Major, WoO 15/2 * German Dance in A Major WoO 42/4 * Allemande, WoO 81 * Minuet in F Major * Happy-Sad WoO 54 * Fur Elise, WoO 59 * Sonatina in G Major - Moderato, Romance * Sonatina in G Major - Allegro Assai, Rondo * Easy Sonata in G Major, Op. 59, No. 2 - Allegro ma non troppo, Tempo di Minuetto * Six Ecossaises, WoO 83 * Bagatelle in D Major, Op. 33, No. 6 * Bagatelle in G minor, Op. 119/1 * Six Variations in G Major, WoO 70 * Moonlight Sonata, Op. 27, No. 2

How hard is it to move 5 legless pianos 39 times? Beethoven owned five legless pianos and composed great works on the floor. His first apartment was in the center of Vienna's theater district... but he forgot to pay rent, so he had to move. (And it's very hard to move a piano. Even harder to move five). Beethoven's next apartment was in a dangerous part of town... so he moved, and the pianos followed on a series of pulleys. Then came an apartment with a view of the Danube (but he made too much noise and the neighbors complained), followed by an attic apartment (where he made even MORE of a rukus), and so Beethoven moved again and again. Each time, pianos were bought, left behind, transported on pulleys, slides, and by movers, all so that gifted Beethoven could compose great works of music for the world.

Bringing together reception history, music analysis and criticism, the history of music theory, and the philosophy of music, Beethoven Hero explores the nature and persistence of Beethoven's heroic style. What have we come to value in this music, asks Scott Burnham, and why do generations of critics and analysts hear it in much the same way? Specifically, what is it that fosters the intensity of listener engagement with the heroic style, the often overwhelming sense of identification with its musical process? Starting with the story of heroic quest heard time and again in the first movement of the Eroica Symphony, Burnham suggests that Beethoven's music matters profoundly to its listeners because it projects an empowering sense of self, destiny, and freedom, while modeling ironic self-consciousness. In addition to thus identifying Beethoven's music as an overarching expression of values central to the age of Goethe and Hegel, the author describes and then critiques the process by which the musical values of the heroic style quickly became the controlling model of compositional logic in Western music criticism and analysis. Apart from its importance for students of Beethoven, this book will appeal to those interested in canon formation in the arts and in music as a cultural, ethical, and emotional force--and to anyone concerned with what we want from music and what music does for us.

A fascinating and in-depth exploration of how the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and Napoleon shaped Beethoven’s political ideals and inspired his groundbreaking compositions. Beethoven imbibed Enlightenment and revolutionary ideas in his hometown of Bonn, where they were fervently discussed in cafés and at the university. Moving to Vienna at the age of twenty-one to study with Haydn, he gained renown as a brilliant pianist and innovative composer. In that conservative city, capital of the Hapsburg empire, authorities were ever watchful to curtail and punish overt displays of radical political views. Nevertheless, Beethoven avidly followed the meteoric rise of Napoleon. As Napoleon had made strides to liberate Europe from aristocratic oppression, so Beethoven desired to liberate humankind through music. He went beyond the musical forms of Haydn and Mozart, notably in the Eroica Symphony and his opera Fidelio, both inspired by the French Revolution and Napoleon. John Clubbe illuminates Beethoven as a lifelong revolutionary through his compositions, portraits, and writings, and by setting him alongside major cultural figures of the time—among them Schiller, Goethe, Byron, Chateaubriand, and Goya.

The definitive book on the life and music of Ludwig van Beethoven, written by the acclaimed biographer of Brahms and Ives.