(Faber Piano Adventures ). Adult Piano Adventures Classics Book 1 celebrates great masterworks of Western music, including symphony themes, opera gems, and classical favorites. The melodies of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and other master composers are arranged at just the right level for adult beginners and for those who are returning to the keyboard. Section 1 features piano arrangements with minimal hand position changes, and many selections include an optional duet part. Section 2 introduces the I, IV, and V7 chords in the key of C major, harmonizing themes such as Sibelius's Finlandia, Schubert's The Trout, and Mendelssohn's Spring Song. Section 3 presents the primary chords in the key of G major, with arrangements of Vivaldi's Autumn (from The Four Seasons), Mozart's theme from The Magic Flute, Lizst's Liebestraum, and more.

Tchaikovsky's final symphony has fascinated generations of music lovers, amateur and specialist alike, since its first performance just over a century ago. Timothy L. Jackson explores sensitively and without prejudice the question of the Pathétique's program and its relation to Tchaikovsky's homosexuality and death. The book covers the work's conception, genesis, and reception, and presents an in-depth analysis of its remarkable formal structure. The reception chapter investigates the Pathétique's impact on Tchaikovsky's younger contemporaries, most notably Mahler and Rachmaninov, and on more recent Russian composers like Shostakovich and Schnittke. Also explored is the dark side of the symphony's political interpretation in the twentieth century, especially its transformation into a cultural icon of the Third Reich.

This method begins with a review of the concepts presented in Level 2, then introduces new pieces and lessons in new keys to prepare the student for more advanced studies. Includes a "Just for Fun" section and an "Ambitious" section for the student who will devote a little extra effort toward learning some of the great masterworks that require additional practice.

This easy step-by-step method emphasizes correct playing habits and note reading through interval recognition. Lesson Book 2 continues where Level 1B finishes. This book introduces dotted half notes and dotted quarter notes, plus intervals of 6ths, 7ths and octaves. Teaches greater movement of the hands, including crossing two over one and scalework. Students will also learn more about triads, primary chords, and blocked and broken chords. Songs Include: 18th Century Dance * Alouette * Blue Scales * Calypso Carnival * The Can-Can * Cockles and Mussels * The Galway Piper * Get Away! * Got Lotsa Rhythm * Kum-ba-yah! * Lavender's Blue * London Bridge * Lone Star Waltz * Malaguena * Nick Nack Paddy Wack * Ode to Joy * Oh! Susanna! * On the Bridge at Avignon * Our Special Waltz * Prelude * Red River Valley * Sarasponda * Square Dance * When You Grow Up * Why Am I Blue?

Associated through descriptive texts with literature, politics, religion, and other subjects, 'characteristic' symphonies offer an opportunity to study instrumental music as it engages important social and political debates of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This first full-length study of the genre illuminates the relationship between symphonies and their aesthetic and social contexts by focussing on the musical representation of feeling, human physical movement, and the passage of time. The works discussed include Beethoven's Pastoral and Eroica Symphonies, Haydn's Seven Last Words of our Savior on the Cross, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf's symphonies on Ovid's Metamorphoses, and orchestral battle reenactments of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. A separate chapter details the aesthetic context within which characteristic symphonies were conceived, as well as their subsequent reception, and a series of appendixes summarises bibliographic information for over 225 relevant examples.

Features 457 letters to fellow musicians, friends, greats, patrons, and literary men. Reveals musical thoughts, quirks of personality, insights, and daily events. Includes 15 plates.