(Faber Piano Adventures ). Excellent introduction to the best-known symphonic and operatic literature of the great composers. The selections have been chosen for their appealing melodies and rhythmic vitality. Includes: Turkish March (from The Ruins of Athens ) by Beethoven * Romance (from A Little Night Music ) by Mozart * The Trout (Die Forelle) by Schubert * Lullaby by Brahms * La Cinquantaine by Gabriel-Marie * Country Dance (Finale from Symphony No. 3, 'Eroica') by Beethoven * Finale (from Symphony No. 1) by Brahms * Finale (from Carnival of the Animals ) by Saint-Saens * The Elephant (from Carnival of the Animals ) by Saint-Saens * Sleeping Beauty Waltz by Tchaikovsky * Finale (from Symphony No. 5, From the New World ) by Dvorak * March Slav by Tchaikovsky.

Beginning pianists of all ages will cherish this excellent compilation, which features multiple pieces by many of the greatest composers — Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, and others.

Today we associate the Renaissance with painting, sculpture, and architecture—the “major” arts. Yet contemporaries often held the “minor” arts—gem-studded goldwork, richly embellished armor, splendid tapestries and embroideries, music, and ephemeral multi-media spectacles—in much higher esteem. Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, was typical of the Italian nobility: she bequeathed to her children precious stone vases mounted in gold, engraved gems, ivories, and antique bronzes and marbles; her favorite ladies-in-waiting, by contrast, received mere paintings. Renaissance patrons and observers extolled finely wrought luxury artifacts for their exquisite craftsmanship and the symbolic capital of their components; paintings and sculptures in modest materials, although discussed by some literati, were of lesser consequence. This book endeavors to return to the mainstream material long marginalized as a result of historical and ideological biases of the intervening centuries. The author analyzes how luxury arts went from being lofty markers of ascendancy and discernment in the Renaissance to being dismissed as “decorative” or “minor” arts—extravagant trinkets of the rich unworthy of the status of Art. Then, by re-examining the objects themselves and their uses in their day, she shows how sumptuous creations constructed the world and taste of Renaissance women and men.