Romantic. In 1891, the year before his final exam at the music conservatory, Alexander Scriabin injured his right hand due to his ambitious practising. This seriously jeopardized his career as a pianist and the young musician plunged into a crisis. Yet Scriabin still managed to complete his piano studies in 1892, gaining a gold medal. His first published Piano Sonata op. 6 is, however, irrevocably linked to this time of crisis. The dark work reaches its climax at the end of the 3rd movement with ...
Romantic. Scriabin's two movement Piano Sonata no. 2 in g sharp minor was composed over a relatively lengthy period of time. He first began work on it in 1892, but in the summer of 1896, after Scriabin had performed the sonata several times in public in Paris, he dispiritedly told the publisher and patron Beljajev, with whome he was friends: "I have admittedly finished the sonata, yet I am completely dissatisfied with it, even though it has been revised seven times." The composer was only happy w...
Romantic (1897). Scriabin's third piano sonata is an early composition that was still fully written in the romantic tradition. For a long time it has been part of the core piano literature - and rightly so. In addition to the surviving sketches and the first edition (published in 1898), our edition of the sonata also takes into account a recording that Scriabin made of his work on a mechanical piano. The Russian Scriabin expert Valentina Rubcova knowledgeably sheds light on this unusual source si...
20th Century. Scriabin's ten complete piano sonatas offer a fascinating insight into the Russian composer's stylistic development. While his first works still fully reflect the late-romantic tradition, the late works keep bursting the bounds of tonality.The boldly outlined, two-movement Fourth Sonata marks a turning point, for it evokes the world of the "PoŠme de l'extase" with its mystical atmosphere hovering between ethereal rapture and ecstatic flight. The publication of opus 30 means that all...
20th Century. "A great poem for the piano" was how Scriabin described his fifth piano sonata. It was indeed composed at the same time as his great poem for orchestra "Le PoŠme de l'extase," and both works are based on the same literary program. Scriabin spent a long time honing the text, which represents his philosophic idea of the development of the world in poetic form, until its publication in a separate volume in 1906. About a year later Scriabin announced that he had completed his fifth sona...
G. Henle URTEXT edition. A work of transcendent beauty and rich programmatic allusions, Scriabin's single-movement sixth Piano Sonata is a highly expressive product of the composer's final outburst of piano music. This edition, by the renowned Scriabin scholar Valentina Rubcova (Moscow), is based on the early printed editions and the composer's virtually complete autograph manuscript. -the publisher
Category: Piano Solos Item: 040454 Grade: Price: $15.95 Availability: Ships in 6 to 9 Days
G. Henle urtext edition. Skrjabin called his seventh sonata "White Mass," drawing attention to the mystical basis that is stamped on all his late works, including this one. He attempts here to translate into sound his ideal of a "mystery" - a "Gesamtkunstwerk" of artistic, theological and philosophical ideas. Its aim, as stated in his own words, is the raising up of the human spirit. No longer is the formal scaffolding of the work based principally around that of sonata form, but around the idea ...
20th Century (1912-13). In his last years, Scriabin realized a noble and great idea. Inspired by his study of theosophical writings, he dreamed of joining music, poetry, mime, architecture, light, color and even aromas to create a "Gesamtkunstwerk," and thus elevate human beings to a higher level of consciousness. This "Mysterium" was never completed, but his late piano sonatas-conceived as preliminary studies-enable us to see what moved Scriabin. He spent a particularly long time working on his ...
20th Century (1912-13). Skrjabin's 9th Sonata is often referred to as the "Black Mass." Unlike the 7th Sonata, the so-called "White Mass," this name did not stem from the composer. He writes: "In the ninth sonata I came closer than ever before to the Satanic...". The mystic-dark sphere fascinated Skrjabin. Anyone who listens to this bizarre work will involuntarily become caught up in the diabolical vortex - the music heads towards the sonata's dramatic conclusion as if being pulled in an undertow...
20th Century (1912-13). Skrjabin's Tenth Sonata was composed at the same time as the two Sonatas Nos. 8 and 9 in winter 1912/13. It was probably finished at the latest in June 1913. According to Leonid Sabenejev's reminiscences Skrjabin had already performed parts of the sonata to friends in spring 1913, saying that "he had succeeded in simplifying the harmonies without destroying the Sonata's psychological complexity." Following the first performance in Moscow, a reviewer wrote: "The Tenth Sonat...
In the years 2001-2014, G. Henle Publishers issued Urtext editions of the ten piano sonatas by Alexander Scriabin. The Scriabin specialist Valentina Rubcova from Moscow, the editor of these ten editions, studied all of the available sources for each work. In many cases, Henle's were the first-ever Urtext editions, offering these highly complex musical texts in an immaculate, uncluttered, newly engraved format that was truly a landmark event! Whoever would like to study all these ten sonatas can n...
During his youth, Richard Strauss composed a large number of works for piano solo, among them numerous sonatas. Yet it was only the Sonata in B minor that he obviously considered important enough to want to see in print. It was composed in two versions, presumably between winter of 1880 and spring of 1881, and published one year later. Here, Strauss still plainly follows his compositional forebears from German Romanticism. The two middle movements of this demanding sonata in particular directly r...
G. Henle URTEXT edition. As well as Tchaikovsky's famous Piano Concerto, his extensive oeuvre for solo piano also makes an important contribution to romantic piano music. It includes "The Seasons" op. 37 - pleasant playable pieces that reflect a bygone bourgeois atmosphere and can therefore be assigned to the category of "domestic music." These twelve intimate mood-pictures enable the pianist to plot the course of the twelve months of the year. No. 11, "Troika", displays a Russian character parti...
Romantic. Alongside the famous violin concerto, numerous other violin works by Tchaikovsky have found their way into the standard repertoire for violin. An outstanding example is the Valse-Scherzo, which sparkles with witty playfulness. He composed it in1877 for the violinist Josef Kotek, a close friend and student. Our editor, the Russian Tchaikovsky scholar Alexander Komarov, has ensured that this Henle Urtext edition is absolutely faithful to the sources. He was able to consult all of the sour...
G. Henle URTEXT edition. Includes CPE BACH First Prussian Sonata in F; BEETHOVEN Sonata in E, op 14/1; Sonata in G op 14/2; Sonata in Gm op 49/1; Sonata in G op 49/2; CLEMENTI Sonata in G op 39/; HAYDN Sonata in C Hob. XVI-35; Sonata in G Hob. XVI-40; MOZART Sonata in C, K.545; Sonata in F K.280 (189e); Sonata in G K.283.
Category: Piano Classical/General Collections Item: 013777 Grade: Price: $25.95 Availability: Ships in 6 to 9 Days
G. Henle URTEXT edition The second volume of the Leichte Klavierstcke addresses itself to the somewhat more experienced pianist, and the level of difficulty of the individual pieces fluctuates between levels 3 and 6. The focal point here lies on works of the romantic era: starting with Mozart and Beethoven we stop to briefly enjoy some Schubert before reaching Mendelssohn, Schumann and Chopin, who are followed by Brahms, Liszt and Tchaikovsky. It was our intent to present different genres, such ...
Includes 39 short works for piano by Bach, Scarlatti, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumass, Liszt, Clara Schumann, Kirchner, Brahms, Dvorak, Grieg, Debussy, Skryiaben and Reger.
Category: Piano Classical/General Collections Item: 043650 Grade: Price: $8.95 Availability: Ships in 6 to 9 Days
Looking back in 1876, Liszt admitted candidly to the publisher Breitkopf & Hartel that his "Wagner Transcriptions" had "only served as modest propaganda for Wagner's noble genius, using the meager possibilities of the piano." In fact, around 1850, Wagner's operas Der Fliegende Holl„nder, Tannh„user and Lohengrin - which would later be so successful - were only being performed at the Weimar Court Theatre under Liszt's baton. Liszt was inspired to compose his Tannh„user Paraphrase by performances i...
Following Alban Berg, Anton Webern is the second composer of the Second Viennese School to be included in the Henle catalog. Webern's music is known for its extreme brevity and strict organization. A performance of the Variations Op. 27 lasts less than ten minutes - a short period of time during which the audience experiences true extremes. Webern rehearsed the piece with several pianists, which resulted in surprisingly emotional aids to interpretation being handed down. Having consulted all of t...