Piano Music

Group 5
 What is a piano?
Piano is a large keyboard musical
instrument with a wooden case enclosing a
soundboard and metal strings, which are
struck by hammers when the keys are
depressed. The strings' vibration is stopped
by dampers when the keys are released and
can be regulated for length and volume by
two or three pedals.
It's fair to say that the piano really
came of age in the Romantic period.
Around the beginning of the 19th
century, the likes of Beethoven had
shown just how emotive it could be as
instrument with his various sonatas,
but it took something else to really
transform the instrument - it took a
virtuoso.
 The Romantic era produced some of the
most incredibly complex, fiddly, and
beautiful piano music, written by some of
emotionally inspired genius composers of
this period.
The piano became the most popular
single instrument. It became musical
symbol of romanticism, and was
enlarged to give it a wider range and
more tonal power. The piano reached
such heights of popularity that it
became the favorite household
instrument with every family hat could
afford it.
The orchestra grew to be the favorite large
instrument of the century. Added were the
English horn, the clarinet, more brass and
percussion. Opera was also a major
medium of expression.
By the time the middle 1800s rolled
around, there was a new piano genius
in town Frédéric Chopin. He did not
live to see his 40th birthday, but he left
behind him an incredible legacy and a
whole repertoire of piano music that
redefined exactly how you could play
the instrument.
 Frédéric Chopin
is a polish composer
Chopin is one of the most influential
and popular composers of piano
music of the 19th century. In Poland
he is regarded as the person who has
had most influence on the country's
history of music. Chopin composed
almost exclusively for piano solo and
has been called the pianists'
composer.
Chopin was great friends with another
virtuoso pianist that went on to perform
even more incredible pianistic gymnastics -
Franz Liszt. In terms of technical ability,
Liszt was considered by many to be the
very best of the time, and reports of his
concerts describe how his face would
contort with emotion as he played - very
much in keeping with the development of
the Romantic period.
Franz Liszt was a Hungarian
composer, pianist and teacher of
the Romantic period. Liszt was
considered by many to be the
very best of the time, and reports
of his concerts describe how his
face would contort with emotion
as he played - very much in
keeping with the development of
the Romantic period.
The cult of the virtuoso was, by this
point, a full part of the Romantic
period, and many of the talented few
lived like superstars, touring Europe
and setting hearts aflutter as they did.
Besides all that, the piano music they
wrote was becoming quite unlike
anything the world had ever heard.
Sergei Rachmaninoff was perhaps the most notable
virtuoso that the piano has ever known. Tall, stately
and with gargantuan hands (he apparently had an 11-
inch hand span), Rachmaninoff's piano compositions
not only challenged the most seasoned of players,
they were also imbued with incredible romanticism.
Chief among those romantic compositions has to be
Rachmoninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. The second
movement in particular has been a public favorite
for well over 100 years, has featured in movies and
is the absolute paradigm for romantic piano music.
Rachmaninoff dedicated the concerto to Dr Nicolai
Dahl, a Russian neurologist and musician. After
Rachmaninoff's breakdown, Dr. Dahl held daily
sessions of hypnosis and positive suggestion
therapy, enabling Rachmaninoff to rebuild himself
and begin composing again.