Contains:
"En Face Du Miroir (Facing The Mirror)"
- taken from the Isadar solo piano complete collection, "Red" (also available on SMP)

Sounds like: Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Vince Guaraldi, Liz Story, George Winston, early Windham Hill solo piano artists

Transcribed by: David Shenton ( https://www.shentonmusic.com/ ) verbatim to the sound recording

Album & Songbook Review by: Kathy Parsons

Red is pianist/composer Isadar?s genre-defying tenth solo piano album and seventeenth independent release from the past twenty years. It is also the third installment in a trilogy of solo piano albums released in the past year - Reconstructed, a Will Ackerman-produced anthology of some of Isadar?s best piano pieces; O Christmas, Isadar?s second piano Christmas album; and now Red, a bittersweet love-themed album that took seven years to produce and that consists of the first new original solo piano material Isadar has released in more than ten years.

I have been reviewing and thoroughly enjoying Isadar?s releases since his second piano album, 1999?s Active Imagination, which still stands as one of my favorite recordings. Even though I have been a big fan for many years, I was still blown away by Isadar?s live performance in my house concert series in July 2010. The man has magic fingers and an extraordinary piano touch that are perfectly suited to express his imaginative, distinctive, and emotionally powerful music.

Isadar is also a singer/songwriter and an electronic musician who creates the music videos for much of his music, dramatizing the stories that inspired the songs. I will always be partial to Isadar?s piano albums because his voice and vision are unique, incorporating jazz, new age, pop, and classical stylings into a musical language all his own.

Red opens with ?Broken Valentine,? a free-flowing expression of heartbreak and the broad range of emotions that go with it, alternating between grief and confusion then shifting to perhaps anger and resignation - a great beginning. The title track conveys the freedom of an improvisation while weaving together a variety of upbeat themes. ?The Man Who Broke My Heart? is energetic and in constant swirling motion - also very free and from deep within. ?The Stairwell? is darker and much more mysterious, overflowing with Isadar?s intriguing accented rhythms and picturesque compositional style. My favorite track is the almost nine-minute ?Letting Go,? a piece that intertwines a series of musical vignettes into a powerful, colorful musical collage. I love the way Isadar seamlessly goes from flowing and smooth to a bouncy jazz style to high drama without missing a beat. Great stuff! ?En Face Du Miroir (Facing the Mirror)? is much lighter, with fingers dancing nimbly around the piano keyboard. The album closes with ?Blood ... Thicker Than Water,? again a combination of changing themes that could well be a musical family portrait - different personalities working separately and as a unit, bound together by the unseen ties that keep families together through thick and thin.

Isadar has created another piano masterpiece that should be more widely heard than his previous releases due to the success of Reconstructed. I hope so, anyway! Red is available from isadar.com, Amazon, iTunes, and CD Baby. Very highly recommended!

Isadar?s Red: Solo Piano Sheet Music Collection is a note-for-note transcription of all seven pieces from Isadar?s 2013 CD/download release by the same name. The music was transcribed by David Shenton (shentonmusic.com) with clear, concise notation that includes dynamics, pedaling and metronome settings.

Isadar is an amazing pianist with a style all his own, so this isn?t a book that most pianists will be able to just sit down and play. It will take some work and attention to detail to get this music right, but it will be well worth the effort. Having the recording for handy reference would be a big help.

Rhythms are often complex and syncopated, but are usually repeated within each piece, so once you have them, the rest will follow fairly easily. There are only a few chords with a reach of more than an octave and none of the key signatures are terribly difficult. The layout and spacing of the music is excellent, and the paper stock is a bright white 9?x12? format with a stapled binding.

If you enjoy listening to Isadar?s music, I?m sure you will enjoy playing it, too! This songbook is available from isadar.com. Recommended!

The songs with their key signatures and the number of pages is listed below:

Broken Valentine - C minor (3 flats) - 4 pages
Red - A minor (0 sharps or flats) - 5 pages
The Man Who Broke My Heart - A minor - 6 pages
The Stairwell - F# minor (3 sharps) - 7 pages
Letting Go - F minor (4 flats) / C minor (3 flats) - 8 pages
En Face Du Miroir (Facing the Mirror) - Ab (4 flats) / F minor/ Bb minor (5 flats) / Db (5 flats) - 7 pages
Blood ... Thicker Than Water - A Minor/ C (0) / F (1 flat) - 7 pages

Isadar is an artist on both Enlightened Piano Radio & Whisperings Solo Piano Radio, the latter featuring some of today's biggest names in solo piano music, including Ludovico Einaudi, David Nevue, Brian Crain, Kevin Kern, Robin Spielberg, Michele McLaughlin, Philip Wesley and over 300 more...

Also available as sheet music in physical songbooks, digital downloads, as well as software for Yamaha Disklavier player-pianos.

For more information, visit his website at: http://www.isadar.com

The A-Team is an American television series that ran from 1983 to 1987. It opens with the infamous narration: ?In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.?

The show revolves around four members of the fictitious United States Army Special Forces unit. These are the leader Colonel/Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith (played by George Peppard), smooth-talking Lieutenant Templeton Peck or ?Face? (Dirk Benedict), pilot Captain H.M. "Howling Mad" Murdock (Dwight Schultz) and mechanic Sergeant First Class Bosco "B.A." Baracus (Mr. T).

The main theme was composed by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter, although the version they created was not the same as the theme heard on-screen (which is what this arrangement is of). The theme has been ranked among the best TV themes every written. Interesting, the French version of the theme has lyrics that mirror the spoken description of the English version of the show.
In 2010, 20th Century Fox released a feature film based on the series starring Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton Jackson and Sharlto Copley as the A-Team. Alan Silvestri composed the soundtrack.
A recording from the original soundtrack can be found on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MVonyVSQoM.

Contains Le Roi Lear: Prélude,Première Fanfare, and La Mort de Cordélia,Toomai des éléphants, Rodrigue et Chimène: Prélude à l?acte 1p. Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien: La Passion , and No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence

From Robert Orledge's notes:

My interest in the wonderful music of Claude Debussy began in the 1980s when I researched and published a book with Cambridge University Press entitled Debussy and the Theatre. During the course of my studies in Paris, I was amazed to discover that Debussy planned over 50 theatrical works but only finished two of these entirely by himself (the opera Pelléas et Mélisande in 1893?1902 and the ballet Jeux for Diaghilev?s Ballets Russes in 1912?13). Of the rest, many were never started musically (like Siddartha and Orphée-roi with the Oriental scholar Victor Segalen, 1907); some had a few tantalising sketches (like the Edgar Allan Poe opera Le Diable dans le beffroi, 1902?03); some were half-finished (like his other Poe opera La Chute de la Maison Usher, 1908?17); while others were musically complete but had their orchestrations completed by other composers (like Khamma, by Charles Koechlin, 1912?13; or Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien and La Boîte à joujoux by his ?angel of corrections? [?l?ange des Corrections?] André Caplet in 1911 and 1919 respectively).

For it has to be admitted that what some scholars call Debussy?s ?compulsive achievement? could equally well be viewed as laziness, especially as far as the minute detail required for calligraphing his orchestral scores was concerned. It was as if creating the music itself was of greater importance than controlling its final sound, even if Debussy was an imaginative orchestrator when he found the time and energy to do it. It also seems true that Debussy also preferred inventing ideas to turning them into complete pieces. However, despite the lack of detail in many of his sketches (missing clefs, key signatures, dynamics, phrasing, etc.) the notes themselves are surprisingly accurate, whether or not they can be compared with a later draft. Thus, a large number of sketches exist for his Chinese ballet No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence and it is not too difficult to see which parts of Georges de Feure?s 1913 scenario (see below) inspired which ideas. But Debussy hardly made any attempt to join them together after the first few bars.

It was usually up to his publisher, Jacques Durand, to find solutions when Debussy risked a breach of contract. Debussy was supposed to supervise the orchestrations completed by others, but this supervision was usually very light and restricted to quiet, sensitive moments in which problems were easier to spot. Far from jealously guarding every one of his created notes, as Ravel did, Debussy once even went as far as to ask Koechlin to ?write a ballet for him that he would sign? on 26 March 1914 when he was hard-pressed to fulfil his lucrative contract for No-ja-li with André Charlot at the Alhambra Theatre in London. In the end, Debussy (through Durand) sent Charlot the symphonic suite Printemps instead, whose orchestration had been completed by Henri Busser in the Spring of 1912.

So, when I was offered early retirement as Professor of Music at Liverpool University in 2004, I seized the opportunity it would give me to spend time trying to reconstruct some of Debussy?s lost potential masterpieces from his existing sketches and drafts?then orchestrating them in Debussy?s style when this was appropriate. I had begun this mission in 2001 with the most promising project, the missing parts of Scene 2 of La Chute de la Maison Usher and the sheer joy it gave me at every stage persuaded me to tackle other projects, especially when Debussy experts were unable to identify exactly where I took over from Debussy (and vice versa) in Usher.

Contains A Night in the House of Usher Un Jour affreux avec Le Diable dans le beffroi, Les accords de septième regrettent!!!, Petite Valse,Fêtes galantes, and Prélude à ?L?Histoire de Tristan?

From Robert Orledge's notes:

My interest in the wonderful music of Claude Debussy began in the 1980s when I researched and published a book with Cambridge University Press entitled Debussy and the Theatre. During the course of my studies in Paris, I was amazed to discover that Debussy planned over 50 theatrical works but only finished two of these entirely by himself (the opera Pelléas et Mélisande in 1893?1902 and the ballet Jeux for Diaghilev?s Ballets Russes in 1912?13). Of the rest, many were never started musically (like Siddartha and Orphée-roi with the Oriental scholar Victor Segalen, 1907); some had a few tantalising sketches (like the Edgar Allan Poe opera Le Diable dans le beffroi, 1902?03); some were half-finished (like his other Poe opera La Chute de la Maison Usher, 1908?17); while others were musically complete but had their orchestrations completed by other composers (like Khamma, by Charles Koechlin, 1912?13; or Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien and La Boîte à joujoux by his ?angel of corrections? [?l?ange des Corrections?] André Caplet in 1911 and 1919 respectively).

For it has to be admitted that what some scholars call Debussy?s ?compulsive achievement? could equally well be viewed as laziness, especially as far as the minute detail required for calligraphing his orchestral scores was concerned. It was as if creating the music itself was of greater importance than controlling its final sound, even if Debussy was an imaginative orchestrator when he found the time and energy to do it. It also seems true that Debussy also preferred inventing ideas to turning them into complete pieces. However, despite the lack of detail in many of his sketches (missing clefs, key signatures, dynamics, phrasing, etc.) the notes themselves are surprisingly accurate, whether or not they can be compared with a later draft. Thus, a large number of sketches exist for his Chinese ballet No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence and it is not too difficult to see which parts of Georges de Feure?s 1913 scenario (see below) inspired which ideas. But Debussy hardly made any attempt to join them together after the first few bars.

It was usually up to his publisher, Jacques Durand, to find solutions when Debussy risked a breach of contract. Debussy was supposed to supervise the orchestrations completed by others, but this supervision was usually very light and restricted to quiet, sensitive moments in which problems were easier to spot. Far from jealously guarding every one of his created notes, as Ravel did, Debussy once even went as far as to ask Koechlin to ?write a ballet for him that he would sign? on 26 March 1914 when he was hard-pressed to fulfil his lucrative contract for No-ja-li with André Charlot at the Alhambra Theatre in London. In the end, Debussy (through Durand) sent Charlot the symphonic suite Printemps instead, whose orchestration had been completed by Henri Busser in the Spring of 1912.

So, when I was offered early retirement as Professor of Music at Liverpool University in 2004, I seized the opportunity it would give me to spend time trying to reconstruct some of Debussy?s lost potential masterpieces from his existing sketches and drafts?then orchestrating them in Debussy?s style when this was appropriate. I had begun this mission in 2001 with the most promising project, the missing parts of Scene 2 of La Chute de la Maison Usher and the sheer joy it gave me at every stage persuaded me to tackle other projects, especially when Debussy experts were unable to identify exactly where I took over from Debussy (and vice versa) in Usher.

Healing Hearts 2
Louis Landon
2015 / Landon Creative
66 minutes
Review by Kathy Parsons
Louis Landon continues to soar on the wings of an amazingly creative period - now going on several years! Healing Hearts 2 is the follow-up to Healing Hearts, which was released the end of 2014 and is nominated for Album of the Year on Whisperings Solo Piano Radio. This is Landon?s second album for 2015 and he?s already working on his first release for 2016! The fourteen tracks on Healing Hearts 2 were gathered from improvisations created during sessions at Landon?s Healing Piano of Sedona (AZ), so the piano solos are very smooth and soothing - probably the most relaxed and relaxing album of Landon?s career. Recorded on a Steinway B grand piano at The Peace Palace in Sedona and mastered by Joe Bongiorno at Piano Haven, also in Sedona, the piano sound is impeccable - very warm and enveloping. Landon told me that this is the best music he never wrote, referring to the fact that the music just flows out of him during these sessions, reflective of each client?s wants and needs at the time of the session.

The full Healing Hearts 2 album is a little more than an hour of quietly uplifting music and works exceptionally well as a relaxing and healing experience. I?d like to mention a few favorite pieces, though. The album begins with ?Sisters,? a very gentle piece that expresses the love and special bond that can exist between sisters. Very light and free, it?s a beautiful start. ?Free At Last? starts out almost mournfully - dark and searching - gradually becoming livelier and more optimistic. It?s an amazing musical journey and development! ?Relax and Enjoy? expresses the warm comfort of just letting go and ?being? for awhile - leisurely and contented. ?Feeling the Love? is so warm and open that it feels like a musical embrace - melodic yet very free. ?All Is Well? is almost ambient, but what a wonderful atmosphere of quiet contentment it creates - a perfect peace. ?Transition? is like floating on a cloud - effortless and so peaceful. ?Dark Nights? is one of the most beautiful pieces Landon has recorded. It reminds me a little bit of Beethoven?s ?Moonlight Sonata? and some of Chopin?s Nocturnes - so poignant and heartfelt that it takes my breath away. The gracefully flowing ?Dancer? expresses freedom and elegant movement. ?Lullaby? closes this excellent album with a piece so soothing it could melt the tension out of anyone. Gorgeous!

If you are looking for music that will relax and refresh your inner being, you need to look no further than Healing Hearts 2. This is the real deal when it comes to soothing piano music with substance and heart. It is available from louislandon.com, Amazon, iTunes, and CD Baby. Highly recommended!
November 1, 2015

Recorded at The Peace Palace, Sedona, AZ, from November 2015 to February 2016. on a Steinway B.

Music mastering: Joe Bongiorno at Piano Haven Studio, Sedona, AZ



Louis Landon is a composer and Steinway artist. Formerly of New York and currently living in Sedona, Arizona, Louis has dedicated his life to music. His career has taken him around the world playing a variety of styles with some of the most recognized names in the entertainment industry. He toured nationally and internationally, playing classical music for Mikhail Baryshnikov; jazz fusion with The John Payne Band; Latin music with "Pucho and his Latin Soul Brothers?; pop music with Rupert "Pina Colada Song" Holmes; and rock & roll with John Hall, opening for "Little Feat?.

Louis began playing the piano by ear at 4 years old and began lessons at 5. As a teenager, he played guitar and keyboard in bands and went on to study music at Stony Brook University, Boston Conservatory and Berklee College of Music.

For the past 30 years, through his production company, Landon Music Company, Louis has written and produced music for film, video, and commercials. He recorded his first original album, Love Songs & Jazz, in 1994 and has since released 38 Albums/CDs on the LCI Record label. His latest, entitled Provocative Piano, was released on January 29, 2021. He has just finished up yet another solo piano album, Nighttime Piano for Relaxation and Deep Sleep, with a release date of April 23, 2021.

Louis Landon mission:

To create a more compassionate world by writing, recording and performing music that inspires love, peace, joy and gratitude.

Reviews:

?While some pianists are virtuosos in their playing and others may not be as technically proficient, but have great emotional content in their music, Louis Landon brings it all together with impeccable style and grace. His work covers diverse compositional terrain, incorporating influences of classical, new age, jazz, pop, and more in a mellifluous spectrum of moods and musical colors.? Michaeldiamondmusic.com

"He has a gift for composition that is second to none." Zone Music Reporter

"? indeed meditative and mellow, [he] sacrifices no musical rigor to achieve those ends. With backgrounds in jazz, Latin music, rock, pop, film composing, and classical piano, Louis brings his breadth and depth of experience to bear here. His playing and compositions are sensitive as they are complex and? a diverse range of influences is more than apparent.? Keyboard Magazine

Recognition:

Louis Landon's music has had over 140 million streams on Pandora radio!

Louis Landon's music has had over 34 million streams on Spotify!

Thanksgiving Piano was nominated for Album of the Year 2020 by Whisperings Radio.

Departure - Solo Piano was nominated for Album of the Year 2017 by Whisperings Radio.

Healing Hearts 2 - Solo Piano won 2016 ?Contemporary and Modern? Album of the Year at solo piano.com and was nominated for Album of the Year at Enlightened Piano Radio, also in 2016.

Healing Hearts - Solo Piano was nominated for Album of the Year at Whisperings Radio 2015.

Solo Piano for Love, Peace & Mermaids was nominated for Album of the Year at Whisperings Radio 2010.

Solo Piano for Peace was nominated for the 2009 ZMR Music Awards in three categories: Album of the Year, Best Instrumental Album - piano, and Best Cover Art by Zone Music Reporter. Solo Piano for Peace was listed at #30 of the top 100 albums for airplay in 2009 by Zone Music Reporter.

Peace Revolution! was Louis Landon's 7th CD and 2nd solo piano CD. It was #7 on the NAR top 100 charts and was played on over 50 stations worldwide.

unwind charted at #3 of the top 100 cds for the month of February, 2006 on Zone Music Reporter's website, playing on over 121 stations internationally.

Visit LouisLandon.com for bookings, CDs, sheet music, contact info and more.

Healing Hearts 2
Louis Landon
2015 / Landon Creative
66 minutes
Review by Kathy Parsons
Louis Landon continues to soar on the wings of an amazingly creative period - now going on several years! Healing Hearts 2 is the follow-up to Healing Hearts, which was released the end of 2014 and is nominated for Album of the Year on Whisperings Solo Piano Radio. This is Landon?s second album for 2015 and he?s already working on his first release for 2016! The fourteen tracks on Healing Hearts 2 were gathered from improvisations created during sessions at Landon?s Healing Piano of Sedona (AZ), so the piano solos are very smooth and soothing - probably the most relaxed and relaxing album of Landon?s career. Recorded on a Steinway B grand piano at The Peace Palace in Sedona and mastered by Joe Bongiorno at Piano Haven, also in Sedona, the piano sound is impeccable - very warm and enveloping. Landon told me that this is the best music he never wrote, referring to the fact that the music just flows out of him during these sessions, reflective of each client?s wants and needs at the time of the session.

The full Healing Hearts 2 album is a little more than an hour of quietly uplifting music and works exceptionally well as a relaxing and healing experience. I?d like to mention a few favorite pieces, though. The album begins with ?Sisters,? a very gentle piece that expresses the love and special bond that can exist between sisters. Very light and free, it?s a beautiful start. ?Free At Last? starts out almost mournfully - dark and searching - gradually becoming livelier and more optimistic. It?s an amazing musical journey and development! ?Relax and Enjoy? expresses the warm comfort of just letting go and ?being? for awhile - leisurely and contented. ?Feeling the Love? is so warm and open that it feels like a musical embrace - melodic yet very free. ?All Is Well? is almost ambient, but what a wonderful atmosphere of quiet contentment it creates - a perfect peace. ?Transition? is like floating on a cloud - effortless and so peaceful. ?Dark Nights? is one of the most beautiful pieces Landon has recorded. It reminds me a little bit of Beethoven?s ?Moonlight Sonata? and some of Chopin?s Nocturnes - so poignant and heartfelt that it takes my breath away. The gracefully flowing ?Dancer? expresses freedom and elegant movement. ?Lullaby? closes this excellent album with a piece so soothing it could melt the tension out of anyone. Gorgeous!

If you are looking for music that will relax and refresh your inner being, you need to look no further than Healing Hearts 2. This is the real deal when it comes to soothing piano music with substance and heart. It is available from louislandon.com, Amazon, iTunes, and CD Baby. Highly recommended!
November 1, 2015

Recorded at The Peace Palace, Sedona, AZ, from November 2015 to February 2016. on a Steinway B.

Music mastering: Joe Bongiorno at Piano Haven Studio, Sedona, AZ



Louis Landon is a composer and Steinway artist. Formerly of New York and currently living in Sedona, Arizona, Louis has dedicated his life to music. His career has taken him around the world playing a variety of styles with some of the most recognized names in the entertainment industry. He toured nationally and internationally, playing classical music for Mikhail Baryshnikov; jazz fusion with The John Payne Band; Latin music with "Pucho and his Latin Soul Brothers?; pop music with Rupert "Pina Colada Song" Holmes; and rock & roll with John Hall, opening for "Little Feat?.

Louis began playing the piano by ear at 4 years old and began lessons at 5. As a teenager, he played guitar and keyboard in bands and went on to study music at Stony Brook University, Boston Conservatory and Berklee College of Music.

For the past 30 years, through his production company, Landon Music Company, Louis has written and produced music for film, video, and commercials. He recorded his first original album, Love Songs & Jazz, in 1994 and has since released 38 Albums/CDs on the LCI Record label. His latest, entitled Provocative Piano, was released on January 29, 2021. He has just finished up yet another solo piano album, Nighttime Piano for Relaxation and Deep Sleep, with a release date of April 23, 2021.

Louis Landon mission:

To create a more compassionate world by writing, recording and performing music that inspires love, peace, joy and gratitude.

Reviews:

?While some pianists are virtuosos in their playing and others may not be as technically proficient, but have great emotional content in their music, Louis Landon brings it all together with impeccable style and grace. His work covers diverse compositional terrain, incorporating influences of classical, new age, jazz, pop, and more in a mellifluous spectrum of moods and musical colors.? Michaeldiamondmusic.com

"He has a gift for composition that is second to none." Zone Music Reporter

"? indeed meditative and mellow, [he] sacrifices no musical rigor to achieve those ends. With backgrounds in jazz, Latin music, rock, pop, film composing, and classical piano, Louis brings his breadth and depth of experience to bear here. His playing and compositions are sensitive as they are complex and? a diverse range of influences is more than apparent.? Keyboard Magazine

Recognition:

Louis Landon's music has had over 140 million streams on Pandora radio!

Louis Landon's music has had over 34 million streams on Spotify!

Thanksgiving Piano was nominated for Album of the Year 2020 by Whisperings Radio.

Departure - Solo Piano was nominated for Album of the Year 2017 by Whisperings Radio.

Healing Hearts 2 - Solo Piano won 2016 ?Contemporary and Modern? Album of the Year at solo piano.com and was nominated for Album of the Year at Enlightened Piano Radio, also in 2016.

Healing Hearts - Solo Piano was nominated for Album of the Year at Whisperings Radio 2015.

Solo Piano for Love, Peace & Mermaids was nominated for Album of the Year at Whisperings Radio 2010.

Solo Piano for Peace was nominated for the 2009 ZMR Music Awards in three categories: Album of the Year, Best Instrumental Album - piano, and Best Cover Art by Zone Music Reporter. Solo Piano for Peace was listed at #30 of the top 100 albums for airplay in 2009 by Zone Music Reporter.

Peace Revolution! was Louis Landon's 7th CD and 2nd solo piano CD. It was #7 on the NAR top 100 charts and was played on over 50 stations worldwide.

unwind charted at #3 of the top 100 cds for the month of February, 2006 on Zone Music Reporter's website, playing on over 121 stations internationally.

Visit LouisLandon.com for bookings, CDs, sheet music, contact info and more.

A classical arrangement of the popular Journey ballad, "Open Arms", blended with classical phrases of a Debussy favorite, "Reverie". This classical pop cover, arranged by Kawai Artist Christine Brown, is a solo piano arrangement from the popular piano cover album"Timeless", part 2 of a collection of classic rock/pop hits that are blended seamlessly with classical nuances, appealing to generations young and old, being introduced to the iconic classics in a new way. Christine is a distinguished Kawai Piano Artist and award-winning composer of contemporary classical solo piano. Christine?s music is a unique blend of new age, contemporary and classical sounds. With her graceful, elegant touch, Christine paints a colorful landscape with thoughtful musical interpretations of life's emotions and experiences. Since the young age of three, she has been fascinated by the piano. Christine's childhood classical training is evident in her melodic and thematic compositions, while rich harmonies reflect her background in accompanying various choral groups. From Chopin to Joplin, her influences were varied and many, and she also enjoyed creating her own arrangements of popular songs. While attending the University of Colorado, Christine was inspired by George Winston's new age genre of solo piano, yet for many years the piano remained only a hobby. Christine rediscovered her passion for the piano, immersing herself in her music after the loss of her mother in 1990. She began composing, using the piano to voice her emotions, releasing heartfelt compositions that captured listeners.

2nd edition - fully revised 2020 (first published 2016). Available as a pdf from www.pianoraga.com either for individual use or with a studio licence for teachers (this includes a hard copy). Also perfect-bound or coil-bound from www.pianoraga.com (also https://www.amazon.com/Play-Indian-Sitar-R%C4%81gas-Piano/dp/B08DBVQZK8 and https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/john-pitts/how-to-play-indian-sitar-r%C4%81gas-on-a-piano-coil-bound... ).

Indian rāgas (or raags) have an extraordinary musical heritage dating back several centuries (from the area that is now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) - a truly unique musical genre of fascinating melodic beauty and rhythmic intricacy ? freely combining elaborate composed melodies with carefully rehearsed improvisation.This rich and intriguing music is traditionally performed on sitar ? or instruments such as the sarangi, sarod, esraj or voice ? and has previously been generally unavailable to pianists. But now the amazing world of Indian rāgas has been opened up in this sympathetic but thorough reinvention for piano solo (or duet or two pianos) by an award-winning British composer. This collection of 24 rāgas will be enjoyed by good amateur pianists through to virtuosic professionals. It is suitable for any pianist who enjoys discovering new music, or who has an interest in music from other cultures, or who knows the pleasure of jazz noodling and wants to explore a rewarding and fresh (but centuries-old) form of improvisation.

This book contains:
?Sheet music for piano solo: a set of 24 rāgas, newly composed within a traditional rāga genre, one for each hour of night and day, sunset to sunset, encompassing a wide array of moods, and based on over twenty fascinating scales.
?Step by step instructions to play each of the pre-composed and improvised sections of Indian rāgas, written for pianists who are used to playing European classical music and jazz. This includes how to develop the melodic material in the improvised ālāp (with optional joṛ and jhālā sections), and the part composed part improvised slow, medium and fast gat sections, with optional jhālā to finish.
?Instructions to play any of these rāgas in a duet or at two pianos.
?Hundreds of musical examples.
?Accompanying audio & video examples can be accessed for free at pianoraga.com

The book has been fully revised in 2020, with improved explanations and definitions, spellings conformed to academic usage, corrected inclusion of the improvised joṛ section, inclusion of mohrā phrases in the ālāp, and a transcription of the intricate free-pulse rhythms in the first example ālāp video. .

The concert piece Paganini Jazz by Fazil Say, which was inspired by classical, modern and jazz styles, is reminiscent of the music of such greats as Scott Joplin, Art Tatum, Gershwin and Bernstein, and was originally designed as a charming encore work (1988). following the appreciative response of music lovers and, in particular, that of music critics, it was transformed over a perion of time into a more substantial work for piano. Briefly, the piece was rewritten and expanded a number of times between 1988 and 1995. We can evaluate the work as having taken its inspiration from Paganini's renowned 24th Capriccio, transforming it into variations on jazz requiring virtuoso rendition as well as being a creation open to the addition of improvisations and a variety of arrangements.
Throughout music history a number of composers have written various works inspired by the 24th Capriccio. We can count among them Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninov and Lutoslavski. In Say's work, however, .a different aspect must be noted: the composer is prepared to add various developmental passages and transitional improvisations while interpreting this work in concert. Furthermore, when the work is considered as a short encore piece, it is abbreviated in a manner deemed suitable by Say.

Open Up is a minimalist piano piece whose structure was inspired by Opening from Glassworks by Philip Glass. It has continuous triplets in the right-hand and duplets in the left-hand, and is built out of 4-bar phrases of shifting chords with plenty of repetition. It requires concentration to play and is suitable for piano students at intermediate or advanced-intermediate level. See also the companion piece "Close Down".

Written at the same time as the composer's Piano Concerto (The Solway Canal), Bryars' Ramble on Cortona is the first piece the composer has penned for solo piano in his esteemed career. Like his piano concerto, the work was written for Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat.

Bryars borrows the term "Ramble" from Percy Grainger whom Bryars has always admired both as a composer and pianist. . Others might call it a "Paraphrase" but Bryars' Ramble is based on themes from his vocal laude which derive from 13th century manuscripts found in Cortona.

Thalberg (1812-1871) was a renowned piano virtuoso and composer. His technical specialty, since widely imitated, was to play a central melody with the thumb of either hand and surrounding it with brilliant arpeggios and arabesques.

Sigismond Thalberg was one of the most famous and most successful piano composers of the 19th century. During the 1830s and the 1840s his style was a major force in European piano-playing. He was greatly in fashion and was imitated by others. In 1852, Wilhelm von Lenz wrote:

'The piano playing of the present day, to tell the truth, consists only of Thalberg simple, Thalberg amended, and Thalberg exaggerated; scratch what is written for the piano, and you will find Thalberg.'

Ten years later, in 1862, a London correspondent of the Revue et gazette musicale wrote:

'Nobody in fact has been so much imitated; his manner has been parodied, exaggerated, twisted, tortured, and it may have happened more than once to all of us to curse this Thalbergian school'.

Expressions like "exaggerated", "twisted" and "tortured" indicate that some contemporaries were starting to feel jaded of his style. It was at this time when Thalberg's career as composer and as virtuoso came to an end.

In the late 19th century, Thalberg's fame had come to depend on his association with a single piano technique, the 'three-hand effect'. Carl Friedrich Weitzmann, in his Geschichte des Klavierspiels (1879), wrote about this.

'His bravura pieces, fantasies on melodies from Rossini's Mosè and La donna del lago, on motifs from Bellini's Norma and on Russian folk-songs, became extraordinarily popular through his own, brilliant execution; however, they treat their subjects always in one and the same way, [namely] ... to let the tones of a melody be played in the medium octave of the keyboard now by the thumb of the right, now of the left hand, while the rest of the fingers are executing arpeggios filling the whole range of the keyboard'.

Thalberg (1812-1871) was a renowned piano virtuoso and composer. His technical specialty, since widely imitated, was to play a central melody with the thumb of either hand and surrounding it with brilliant arpeggios and arabesques.

Sigismond Thalberg was one of the most famous and most successful piano composers of the 19th century. During the 1830s and the 1840s his style was a major force in European piano-playing. He was greatly in fashion and was imitated by others. In 1852, Wilhelm von Lenz wrote:

'The piano playing of the present day, to tell the truth, consists only of Thalberg simple, Thalberg amended, and Thalberg exaggerated; scratch what is written for the piano, and you will find Thalberg.'

Ten years later, in 1862, a London correspondent of the Revue et gazette musicale wrote:

'Nobody in fact has been so much imitated; his manner has been parodied, exaggerated, twisted, tortured, and it may have happened more than once to all of us to curse this Thalbergian school'.
Expressions like "exaggerated", "twisted" and "tortured" indicate that some contemporaries were starting to feel jaded of his style. It was at this time when Thalberg's career as composer and as virtuoso came to an end.

In the late 19th century, Thalberg's fame had come to depend on his association with a single piano technique, the 'three-hand effect'. Carl Friedrich Weitzmann, in his Geschichte des Klavierspiels (1879), wrote about this.

'His bravura pieces, fantasies on melodies from Rossini's Mosè and La donna del lago, on motifs from Bellini's Norma and on Russian folk-songs, became extraordinarily popular through his own, brilliant execution; however, they treat their subjects always in one and the same way, [namely] ... to let the tones of a melody be played in the medium octave of the keyboard now by the thumb of the right, now of the left hand, while the rest of the fingers are executing arpeggios filling the whole range of the keyboard'.

Recorded by Nicolas Horvath on Grand Piano records (GP822)

Debussy?s friendship with the versatile poet and playwright Gabriel Mourey began in 1899, and in July 1907 Mourey offered Debussy a libretto based on Le roman de Tristan - Joseph Bédier?s adaptation of a twelfth-century Breton romance by the Anglo-Norman poet known as Thomas - which had recently been published in Paris. Debussy enthusiastically outlined the four-act plot to Victor Segalen that October, and the main differences from Wagner?s Tristan und Isolde are that none of the action takes place in Cornwall and that ?Isolde of the White Hands? is found guilty of cuckolding King Marc with Tristan, who has to rescue her from the leper colony in which she is abandoned in Act 1. She also betrays him when he goes mad at the end.

The idea of a Tristan that restored its ?legendary character? and had no connections with Wagner, appealed to Debussy, who was extremely moved by the circumstances of Tristan?s death. Even if he thought that Mourey?s poetry was ?not very lyrical and many passages do not exactly ?invite? music?, he did work on the libretto and the music that summer and sent his publisher, Jacques Durand, ?one of the 363 themes for the ?Roman de Tristan?? in a letter sent from Pourville on 23 August, 1907. The present prelude grows from this theme, together with the poignant Breton folksong ?Le Faucon?. After a short atmospheric introduction, Debussy?s dance-like theme (which is definitely not a leitmotif) gradually gains momentum and after it reaches its ecstatic climax, representing the transient happiness of the lovers, it dissolves into an expressive coda and an elegiac close (all growing from Debussy?s opening, off-stage trumpet calls), leaving us with the ultimate tragedy of their ill-fated affair.

Unfortunately, Mourey?s actual libretto has been lost and the project eventually foundered because Bédier?s cousin, Louis Artus, wanted Debussy to use the scenario he had prepared and copyrighted for the stage, and would not allow him to proceed with Mourey?s version. Debussy, it need hardly be said, would never have dreamed of collaborating with the author of the vaudeville hit La culotte (The pants)!

Robert Orledge