It's May, It's May!

 

Several classical composers created piano works specifically depicting or titled after May, highlighting spring themes, nature, and romantic sentiment.

Here are key classical piano pieces about May:

• Franz Behr (1837–1898): In May Time (“In der Maienzeit”) is a well-known, lighter piano piece for children that portrays the awakening of nature and blooming flowers. 
• Edward Elgar (1857–1934): May Song (1901) is a light, lyrical piano piece that captures a cheerful, pastoral feeling.
• Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel (1805-1847): She composed a monumental piano cycle called Das Jahr ("The Year"), which includes a dedicated piece for each month. Her "Mai" is a virtuosic and lyrical celebration of spring.
• Robert Schumann (1810–1856): Although technically a voice/piano piece, "Im wunderschönen Monat Mai" (In the Lovely Month of May) from Dichterliebe, Op. 48, is quintessential to this theme, representing the longing of early spring.
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893): His piano cycle The Seasons, Op. 37a, features "May - Starlit Nights," which evokes the quiet beauty of a spring night.

These pieces are frequently used in collections focusing on spring, nature, and the seasons.

Setting Poetry to Music

 

April is Poetry Month. Many classical piano composers found inspiration in poetry, either by setting poems to vocal music with piano accompaniment (Lieder) or by creating programmatic piano works directly inspired by poetic themes. Leading piano composers include Franz Schubert, who wrote over 600 songs based on Goethe's poetry, and Claude Debussy, who set verses from Verlaine and Mallarmé. 

Here are other classical piano composers who integrated poetry into their work:

• Franz Liszt (1811–1886): Heavily influenced by literature, including Dante's Divine Comedy, creating works that treated music as a "poetic language".
• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827): Composed songs based on poetry by Goethe and Friedrich Schiller (e.g., Ode to Joy).
• Robert Schumann (1810–1856): His piano cycles were frequently inspired by literature and poems, including setting scenes from Goethe's Faust.
• Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849): While known as a "musical poet" for his piano writing, he also composed songs set to Polish lyrics. 
• Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): : His virtuoso piano suite Gaspard de la nuit is based on three prose-poems by Aloysius Bertrand.

Heralding Spring on the Piano

 While many famous "Spring" works are orchestral (like Vivaldi's Spring concerto or Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring), several classical composers wrote quintessential piano pieces that specifically herald the season through light, fluttering textures and bright melodies. 

Edvard Grieg’s lyric piece "To Spring" (Til Våren) is perhaps the most iconic piano miniature for the season. It features shimmering high-register arpeggios that mimic the sound of melting snow and rushing waterfalls in the Norwegian countryside.

Christian Sinding’s most famous work, "Rustle of Spring" (Frühlingsrauschen), was a staple of early 20th-century piano parlors. It is characterized by fast, sweeping arpeggios in the right hand that create a sense of restless anticipation and the "rustling" of new growth.

Felix Mendelssohn’s "Spring Song" (from Songs Without Words, Op. 62, No. 6) is celebrated for its cheerful, optimistic melody and playful rhythms, embodying the feeling of hope associated with new beginnings.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s piano cycle The Seasons, the months of March ("Song of the Lark") and April ("Snowdrop") directly herald the transition. While "March" retains a slight winter chill with an introspective birdcall melody, "April" is a delicate waltz evoking the first flowers breaking through the earth.

Nikolai Medtner, who was a friend of Rachmaninoff, wrote a charming piece titled "Primavera" as part of his Forgotten Melodies, Op. 39, which captures the season's vibrancy. 

Robert Schumann’s Scenes from Childhood and other piano works are often associated with the freshness of the season.

Claude Debussy’s piano music frequently employs "impressionist" colors, echoing the spirit of springtime renewal, pianistsmusings.com mentions.

 

Iconic Piano Valentines

What’s a better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than with a romantic piano piece? Sweeping melodies from the Romantic era, focusing on themes of love, longing, and intimacy, set a passionate, intimate mood. 

Frédéric Chopin is widely considered the ultimate romantic composer for the piano.

• Nocturne in E-flat Major, Op. 9, No. 2 is a soft, delicate piece often compared to a whispered love letter.
• Piano Concerto No. 2 (Larghetto) was composed while Chopin was deeply in love with soprano Konstancja Gładkowska, pouring his unspoken feelings into the music.
• Franz Liszt is known for transforming technical prowess into pure emotion.
• Liebestraum No. 3 (Dream of Love), Liszt’s most famous romantic work, was originally a song about unconditional love.
• Consolation No. 3 is a tender, peaceful piece that offers a more intimate, comforting mood.
• Robert and Clara Schumann’s real-life romance is legendary in music history.
• Widmung (Dedication) was originally a song Robert wrote for Clara as a wedding gift. It was later transcribed for solo piano by Liszt to capture its soaring passion.
• Liebesfrühling (Love Spring) is a collaborative set of works expressing their shared devotion. 
• Sergei Rachmaninoff is known for "sweeping" romanticism.
• Piano Concerto No. 2 (Adagio sostenuto)’s slow movement is world-renowned for its lush, heart-aching melody.
• Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Variation 18, one of the most passionate themes ever written, is often performed as a solo piano arrangement.
• Claude Debussy: Clair de Lune is a staple for Valentine’s Day, offering a dreamy, moonlit atmosphere full of tenderness.
• Ludwig van Beethoven: "Moonlight" Sonata (1st Movement) provides a hauntingly beautiful, intimate setting perfect for a quiet evening.
• Johannes Brahms: Romance in F Major, Op. 118, No. 5 is a mature, deeply felt expression of affection. 

No wonder that the Romanic era is one of Tomoko's favorite musical periods. 

Abilities of Piano Composers with Disabilities

 Many classical piano composers lived with disabilities. Their diverse challenges like sensory loss, physical impairments, and neurological conditions influenced their creative process and output, often leading to innovation and deeply personal musical expression

Classical Composers:

• Ludwig van Beethoven composed masterpieces like the Ninth Symphony even as profound deafness took hold, transforming his style.
• Maria Theresia von Paradis was a blind 18th-century pianist and composer for whom Mozart and others wrote concertos; she also founded a school for blind girls.
• Frederick Delius suffered from paralysis and blindness due to syphilis, but still managed to compose poignant works like A Song of Summer.
• Robert Schumann struggled with mental illness, including depressive episodes and hallucinations, which influenced his emotionally intense music.
• George Frideric Handel experienced paralysis, rheumatism, and depression, yet continued composing. 

 

20th Century Composers:

• Maurice Ravel’s later works were affected by a progressive neurological disease, potentially Alzheimer's or a similar condition.
• Darius Milhaud suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, which impacted his ability to play and compose.
• Leon Fleisher lost use of his left hand due to focal dystonia but later returned to two-handed playing and composed for it.
• Molly Joyce, an American composer who had an impaired left hand from an accident, but incorporated her experience into her work.

 

Teaching What You Compose and Play

 Tomoko is known for both her piano performance and her piano teaching ability. Those same skills and careers apply to several outstanding classical piano composers. Here is a sampling.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was a prolific teacher who instructed both his family members and university students. His famous collections of keyboard music, such as the Inventions and The Well-Tempered Clavier, were expressly written for instructional purposes. His pedagogy focused on attentive listening, finger independence, clear articulation, and a strong understanding of harmony. 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) earned a significant income from teaching piano to members of the nobility to supplement his income from concerts and commissions. His lessons combined performance practice, compositional theory, and technique training, sometimes even during informal settings like billiards. However, Mozart thought he could teach more by simply playing a piece for a student than through verbal instruction alone.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) taught piano lessons throughout his career to supplement his income, especially when he started out and before his hearing loss became severe. His most famous pupil was Carl Czerny, who documented and passed on Beethoven's methods for interpreting his piano works. Czerny's pedagogical approach is considered the foundation of modern piano technique. 

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) earned a significant portion of his income by teaching piano to aristocratic students in Paris. He was a meticulous and passionate teacher who focused on beautiful, expressive tone and fluidity, which he often demonstrated on a second piano. His method emphasized relaxation and natural hand movement, rather than the rigid, mechanical exercises common at the time. Students were taught using works by Bach, Mozart, Hummel, and Chopin himself.

Franz Liszt (1811–1886) was a legendary piano teacher who instructed hundreds of students in his masterclasses. He never charged for his lessons, which was a source of frustration for rival teachers. Rather than drilling technique, he focused on musical interpretation, and he used his lessons to discuss a piece's form, proportion, and emotional character.

Clara Schumann (1819–1896) was a highly regarded pianist and composer – and piano teacher – of the Romantic era.  Her disciplined and traditionalist style of playing, which emphasized a singing tone and clarity, influenced many students.

Flitting Pianos

 

Several well-known piano pieces capture the essence of butterflies. 

Schumann’s Papillons, Op. 2 was inspired by a masquerade ball and the dancing figures. It evokes the whimsical nature of butterflies with its light and joyful character.

Chopin’s Butterfly Etude” is characterized by its fast, light, and intricate melody, creating a sense of the butterfly's delicate movement. 

Grieg’s “Butterfly” is a short and beautiful piece that captures the essence of a butterfly's flight as it moves from flower to flower. 

Debussy’s” Les Papillons” was written to be sung by a soprano, inspired by Théophile Gautier's poem of the same name. 

Saariaho’s Sept Papillons, a set of seven short pieces, is a more contemporary take on the theme, with each piece representing a different butterfly and its unique characteristics. 

May your fingers and your heart flutter as you play these delightful piano pieces.

The Flowering Piano

It's summertime: the prime time to see flowers in gardens and fields. Piano composers have been inspired by flowers, as these examples demonstrate. 

• Debussy's "Bruyères":

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  This piece from Debussy's "Préludes, Book II" is a tone painting of the French word for heather, capturing the flower's delicate beauty and subtle fragrance, according to Interlude.hk.
• MacDowell's "To a Wild Rose":

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  A quintessential example of a piece inspired by a single flower, this work is cherished for its simple, elegant melody and its evocation of the wild rose's natural charm. 
• Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers":

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  Originally part of the ballet The Nutcracker, this piece is a grand and celebratory waltz, often arranged for piano and admired for its lively and joyous character. 
• Schumann's "Blumenstück":

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  This "Flower Piece" for piano is a collection of short, contrasting sections, each suggesting a different aspect or mood of flowers. 
• Rachmaninoff's "Lilacs":

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  Op. 21, No. 5, is a lyrical and expressive piece for piano, capturing the delicate beauty and romanticism associated with the flower. 
• Debussy's "Jardins sous la pluie" (Gardens under the rain):

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  This piece from the "Estampes" suite is a depiction of gardens buffeted by a downpour, showcasing Debussy's mastery of creating evocative soundscapes, according to Musicnotes.com. 

May the piano pedals make the musical petals to help your summer blossom!

Music to Mothers’ Ears

 

Tomoko celebrated Mothers’ Day celebrated recently, and music composers have celebrated mothers throughout the year for centuries. Here is a sampling of pieces that are These pieces are mother-approved.

Robert Schumann’s cycle of eight songs, “Frauen-Liebe und Leben” (“A Woman’s Life and Love”), follows a woman’s life of falling in love, marrying, and, becoming a mother. It has a very happy tone, but Schumann’s wife did not like the distraction of motherhood from her own musical career.

Richard Strauss’s piece “Muttertändelei” (“Mother-chatter”) recounts a mother’s praise of her child. It was written two years after Strauss’s wife gave birth to their son Franz.

Among Dvorak’s collection of gypsy songs is “Songs My Mother Taught Me.” One of his most famous melodies, this piece tells of a mother teaching her children the songs she herself learned from her mother.

Dvorak’s daughter was composer Josef Suk’s mother – and the inspiration for Suk’s piece pieces “About Mother, which were written for his children.

Ravel was another composer who wrote for children. Ma Mere l’Oye (or Mother Goose) His piano duet suite is a piano duet composed for his friend’s children.

Speaking of Mother Goose, Christina Rossetti penned nursery rhymes that were put to music in 1918 by John Ireland to become Mother and Child.  

The 1910 piano piece “Empress of Night” was a husband and wife effort; Amy Beach composed the music and her husband wrote the text. The piece was dedicated to Amy’s mother.

Laboring Music

 Labor Day celebrates workers, which includes pianists and other musicians. Here is a sampling of classical music that honors labor. While most of these pieces were not originally composed for the piano, arrangements for piano are usually available.

Probably the most renown piece that celebrates labor is Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, which honors those who fought in WWII. In response, Joan Tower wrote Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman, which is scored identically to Copland’s Fanfare. Copland also honored cowboys in his ballet Rodeo; the selection “Hoe-Down” is frequently performed on the piano.

For most of civilization, farming has been the job of the majority of people. Schumann's “The Happy Farmer” is one piece from his collection Album for the Young,  which was written for his own children to teach them about the piano. All the pieces are relatively easy to play, unlike the work of the farmer.

Traditionally, learning a job was done through apprenticeships. Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice musically demonstrates how a little knowledge can do damage.

Satie's Sonatine Bureaucratique is a humorous parody of Clementi's Sonatina Op. 36 No. 1. It musically depicts the daily life of the Parisian bureaucrat.

Another pointed message about labor is conveyed in Antheil’s Ballet Mecanique. It was written the same year as Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and focuses on urban labor. In this case, the repetitiveness of factory work is emphasized.

On the other hand, Verdi’s Il Trovatore is best known through its “Anvil Chorus”, sung by gypsies who are proud of their hard work.

The sometimes-troubling life of the worker is depicted in music as well. Mozart’s Figaro, a valet, has trouble with his Count master in The Marriage of Figaro. Later, in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Figaro becomes a barber, but still has troubles with the Count.  Bizet’s Carmen follows the deeper troubles of a seductive cigarette worker.

Workers’ hard labor often led to unionization. Arnold’s Peterloo Overture was written for the 1968 centenary of the Trade Union Congress.

This Labor Day, we honor the labor of pianists and other musicians everywhere who make our labor a little easier to bear.

Classical Piano June Composers

 Happy June birthday to the following classical composers of piano music who were born in June! Tomoko has played the pieces of several of these famous musicians.

Mikhail Glinka was born June 1, 1804, in Novospasskoye, Russia. He is known as the father of Russian classical music. As a child, the first music he heard were church bells (which he didn’t like) and folk songs, which influenced his compositional style, particularly his art songs.

Robert Schumann was born June 8, 1810, in Zwickau, Germany. He wanted to have a career as a virtuoso pianist, but a hand injury dashed that dream. The musical world benefitted as he became a renown composer for piano; in fact, he wrote exclusively for the piano until 1840.

Richard Strauss was born June 11, 1864, in Munich, Germany. He bridged the late Romantic and early modern styles. He is famous for his lieder tone poems piano compositions.

Edward Grieg was born June 15, 1843, in Bergen, Norway. He was both a concert pianist and composer of the Romantic era. His mother was his first piano teacher.

Igor Stravinsky was born June 17, 1882, in Lomonosov, Russia. He is most known for his Firebird suite, The Rite of Spring, Petrushka, and is 1924 Sonata for piano. After his Russian phase, her transitioned to a more austere neoclassical style.

Charles Gounod was born June 18, 1818, in Paris, France. He is best known for his Ave Maria and his “Funeral March of a Marionette,” which was used as the theme song for the TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach was born June 21, 1732, in Leipzig, Germany. He was Johann Sebastian Bach’s ninth son. He wrote mainly keyboard compositions: for sonatas, choir pieces, oratorios, motels, operas, and songs.

Try to Remember the Piano Composers of September

 September is known as the typical month to start the school year. It’s also a popular month for piano composers to be born. Here is a sampling.

September 1, 1854: Engelbert Humperdinck. Known for his opera Hansel and Gretel, Humperdinck first composed it as a set of songs, with piano accompaniment, for his nieces’ puppet show.

September 1, 1661: Georg Bohm. This German organist and composer wrote for the keyboard, and is known for his improvisational style of playing. Bohn and Bach were close friends.

September 4, 1824: Antonin Bruckner. Austrian composer Anton Bruckner starting playing the organ as a child, and gave organ lessons as an adult. He didn’t start composing seriously until almost in his 40s, and was not widely recognized until his 60s. Most of his piano works were written for teaching purposes.

September 8, 1841: Antonin Dvorak. Czech composer Antonin Dvorak also drew on his native Slavic folk dance forms in his piano duet piece Slavonic Dances. Moravian and other Eastern European traditional music forms also inspired him.

September 13, 1819: Clara Schumann. Besides being an accomplished composer, Clara Schumann was the professional pianist in the family. She was also a great business partner and confidante for Schuman, and edited his work after he died.  

September 13, 1874: Arnold Schoenberg. Born to a Jewish family in Austria, Schoenberg largely taught himself how to play the piano, even though his mother was a piano teacher. Later on he too became a music teacher even though he is more known for developing the twelve-tone method of composition.

September 16, 1887: Nadia Boulanger. While she did not think she was an accomplished composer, Boulanger was a gifted composer teacher. Gershwin wanted to study under her, but she refused as she didn’t want to stifle his more popular style. She also performed on the organ and piano.

September 25, 1906: Dmitri Shostakovich. Even as a child, Dmitra showed a gift for the piano and music in general. At age 13 he entered the Petrograd Music Conservatory, and he wrote his first symphony at age 19. Much of his work was theatrical, and he was known for his film music. Nevertheless, he also wrote for the piano, including waltzes.

September 26, 1898: George Gershwin. Like Schoenberg, Gershwin’s family was Jewish. Interestingly, Gershwin and Schoenberg were friends and tennis partners in the States. His first compositions were Broadway theater works, but he composed and performed popular, jazz and classical genres.

Romantic June

The month of June is often associated with romance and weddings. Tomoko was born in June, the same month as several of her favorite composers of the Romantic age.

Mikhail Glinka. (born June 1, 1804 in Russia) was the first Russian composer to be well known in his country, creating operas, orchestral works, chamber music, art songs, along with piano pieces. For years his composition "Patrioticheskaya Pesnya" was the country’s national anthem.

Robert Schumann (born June 8, 1810 in Germany) intended to become a virtuoso pianist, but instead he became known as one of the greatest Romantic era composers. For years, he wrote only piano pieces; later he added other orchestral instruments to his compositions and write many lieder.

Richard Strauss (born June 11, 1864 in Germany) wrote his first composition at age six and continued composing music into his eighties. He represents later German Romanticism. He is best known for his operas, but also wrote tone poems, lieder, orchestral works, chamber works, and solo pieces. Straus also made live-recording play piano rolls.

Edvard Grieg (born June 15, 1843 in Norway) made Norwegian music famous and helped develop its national identity, especially when he based his compositions on Norwegian folk music. Grieg was the cournty’s leading Romantic composers.  Professionally, he started as a concert pianist, but was inspired by Norwegian composers he met to write his own music, including piano pieces.

Compose a Museum

 In her travels, Tomoko has visited several museums: Tokyo museums, the Palais Museum in Paris, a Medici house museum in Florence, and Mozart's birthplace in Salzburg, to name a few. She has even performed in museums such as the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Of special note for her are museums about composers. In fact, when she travels she takes opportunities to play on historic pianos for herself, such as performing Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude on his piano within the Chopin Museum in Majorca, Spain. 

Here are some fascinating museums of piano composers whom Tomoko likes.

The Composers Quarter in Hamburg consists of six museums, each of which features one or more classical composers who lived in the areas. Each museum is housed in a restored historical building, and each museum contains a multimedia collection of the composer's works and life. See the list and details of each museum at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composers_Quarter_Hamburg

The Museum of the Johann Strauss Dynasty in Vienna has collected artifacts of Strauss gnerations, from the “Biedermeier” era to the 1880s. The museum includes fourteen themed areas, which are accompanied by related audio music. See more at http://www.strauss-museum.at

Speaking of musical families, the Bach Museum in Leipzig honors this family of musicians. Bach's organ and a violin from his orchestra are seen here – as well as many other family artifacts. The museum is interactive and offers summer concerts. See details at https://www.bachmuseumleipzig.de/en/bach-museum

Also located ins Leipzig is Schumann-Haus: the restored home of Clara and Robert in their first years of marriage. Visitors can experience how the couple lived and entertained, and the museum's sound garden provides interactive fun. See more at https://schumannhaus.rahn.network/en/museum/

A third composer's museum in Leipzig is Felix Mendelssohn's home. Visitors can see illustrated letters and music sheets as well as Mendelssohn's own watercolor efforts. The museum also includes a salon where morning concerts are held. See details at https://www.mendelssohn-stiftung.de/de/

The Beethoven House in Bonn features his life and work, and is located in Beethoven's birthplace. It includes a research center and a chamber music hall, and its garden showcases several busts of Beethoven. The museum was opened for the first time in 1893 during the second chamber music festival in the area. Now it includes digital collections for visitors to examine. See details at https://www.beethoven.de/

Handel's childhood home in London now holds exhibits about him. It even contains a miniature baroque theater stage that shows a virtual Handel performing “live.” See information about the museum, which also houses Hendrix, at https://handelhendrix.org/

Preserving the works and artifacts of classical piano composers keeps them alive and enables generations to experience them almost first hand. 

Overcoming Challenges

 

Tomoko knows the value of persistence, even when experiencing challenges and failure. She asserts: “Each piano piece has some kind of physical challenge. Tomoko also associates learning to play the piano to mountain climbing. “You need to go up lots of small mountains. If the road is right, you will reach up. So practice daily, and step nicely.” 

Tomoko also shares stories about pianists and composers of piano pieces with her students, and sometimes mentions the challenges these individuals faced and overcame.

For instance, Mozart was a court musician in Salzburg, but was very unhappy in his job. He quarreled frequently with the Archbishop, and was fired from that position. However, he felt liberated, and became a famous pianist after performing in competition before the emperor.

Rachmaninov’s composing career had a rocky start. His first symphony’s premier was a disaster, partly because the orchestra hadn’t rehearsed enough and the conductor was drunk. For three years, Rachmaninov composed very little because he was so depressed. Fortunately, he was able to get psychiatric help, and his later Piano Concerto No. 2 became internationally applauded.

Robert Schumann also started as a performing pianist, but his little finger on his right hand was weak. He tried to fix that problem, but his hand became permanently damaged instead. With that career out of the picture, he turned to composing, and is known for his romantic piano works.

Jean Sibelius started his musical career as a violinist but was turned down by orchestras. He thought he was too old to train further for performance but instead of foregoing music, he decided to switch to composing. He not only wrote great violin concertos but also impressive piano compositions.

Beethoven experienced several challenges. As a boy, he was dominated by his alcoholic father, and then had to be the breadwinner for his family when his father declined and died. Then as early as in his twenties, Beethoven’s hearing started to decline. However, he wrote his best musical compositions when he could hear the music only in his head.

Tomoko too has had her own challenges, but has succeeded as a piano performer and award-winning piano teacher. She and the musicians above are worthy models for piano learners.

  

Christmas on the Piano

 

Some of Tomoko’s favorite composers wrote Christmas music for the piano.

Liszt, for example, composed a suite of twelve pieces: Weihnachsbaum (Christmas tree). Several of the pieces are based on traditional Christmas carols. He dedicated this work to his first grandchild Daniela von Bülow, who was born on Christmas Eve. This suite was first performed on Christmas Day, 1881, in Daniela’s hotel room in Rome.

Another composer who was inspired was Bartok, who heard regional traditional Romanian carols, called colinde, and transformed them into two series of piano pieces totaling 30 works.

It is not surprising that Cesar Franck composed four Christmas piano pieces. He was a major French Romantic composer and music teacher. In his thirties he became the organist for the Basilica of Sty. Clotilde in Paris, a position he held until he died in 1890. One of his most famous compositions was the communion anthem “Panis Angelicus,”  but he also wrote a set of four piano pieces specifically for Christmas, again based on traditional carols: “Christmas Carol from Anjou,” “Now Tell Us, Gentle Mary,” “Old Christmas Carol,” and “Whence Comes This Rush of Wings?”

Christmas traditions also inspired composers, such as Berlioz. In 1844 he composed “Rustic Serenade to the Virgin on the Theme of the Roman Pifferari” for the melodium organ, which was invented by an organ builder friend of his. The inspiration came from his time in Rome. While he did not enjoy Rome itself or think much of the music from there, he was impressed with the traditional oboe called a pifferi. The pifferari were rural wandering musicians who performed devout concerts before images of the Virgin Mary.

Another Christmas tradition moved Schumann. His miniature piano composition “Knecht Ruprecht” refers to St. Nicholas’s attendant. This character was a wild country foundling whom St. Nicholas raised, and helps give out presents – or punishments to naughty children. Schumann’s piece is part of his Album for the Young collection, written in 1848.

Mendelssohn also wrote piano works for children. His Opus 72, 6 Kinderstücke (Children’s Pieces), was original not tied to the holiday, but the 1847 English edition of the work was named Six Christmas Pieces.  He wrote this opus specifically for children and adapted his style to children’s musical development (e.g., using fewer accidentals and more familiar time signatures). At the time of this composition, Mendelssohn and his wife lived with a relative who had seven children.

Especially as Tomoko enjoys her grandson Kai, she may well be playing some of these Christmas pieces for him.

 

Gabriel Fauré and Tomoko

Tomoko asserts that at each decade in life, certain composers are particularly apt. For instance, Tomoko recommends Fauré for pianists in their thirties; “He is so elegant,” she says. Tomoko also likes to explore composers’ lives because it adds to the richness and context of the music. To that end, then, here are some aspects of Fauré that inform his works.

Gabriel Urbain Fauré was born in 1845 in southern France. One of six children, he was the only musically sibling. Upon advice and with the help of a scholarship, his father sent Gabriel to a boarding school for nine years to study music, mainly church music. However, when composer Camille Saint-Saëns took over piano studies, he introduced contemporary music and mentored Gabriel. 

Upon graduating, Gabriel served as a church organist and gave piano lessons. Soon the Franco-Prussian War began, and he volunteers to military service. After the war he taught in Switzerland, and then returned to Paris to serve as a choirmaster and later a church organist. Throughout his life he also taught, later in life more composition than performance; he was even appointed health of Paris Conservatoire.

Early on, Fauré promoted new French music as a founding member of the Société Nationale de Musique, which included important composers of the day. This networking – along with frequent travels where he connected with still more computers -- stimulated his own compositions, which were mainly for piano and for stringed instruments. He was influenced by Chopin, Mozart and Schumann in his early years. His harmonic and melodic style were innovative, and presaged Impressionist composers as well foreshadowed Schoenberg’s atonal compositions. He was also a master of the French art song. 

For her album Touria, Tomoko performed two of Fauré’s early impromptus and “Siciienne,” which was originally written for a theatrical production.  The three compositions all have a lightness of spirit, which would lighten the day for performers in their thirties.