Piano Music from Mozart to Rachmaninoff

1/12/2010 - 3/2/2010
Tuesday 10:00 AM - 12:30 PM

This course presents a survey of some of the most popular and significant piano music of the Classical and Romantic eras. Classes feature discussion and performance of pieces including Chopin’s mazurkas, preludes, and ballades, as well as Schumann’s “Carnival,” famous works by Mozart and Beethoven, and the virtuoso styles of Liszt and Rachmaninov. This course is an ideal opportunity to gain an enriched understanding of piano music.

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Syllabus

Week 1: Haydn, Mozart, Clementi and the reinvention of keyboard style and technique

• Haydn: Variations in f minor
• Mozart: Munich Sonata and Handel suite
• Clementi compared with Mozart, Clementi compared with Beethoven

Week 2:  The Piano as Orchestral Proxy

• The Sonata becomes symphonic
• Beethoven opp. 2,7,106
• Schubert: Last three sonatas

Week 3: A New Elegance: Weber, Mendelssohn and Field

• Weber: Sonata in Ab
• Mendelssohn: Variations Serious
• John Field: Nocturne

Week 4: Chopin - Formal Mastery  and Harmonic Audacity

• Nocturnes and Mazurkas
• Chopin’s greatest interpreters

Week 5: Liszt - Prodigality and Ceaseless Innovation

• Rhapsodies, Fantasies and the late pieces

Week 6: Liszt’s Antipodes: Schumann and Brahms

• Schumann and interiority
• Brahms and the virtuosity of anti-virtuosity

Week 7: Piano Music’s Eclipse in the Late 19^th Century

• French elegance: Faure and Saint-Saëns
• French Radicalism: Debussy

Week 8: Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Medtner and the Apotheosis of the Ornamental

• Rachmaninoff Preludes (TBD)
• Scriabin Preludes (TBD)
• Medtner Sonatas (TBD)