Customer Reviews

Favorite Piano Classics (Dover Music for Piano)

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This collection of piano classics is very special! I am a pianist myself, and the very first piece I learned was Maple Leaf Rag! Just about every major classical piece is in here!: Bach's wonderful "Prelude in C", Beethoven's "Für Elise" & "Moonlight Sonata", Brahms' "Hungarian Dance No. 5", Chopin's "Minute Waltz", Debussy's "Clair de Lune" & "Gollywog's Cake Walk", two pieces from Grieg's "Peer Gynt", Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" & "The Entertainer", Liszt's "Liebestraum", Mozart's "Sonata in C", two pieces from Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition", Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C#m", Ravel's "Pavane", Satie's "First Gymnopédie", Schubert's "Marche Militaire", Sinding's "Rustle of Spring", J. Strauss Jr.'s "Blue Danube" and many, many more! Wow! As you can see there are ALOT of excellent pieces in this book (83 total)! Herder did an excellent job at picking out these pieces! If you enjoy playing classical piano or just like collecting sheet music this book is for you! WARNING: This book is NOT for beginners. Alot of the pieces contained in this book are intended for intermediate to advanced pianists. Don't expect to find "Hot Cross Buns" or "Chopsticks" in here! Be prepared to play some pretty hard stuff! If you are a "beginner" I suggest you start with: Bach's "Prelude in C Major" (p.6), Beethoven's "Minuet in G Major" (p.18), Gluck's "Ballet Air" (p.79), Handel's "Hornpipe in E Minor" (p.96) & "Sarabande in D Minor" (p.97), MacDowell's "To a Wild Rose" (p.126), Mozart's "Two Early Minuets" (p.144), and Rameau's "Minuet in A Minor" (p.173). [Hardest are: Chabrier's "Mélancolie" (p.30), Liszt's "Liebestraum" (p.120), Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C#m" (p.169), Ravel's "Pavane" (p.176), and Sinding's "Rustle of Spring".] All in all this book is a MUST for any serious classical pianist. Buy the book. Play the pieces. You'll be glad you did!

Worth every penny--Great book for your piano literature collection. I have already been sitting at the piano sight-reading alot of the pieces I didn't already know.
My one warning--the print (as in all Dover editions) is a little more difficult to read than more expensive publishers' print. I bought the book for a student who is a beginner reading music and I decided to keep it for myself because I want her early reading experiences to be with very easy to read print--then after a couple of years, maybe struggle with this. I have found this to be true of all my Dover editions, they're great to get your hands on a large volume of music and are definitely worth the price no matter how hard they are to read---but I've had to get better printed copies of pieces that I'm really working on for performances

I think this book is great. I especially like it because it has so many great songs. It has "The Maiden's Prayer" by Badarzewska-Baranowska, "Anitra's Dance" by Grieg, "Largo" by Handel, "Sarabande in D Minor" written by Handel, "Turkish Rondo" by the famous composer Mozart, "Moonlight Sonata" by Beethoven, "First Gymnopedie" by Satie, along with so many other great pieces. Pianists of all levels will enjoy having this book of classical piano pieces. This is a great book that every piano player should own.

If I had to play the desert island game, and I needed one book of classical piano music to take with me, this book would be it, without a doubt!

Herder manages to include so many timeless masterpieces in this compilation. The pieces range in difficulty from something a beginner would easily pick up , such as MacDowell's "To a Wild Rose" and Bach's "Prelude in C Major", to incredibly difficult pieces, such as Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C-Sharp Minor" and Sinding's "Rustle of Spring." As someone who has played the piano for five years, I had little trouble playing most of the pieces here, outside of the very difficult ones mentioned above. For the most part, 83 BEST-LOVED WORKS is extremely accessible to moderately skilled pianists.

The breadth of coverage is amazing, as Herder includes the extremely well-known pieces of Beethoven ("Fur Elise" and "Moonlight Sonata"), Mozart ("Ronda Alla Turca" and "Sonata No. 15 in C Major"), and Chopin ("Raindrop Prelude," "Nocturne in E-flat Major," and "Polonaise Militaire") as well as the less famous but still fantastic music of Scarlatti ("Sonata in D Major"), Scriabin ("Desir"), and Mendelssohn ("Venetian Gondola Song" and "Spring Song"). There's also a bit of ragtime thrown in with Joplin's "The Entertainer" and "Maple Leaf Rag."

Overall, I would highly recommend this book to anyone. I had immeasurable fun going through the music in this book, and I think one would be hard-pressed to find any sort of flaw in this compilation. Don't miss out on this treasure!

I love, love, love, this volume. I'm a music major who studied piano and now have much less time to practice. But, thanks to this compilation, all the famous and intermediate/high intermediate level piano literature can be found in one place. If you are a piano teacher, this book will be useful to you because it likely contains many pieces that your students 1) dream of learning or 2) would love to hear you play because they will recognize them. In addition, the editors went out of their way to choose easier--and still famous--compositions by the famous composers. For example, Chopin has several famous pieces, but the editors picked, among other pieces, the Raindrop Prelude, which is exceedingly gorgeous but relatively easy to play. You won't find any monster ballades or comparably difficult pieces. I mean, instead of I'sle de Joyeuse, they picked the First Arabesque to represent Debussy . . . know what I mean? A good pianist can fake their way through much of this and enjoy it leisurely. My only complaint is that these are not the best editions of these pieces. There are no fingerings or pedal markings. So this is not the best collection to teach from. But again, it is good for recreation.

You're much better off getting "Library Of Piano Classics" parts 1 & 2. I bought those two books first, and after ordering this book I was disappointed because it pretty much has almost all of the same songs (my fault, not the book's fault.) Plus, after going plastic coil binding you can't go back, and this book is lacking in that respect. Also, I found the printing to be somewhat smaller than normal.

In summary, yes this book has a lot of the great songs you'll want to play, however do yourself a favor and get "Library Of Piano Classics" BOTH parts 1 & 2 instead... they're more user-friendly and you get pretty much the same songs PLUS a ton more.

This book has a good assortment of classic piano pieces. I had one and my daughter-in-law liked it so well that I got her one for Christmas. The pieces range from simple to difficult. I keep my book on the piano all the time.

I got this book for my wife who studies music and she liked it, it has a great variety. You might want some clips to keep it open on your music stand however, It would have been nice if it was a spiral bound book. Other than that no complaints, great gift.

The good thing about this book is that the content is really good, especially for this list price. If you're in intermediate level, the selection is decent. You really do get a lot for your money.

The bad thing I wish I had known before I bought the book is that the font is really really small. I didn't know the music books could be published this small. The usual dimension for piano music books are 9.2 inches by 11.8 inches or so. This book is 8 by 11, like the typical xerox paper. It hurts my eyes to look at it.