Customer Reviews

First Book for Pianists, Book & CD (Alfred Masterwork Edition)

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[Note: This is a review of "Chopin: First Book for Pianists," edited by William Palmer and published by Alfred's. There are other books with similar titles, and Amazon has been erroneously cross-posting this review to the Mozart and Beethoven books in the same series. I don't know how to fix that.]

I really like this series -- I'm not so hot about this particular outing.

This Chopin book belongs to a handsome series edited by William Palmer, the author of the well-known ALFRED'S PIANO COURSE books and editor of much else besides. The idea is that, once you're finished with that course, if you've got a hankering to explore the work of some composer, these books await you as the next logical, seamless step.

The two other books I have in this series, the Bach one and the Mozart one, were very well done. They dumbed down a handful of the famous pieces, and included many notes on the composers would use the pedals, trills, etc. It was great. Palmer's Bach book in particular helped me when I finally started playing unsimplified Bach.

But this book is not quite the same thing, though it's in the same series. It's shorter, for one. But the real problem is that these pieces are not watered down at all. They're pieces are in their unsimplified, original forms as Chopin wrote them for his students. So get ready for that. As Palmer writes in the book:

"Chopin did not earn his livelihood by performing. He gave very few concerts, and most of these were presented in small chambers. he was most famous as a composer and teacher, and since he was obliged to teach many students, he composed quite a number of selections which can be played by students in the early grades without simplification. This book contains these pieces, each of which is a miniature masterpiece bearing the stamp of Chopin's genius." (p. 24)

So it's mostly simple mazurkas and preludes. There are no polonaises or noctures, or any Chopin tune you're likely to recognize. There's only one Waltz -- a posthumous one.

KINDLY NOTE that the entire contents of this book are entirely included in the thicker and more comprehensive "Chopin: An Introduction To His Piano Works (Book & CD) (An Alfred Masterwork Edtion), as they warn you on the very first page. In fact, I would strongly recommend you buy that one, as the first few pages contain vital discussion of Chopin's style of ornamentation that is completely missing from this thinner one.