Customer Reviews

The Piano in Chamber Ensemble

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Maurice Hinson's _Guide to Pianist's Repertoire_ is now a standard fixture on the bookshelves of performers and teachers everywhere. The current volume is another staggeringly comprehensive repertoire guide, listing published chamber music written with the piano as an equal partner, in combinations of up to eight instruments, composed since 1700 (although a few works prior to that date are included). Hinson follows the format he has used before, grouping works by instrumentation, with the emphasis being on locating publishers. Other information is given as available, for example, movement titles, timings, no. of pages, level of difficulty, etc. (It may be noted that no discography is attempted.) Selected works are given descriptive annotations and evaluations. While a volume of this type will invariably require multiple editions to stay current, the information contained herein will be of value for many years to come.

Amazingly comprehensive text, with objective, intelligent reviews of most of the works listed, written by the author and/or those who heard the music first-hand. I didn't find a listing for the composer Kjerwulf, but I found listings for many others, including many I never heard of. Every piano piece of importance, and many others, are listed here, along with publication histories for most all works, and suggested bibliographies. You don't know how much piano music has been written until this book informs you of it. Very interesting biographical sketches are included of the most important composers.