# American (US) Piano Music



## Selby

(US) American's are often portrayed as not significantly adding to the classical repertoire. I believe that there has been a substantial contribution in the genre of solo piano music.

For example:

MacDowell's
Woodland Sketches: 




Barber's 
Sonata: 



Ballade: 



Nocturne: 




Ives' 
"Concord" Sonata: 



Improvisations: 




Copland's 
Piano Fantasy: 



Piano Sonata: 



Four Piano Blues: 




Gershwin's 
Rhapsody: 




Persichetti's
Sonatas. No. 10: 



 No. 12: 




Adlers'
Fantasy: 




Cage's
In a Landscape: 




Glass'
Etudes. No. 12: 



 No. 20: 




Monk.

Jarrett.

Billy Joel?

Hovhaness. 25 sonatas and sonatinas.
http://www.talkclassical.com/31922-hovhaness-piano-works.html

Piston?

What do others think?

Who do you like? Who do you hate? What am I missing?

Who is new and exciting?


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## tortkis

I love works for just intonation piano. I would like to know if there are others.

La Monte Young - The Well-Tuned Piano
Terry Riley - The Harp of New Albion
Michael Harrison - From Ancient Worlds, Revelation
Randy Gibson - Aqua Madora


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## Selby

I just sampled Harrison's Revelation:











I enjoy the unique tones. I am curious how I'd feel after experiencing it in it's entirety.


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## GreenMamba

A personal favorite:

William Duckworth - Time Curve Preludes (1978)


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## Blancrocher

I'd recommend the piano music of Elliott Carter, which has attracted many good pianists including Rosen, Aimard, and Oppens.

Here's Charles Rosen in the Night Fantasies:


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## Nereffid

Selby said:


> (US) American's are often portrayed as not significantly adding to the classical repertoire.


Let's draw a veil over that comment :lol:, and let me instead mention a couple of albums from recent years that have an entertaining selection of new or new-ish American piano music:

"Drive American" - Heidi Louise Williams (Albany)







(John Adams, Joan Tower, Daniel Crozier, Chen Yi, Augusta Read Thomas, William Bolcom, Morton Gould)

"American Vernacular" - Nicholas Phillips (New Focus)







(Mark Olivieri, Ethan Wickman, Ben Hjertmann, Joel Puckett, Mohammed Fairouz, David Maslanka, Luke Gullickson, John Griffin, William Price, David Rakowski)


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## elgar's ghost

I think the US has produced much great classical music across the board. It's certainly made an impact on this Limey and the output for solo piano is no different - I think it more than makes up in quality for what it may lack in quantity (or perhaps it's just a case of me not having heard as much as I would like). As well as some works already mentioned I rather like Roger Sessions's 2nd Sonata.


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## Guest

Blancrocher said:


> I'd recommend the piano music of Elliott Carter, which has attracted many good pianists including Rosen, Aimard, and Oppens.
> 
> Here's Charles Rosen in the Night Fantasies:


I've got the Oppens complete set; definitely rewards repeating listening. I think I prefer it to his string quartets.


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## quack

*Charlemagne Palestine* who despite the pseudonym was American:

In which our hero plays the same notes for an hour eventually detuning the piano





Unfortunately no recording on the tube of him playing the Doppio Borgato, an Italian double piano.









*Henry Cowell*

Who was one of the pioneers of extended technique on the piano:





With much wailing and probably gnashing of teeth:





*Leo Ornstein* he was born in Ukraine and came to America in his teens. Maybe shouldn't count but he set up a school is Philadelphia and John Coltrane was one of the students there which certainly counts for something.

Wild Men's Dance





Suicide in an Airplane





The supposed missing innovation is probably due to them innovating themselves right out of classical and into jazz and other genres.

*George Gershwin*





*Fats Waller*





*Thelonious Monk*





*Bill Evans*





*Jerry Lee Lewis* OMG he's standing on the piano!


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## hpowders

Vincent Persichetti 12 Piano Sonatas

Charles Ives Concord Piano Sonata

I'm not familiar with "new and exciting" unless it's a sports car.


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## norman bates

this two short gems deserve to be more well known

dane rudhyar - stars





griffes - vale of dreams


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## Bluecrab

Selby said:


> Billy Joel?


No. Dear God, no. 

But seriously, many of the composers you've cited have made valuable contributions to modern piano music, as have a number of the composers others have mentioned: Perischetti (beautiful sonatas), Carter, Barber, Jarrett, Copland et al.

Three American women who are writing very nice contemporary piano music are Beata Moon, Judith Lang Zaimont, and Augusta Read Thomas.


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## QuietGuy

Charles Tomlinson Griffes: 
Piano Sonata
Roman Sketches


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## Selby

Thank you all for the comments and suggestions! I'm going to listen to all the pieces mentioned this weekend, assuming i can find them. I'm very much looking forward to it!


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## Guest

Ives
Copland
Barber
Persichetti
Cowell
Cage
Johnston
Carter
Feldman
Wuorinen
Young
Babbitt
Crumb
etc..

Now who's tellin' you this crap about the U.S. not contributing to the repertoire?


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## Bruce

*Sessions's piano sonati*



elgars ghost said:


> I think the US has produced much great classical music across the board. It's certainly made an impact on this Limey and the output for solo piano is no different - I think it more than makes up in quality for what it may lack in quantity (or perhaps it's just a case of me not having heard as much as I would like). As well as some works already mentioned I rather like Roger Sessions's 2nd Sonata.


I'll add my vote to that. All three of Sessions sonati are worthwhile, though I think his second his best. The third is quite tough to get to like, but I have found that persistence is worth the effort.


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## starthrower

Scott Joplin
Conlon Nancarrow
Dave Brubeck
Chick Corea
McCoy Tyner


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## Bluecrab

Another who I'm surprised nobody has mentioned yet: Ned Rorem.


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## Heliogabo

Nobody mentioned Duke Ellington here??


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## GreenMamba

Heliogabo said:


> Nobody mentioned Duke Ellington here??


I don't know if I've ever heard any of his solo piano music. That's not really what he was known for.


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## starthrower

GreenMamba said:


> I don't know if I've ever heard any of his solo piano music. That's not really what he was known for.


The Duke was quite a distinctive piano player. I can recognize him after a few notes. Of course many of his compositions were written for his band, but he played them on piano too.


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## Selby

GreenMamba said:


> A personal favorite:
> 
> William Duckworth - Time Curve Preludes (1978)


Do you have a preferred recording? I've never heard it and was considering a purchase: Andrew Lee, Neely Bruce, or Bruce Brubaker?


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## Selby

QuietGuy said:


> Charles Tomlinson Griffes:
> Piano Sonata
> Roman Sketches


Any preferred recordings? I see that Garrck Ohlsson did a collection of works, have you heard it?


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## GreenMamba

Selby said:


> Do you have a preferred recording? I've never heard it and was considering a purchase: Andrew Lee, Neely Bruce, or Bruce Brubaker?


I have Bruce's recording and am very happy with it. Based on the first prelude alone, Brubaker sounds like an outlier, with somewhat halting rhythm. But I cant judge it compared to the score, and often end up liking whatever I hear first.

Lang Lang still hasn't recorded them.


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## Dirge

Selby said:


> Any preferred recordings? I see that Garrck Ohlsson did a collection of works, have you heard it?
> 
> View attachment 66203


Ohlsson gives a thoughtful and poetic yet clear-headed account of the Sonata that's played with tremendous authority/gravitas; it's certainly the best played account you'll encounter, and you'll hear some details and colors that are sacrificed to an extent by others. The highlight of his performance for me is his breathtaking transition from the first to the second movement: his sudden melting from such force to such delicacy is a thing to behold. That said, his overall approach is just a tad too deliberate for my taste, and I prefer the crusty old Masselos recording [M-G-M/Naxos Classical Archives, c.1957]. Masselos gives a strong, rugged, relatively volatile performance with a great sense of sweep & momentum and dramatic impulse. His playing is anything but fussy, but it's always sufficiently clear and detailed-and even poetic when need be. Still, if you're looking for pristine, look elsewhere. Modern performers tend to put more emphasis on clarity and detail and less on sweep & momentum and drama. I much prefer Masselos's way here, as he puts the music across as if it were conceived in one inspired fell swoop, with its parts coalescing into an inseparable (and somewhat intractable) whole to a greater degree than in any other account that I've heard.


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## GreenMamba

starthrower said:


> The Duke was quite a distinctive piano player. I can recognize him after a few notes. Of course many of his compositions were written for his band, but he played them on piano too.


Oh, absolutely, but if I'm thinking about solo piano compositions, I wouldn't think of Duke. nothing wrong with bringing his name up though.


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## Bluecrab

Just thought of another fine modern American composer of piano music, as I happen to be listening to one of his works online right now: Frederic Rzewski. I had the pleasure of seeing him perform several years ago with Musica Elettronica Viva (Rzewski, Alvin Curran, and Richard Teitelbaum). While Curran and Teitelbaum played mostly synthesizers and other electronic instruments, Rzewski stuck to a Steinway grand for the whole performance. However, Curran did a 2- or 3-minute segment during which he had his synthesizer sounding like an acoustic piano, and his playing was really virtuosic.


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## Selby

Dirge said:


> Ohlsson gives a thoughtful and poetic yet clear-headed account of the Sonata that's played with tremendous authority/gravitas; it's certainly the best played account you'll encounter, and you'll hear some details and colors that are sacrificed to an extent by others. The highlight of his performance for me is his breathtaking transition from the first to the second movement: his sudden melting from such force to such delicacy is a thing to behold. That said, his overall approach is just a tad too deliberate for my taste, and I prefer the crusty old Masselos recording [M-G-M/Naxos Classical Archives, c.1957]. Masselos gives a strong, rugged, relatively volatile performance with a great sense of sweep & momentum and dramatic impulse. His playing is anything but fussy, but it's always sufficiently clear and detailed-and even poetic when need be. Still, if you're looking for pristine, look elsewhere. Modern performers tend to put more emphasis on clarity and detail and less on sweep & momentum and drama. I much prefer Masselos's way here, as he puts the music across as if it were conceived in one inspired fell swoop, with its parts coalescing into an inseparable (and somewhat intractable) whole to a greater degree than in any other account that I've heard.


Thank you for such a thoughtful response, I'll watch the video.


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## Albert7

Don't forget Art Tatum too. Although jazz, his stuff is pretty classic. Yuja Wang even plays it as a bonus track on one of her iTunes albums.


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## Guest

Peter Mennin's Sonata is a powerful and ferociously difficult work. Think Barber on steroids.


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## Selby

^^^ I wish I could listen to it, can't seem to find it anywhere online.


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## Guest

Selby said:


> ^^^ I wish I could listen to it, can't seem to find it anywhere online.


Then there's nothing left to do but buy it!


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## worov

William Schuman :


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## Selby

Holy mother of _god_.

Due to my recent interest in Swedish pianist _Fredrik Ullén_ I stumbled onto _George Flynn_ (b. 1937, Montana)'s _Trinity_.

From the composer's recording:
"
George Flynn's "Trinity" is a 20th century masterpiece of monstrous proportion, and certainly secures his place among the greats in the long-standing tradition of the composer/pianist. A virtuoso himself, Flynn's music demands a complete mastery of the instrument, as well as levels of physical and mental endurance that even the best of musicians would find hard to comprehend. Sweeping arpeggios, thick polyphonic textures, jilted rhythms, and massive chords all help to characterize this music, probably best labeled as neo-romantic in style. Flynn has managed to successfully develop a clear and solid formal structure that unifies this 93-minute bohemoth, and results in a powerfully emotional and intellectual journey for the listener. This recording also exhibits the composer's innovative and unique conception of the modern-day piano. 
"

From Ullén's 2008 recording on BIS:

http://www.allmusic.com/album/george-flynn-trinity-mw0001406316
"
Swedish pianist Fredrik Ullén is already making a name for himself as a pianist who specializes in playing hyper-difficult, unplayable kinds of piano works through his success with Sorabji's mind-bending 100 Transcendental Studies. Relatively few might have expected Ullén's next salvo would be to pick up the cudgel of George Flynn, Chicago-based composer whose work stretches back decades but remains little known in Europe, and indeed, even at home. Flynn is a composer who never takes the easy way out; his music is highly individual, non-systematic; his catalog of pieces small and heavily worked through; and his personal idiom completely uncompromising. Flynn himself has long been established as the primary interpreter of his own work; however, there is no reason why Flynn's highly detailed and specific scores should not be interpreted by others. BIS' George Flynn: Trinity brings together the three works in Flynn's major piano cycle and puts them under Ullén's capable hands with startling and compelling results.

Trinity was a project that kept Flynn busy some 25 years, starting with "Wound," perhaps Flynn's most famous piano piece, composed in 1968 as a reaction to the Vietnam War. Kanal -- in this context meaning the Polish word for "sewer" and inspired by Andrej Wajda's 1957 film of that name -- followed in 1976; the final movement, "Salvage," was not completed until 1993. In a certain sense, Trinity is a reflection on the Cold War, its politics and dynamics, and the choice of an exploding atom bomb for the front cover is an apt one -- this was the projected outcome of the Cold War, which was consumed with the activity of "simultaneously preventing and preparing for war," to paraphrase Albert Einstein. Flynn's music is highly virtuosic and is at times quite thorny -- especially in "Wound" -- but it is never distant or distracted; it is highly involved both emotionally and intellectually, and to listeners able to get past Flynn's foreboding and complex tonal idiom, it should prove engrossing. There is an element of the romantic in Flynn, but not of the reflexive kind; it is felt in the expressiveness of the writing, which is very pianistic, and in the sheer amount of passion he pours into every bar of this music. Ullén's readings are interesting, of professional grade, and emphasize a flowing quality in the music that is highly attractive, perhaps the performance of "Salvage" is the best example.

Another interesting feature of this package is that on the second disc one will fill find a .pdf file of the entire score of Trinity -- many, many pages of carefully worked out score -- and to music-reading-enabled persons who find it difficult to make their way in this work, the .pdf will prove a godsend. George Flynn does not write his music to suit mass tastes, or even the tastes most common to the conservatory; it is bold, visionary music that has to be approached on its own terms. In BIS' George Flynn: Trinity, Ullén and BIS go the extra mile in making this significant cycle accessible to anyone stalwart enough to brave both its impressive peaks and to experience the devastation of its vast wastelands.
"





















$8 on Amazon. I'm Sold.

Journey the piece on YouTube starting here:




or here:


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## Dirge

Listed below are some of my favorite American piano works and recordings. The works themselves are mostly well known and not all that controversial, the recordings, not necessarily so. There's a tedious technical note (***) at post's end relating to the Mandel/Ives and the Helps/Sessions recordings.

Charles IVES: Piano Sonata No. 1
:: Donna Coleman [Etcetera] or Alan Mandel [Desto/Vox]***




 (Mandel, CD 3, tracks 9-13)
Coleman has the most natural sense of "swing" and syncopation of any pianist I've heard in this ragtime-y work. Mandel takes a more rugged and angular manly man approach that I like.

Charles IVES: Piano Sonata No. 2 "Concord, Mass., 1840-1860" • _Three-Page Sonata_
:: Richard Trythall [Centaur]




Trythall's dark, tense playing is rhythmically challenging in a "Jelly Roll" Morton/Theloneous Monk sort of way-Trythall is something of a "Jelly Roll" Morton expert as it happens. The disrupted flow and tightly wound volatility of his playing isn't for the meek, what with its dramatic near-pauses and stark outbursts (tightly controlled though they are), nor is his refusal to truly relax, but he holds everything together through sheer focus and concentration. Unlike many pianists, Trythall actually knows and effectively phrases the big quotations in the _Concord Sonata_, and he evokes the bell-like tolling of the optional glockenspiel in the _Three-Page Sonata_ (with its echoes of the Westminster chimes) better than anyone, including the actual glockenspielist in the Mandel recording. Despite their unorthodox nature, and because of it, Trythall's remain my favorite recordings of these works on the whole-only the elusive "Thoreau" falls a little short. (For me, Alexei Lubimov [Erato] is the one pianist who really nails "Thoreau.")

Charles T. GRIFFES: Piano Sonata
:: William Masselos [MGM/Naxos Classical Archives]




Masselos gives a strong, rugged, relatively volatile performance with a great sense of sweep & momentum and dramatic impulse.

George GERSHWIN: Preludes for Piano Nos. 1 & 2
:: Oscar Levant [CBS]




Levant plays Gershwin better than Gershwin plays Gershwin, conveying much the same character as the composer does but with more polished style and technique that wears better on me over the years. I've never much cared for Prelude No. 3.

Aaron COPLAND: Piano Variations
:: Easley Blackwood [Centaur]




Blackwood plays the Variations with a lithic, etched-in-stone rigor and severity that's downright scary at times.

Roger SESSIONS: Piano Sonata No. 2
:: Robert Helps [CRI]***
Superficially, the outer movements of this work (especially the final movement) sound a bit like 1920s Bartók-Sonata, _Out of Doors_, etc.-only more abstract and less folk-y; the deftly pointed slow middle movement is beautifully earnest and unsentimental. Most curiously, all three movements seem to maintain in their own way one long, continuously unfolding melodic line that stretches from work's beginning to end, providing a sense of linear continuity to help carry the listener along. Listeners with a fetish for counterpoint and never-ending invention will be like pigs in slop here.

Elliott CARTER: Piano Sonata
:: Beveridge Webster [American Recording Society/Desto/Phoenix USA]




Webster gives a rugged, if somewhat busy, performance that has a strong dramatic profile/narrative touched by an almost Copland_esque_ hint of the American West (I'm thinking of _Billy the Kid_ here) that I find interesting and strangely compelling. (I'm sure that Carter would have had a conniption and whacked me upside the head with his cane for suggesting such a thing, but I can only call it as I hear it.)

Conlon NANCARROW: Player Piano Study No. 3a




 (player piano)




 (arranged for ensemble, Bang on a Can All-Stars)
Boogie-woogie run amok. The original player piano version of this rhythmically perplexing study is interesting enough, but I prefer various arrangements for ensemble, such as the one performed by Bang on a Can. It's also more interesting to watch Bang on a Can perform than to watch a player piano roll advance, if only just.

Stephan WOLPE: Passacaglia from _Four Studies on Basic Rows_ 
:: David Tudor [hat ART/Soundmark]
:: Kalitzke/WDR SP Köln [Mode]




 (piano)




 (version for orchestra)
This twelve-minute twelve-tone solo piano piece is basically one big accelerating crescendo with a cool-down at the end. It has more forward sweep and a stronger sense of purpose than is common in twelve-tone music, and Tudor plays it with fearless commitment. Wolpe also orchestrated the work shortly after he wrote it, and it rather resembles Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra in that form-and it doesn't suffer in comparison. In fact, in either guise, I think this is one of the most compelling serial works around. To me, Wolpe is at his best when he's working in a strict form such as passacaglia, chaconne, fugue, etc., so it's not surprising that this is a favorite of mine. (I also like the quirky little Dance in Form of a Chaconne from Wolpe's _Zemach Suite_. There's a fine recording by David Holzman [Bridge].)

Frederic RZEWSKI: _The People United Will Never Be Defeated!_
:: Rzewski [hat ART]
Rzewski's temperamental/volatile hat ART recording makes other pianists (including Rzewski's later self on Nonesuch) sound downright casual.

Frederic RZEWSKI: "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues" from _North American Ballads_
:: Rzewski [hat ART]
This relentlessly repetitive work puts a player's rhetorical prowess to the test, and the hat ART-era Rzewski proves that he's more than a match for the din of the cotton gin.

***The audio engineers screwed up and inverted one of the stereo channels of the Mandel/Ives and the Helps/Sessions recorings, seriously corrupting the final audio presentation. The effect is the same as having one speaker of a typical two-speaker stereo system mis-wired, the polarity of its feed being reversed. This causes the speakers to work against each other rather than with each other, acting to cancel out any portion of the audio common to both channels (any centered/mono content in the recording) and destroy the soundstage (there's no soundstage whatsoever, just a huge sonic void between the speakers). If you have a copy of the recordings on your computer's hard drive and are handy with an audio editor, you can quickly and easily unscrew the screwup and reconcile the channels by simply inverting one of the channels (left or right, it doesn't matter which, but be consistent from file to file throughout) using the editor's Invert feature. I find the original files disturbing to listen to for any length of time, but the "corrected" files sound very good, with nary a hint of corruption.


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## worov

Amy Beach :


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## Selby

Louis Moreau Gottschalk
(1829-1869)

From Wiki:
"
Gottschalk was born in New Orleans to a Jewish businessman from London and a Creole mother. He had six brothers and sisters, five of whom were half-siblings by his father's mixed-race mistress (she would have been called mulatto at the time).[2] His family lived for a time in a tiny cottage at Royal and Esplanade in the Vieux Carré. Louis later moved in with relatives at 518 Conti Street; his maternal grandmother Bruslé and his nurse Sally had both been born in Saint-Domingue (known later as Haiti). He was therefore exposed to a variety of musical traditions, and played the piano from an early age. He was soon recognized as a prodigy by the New Orleans bourgeois establishment, making his informal public debut in 1840 at the new St. Charles Hotel.

Only two years later, at the age of 13, Gottschalk left the United States and sailed to Europe, as he and his father realized a classical training was required to fulfil his musical ambitions. The Paris Conservatoire, however, rejected his application without hearing him, on the grounds of his nationality; Pierre Zimmermann, head of the piano faculty, commented that "America is a country of steam engines". Gottschalk gradually gained access to the musical establishment through family friends.

After Gottschalk returned to the United States in 1853, he traveled extensively; a sojourn in Cuba during 1854 was the beginning of a series of trips to Central and South America. Gottschalk also traveled to Puerto Rico after his Havana debut and at the start of his West Indian period. He was quite taken with the music he heard on the island, so much so that he composed a work, probably in 1857, entitled Souvenir de Porto Rico; Marche des gibaros, Op. 31 (RO250). "Gibaros" refers to the jíbaros, or Puerto Rican peasantry, and is an antiquated way of writing this name. The theme of the composition is a march tune which may be based on a Puerto Rican folk song form.[3] By the 1860s, Gottschalk had established himself as the best known pianist in the New World. Although born and reared in New Orleans, he was a supporter of the Union cause during the American Civil War. He returned to his native city only occasionally for concerts, but he always introduced himself as a New Orleans native.

In May 1865, he was mentioned in a San Francisco newspaper as having "travelled 95,000 miles by rail and given 1,000 concerts". However, he was forced to leave the United States later that year because of a scandalous affair with a student at the Oakland Female Seminary in Oakland, California. He never returned to the United States.

Gottschalk chose to travel to South America, where he continued to give frequent concerts. During one of these concerts, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on November 24, 1869, he collapsed from having contracted malaria.[4] Just before his collapse, he had finished playing his romantic piece Morte! (interpreted as "she is dead"), although the actual collapse occurred just as he started to play his celebrated piece Tremolo. Gottschalk never recovered from the collapse.

Three weeks later, on December 18, 1869, at the age of 40, he died at his hotel in Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, probably from an overdose of quinine.[4] (According to an essay by Jeremy Nicholas for the booklet accompanying the recording "Gottschalk Piano Music" performed by Philip Martin on the Hyperion label, "He died ... of empyema, the result of a ruptured abscess in the abdomen.")

In 1870, his remains were returned to the United States and were interred at the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.[5] His burial spot was originally marked by a magnificent marble monument, topped by an "Angel of Music" statue, which was irreparably damaged by vandals in 1959.[6] In October 2012, after nearly fifteen years of fund raising by the Green-Wood Cemetery, a new "Angel of Music" statue, created by sculptors Giancarlo Biagi and Jill Burkee to replace the damaged one, was unveiled.[7] His grand-nephew Louis Ferdinand Gottschalk was a notable composer of silent film and musical theatre scores.
"

Philip Martin has released a full survey on hyperion:








The popular Bamboula:


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## joen_cph

Not mentioned hitherto:

*Ruth Crawford Seeger*, including "Piano Study in Mixed Accents" (BIS-recording!), and "9 Preludes"

*Sheila Silver*: Piano Preludes, Piano Concerto

*Carl Ruggles*: Evocations

*Russell Smith*: 2nd Piano Concerto

*Peter Lieberson*: Piano Concertos


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## hpowders

Vincent Persichetti Piano Sonatas 1-12.

Copland Piano Variations.

Copland Four Piano Blues.

Ives Concord Piano Sonata.

Some of my faves.


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## Sordello

Gottschalk is one of my favorites, I enjoy his use of 'exotic' rhythms and melodies. And I also really like Scott Joplin, the maple leaf rag that everyone knows.


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## Vasks

*GEORGE PERLE*

His piano music is top notch


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## Selby

George Antheil 
July 8, 1900 - February 12, 1959

"... was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor whose modernist musical compositions explored the modern sounds - musical, industrial, mechanical - of the early 20th century."

I saw this release on another thread, I forget which one, and just purchased it this morning. It looks like a good survey of his piano music, I looking forward to hearing it:

Antheil the Futurist
Guy Livingston, piano

http://www.georgeantheil.com/cd/


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## Selby

Vasks said:


> *GEORGE PERLE*
> 
> His piano music is top notch


I've never heard him. I believe I recall seeing this album on this site somewhere and remember something about it being 'approachable' and 'serialist'. It looks interesting.

Have you heard it? What do you recommend?

George Perle: Piano Works


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## Selby

Sordello said:


> Gottschalk is one of my favorites, I enjoy his use of 'exotic' rhythms and melodies. And I also really like Scott Joplin, the maple leaf rag that everyone knows.


Absolutely.

Have you heard the 8-disc Martin set? I'm considering buying it but haven't been able to pull the trigger.

I'm listening to the single-disk Leonard Pennario release.


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## MoonlightSonata

Copland's Piano Variations are very good.


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## Vasks

Selby said:


> I've never heard him. I believe I recall seeing this album on this site somewhere and remember something about it being 'approachable' and 'serialist'. It looks interesting.
> 
> Have you heard it? What do you recommend?
> 
> George Perle: Piano Works
> 
> View attachment 68168


Yes I have it and it's good. Yes, Perle was 12-toner but he composed with motivic figures and just enough repetition that are easy to follow and therefore easier to listen to & understand than a Babbitt type.


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## Selby

Tristan Perich (New York, 1982)

Surface Image (2014)
composition for solo piano and 40-*channel 1-*bit electronics

Vicky Chow, piano (of Bang on a Can All-Stars fame)
http://newamrecords.com/perich-surface-image/

Trailor:


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## Selby

Ryan Anthony Francis (Portland, OR)

Works for Piano (2011)
Vicky Chow, piano (from Bang on a Can All-Star fame)









includes:

Six Etudes for piano solo; 17'00" (2007-2008)
Wind-Up Bird Preludes for piano solo; 5'00" (2005)
Consolations for piano solo; 11'30" (2004)
Moonlight Fantasy for piano solo; 18'30" (2001)

The Wind-Up Bird Preludes are based on the popular novel by the same name from Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

Video of the Etudes: https://video.search.yahoo.com/vide...1&sigb=13mt54q03&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001


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## Selby

The MAPP - Midwest American Piano Project (2009)
Stacey Barelos, piano
http://www.staceybarelos.com/about.html









Composer include:
Stacey Barelos
David Karl Gompper 
Luke Dahn 
David Maki 
John Allemeier
Joseph Dangerfield

Lake Sonata-Flowing from David Maki:

__
https://soundcloud.com/taceyarelos%2F03-maki-lake-sonata-flowing

from Presto Classical: 
"This recording contains the work of six contemporary composers either currently active in, or with some connection to the American Midwest. The works were composed during a six-year span, from 2001-2007 and are performed by Stacey Barelos, a DMA student in piano and composition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Noted for her presentation of music of the 20th and 21st centuries, her performances of the music of Henry Cowell have attracted special recognition and acclaim."

from All-Music:
"Midwest American Piano Project" might seem a title indicative of some attempt to define commonality among the contemporary composers featured on this disc, but it's hard to discern (and nor do the notes by University of Saskatchewan professor Gregory Marion suggest) specifically Midwestern traits in the music. The composers are all associated with Midwestern academic institutions, and two of them, David Karl Gompper and Luke Dahn, represent a generational chain descending from one of the region's best-known composers, William Albright of the University of Michigan, and reflect some of his atonal but lyrical and even jazz-inflected style. The title of Dahn's Downward Courses refers not to technical devices but to a poem by, of all people, neo-agrarian writer Wendell Berry. Marion's notes, however, are almost exclusively formal in content. The most "Midwestern" and perhaps the most enjoyable work of the group is the four-movement Lake Sonata of David Maki, another composer associated with the University of Michigan's program. The sonata's water imagery might be characterized as neo-impressionist, but the phases of the lake's existence are shown in fresh and unusual ways. Also engaging is pianist Stacey Barelos' rendition of her own Free and Unticketed, a sort of hitchhiking tour through a variety of contemporary piano styles, including the extended techniques of Henry Cowell. Barelos adjusts well among the stylistic variety on hand and gives each work a fair hearing, and the program as a whole may be of interest to audiences within the specific orbit the composers inhabit."


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## carpa

Hi, I'm new to this forum. I'am a pianist very interested in american piano music.
To whom it may interest here's a link to a youtube clip of mine playing George Antheil's Airplane Sonata in a live concert.
I hope you like it and share.
thanks a lot


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## Il_Penseroso

My favorites: 

Gottschalk: Bamboula, La Savane, Souvenirs d'Andalousie, Mancenillier, The Banjo, Marche des Gibaros, Pasquinade, Manchega and Grand Scherzo

Amy Beach: Four Sketches Op.15 (No.4 Fire-Flies is a bravura hit and it was played by giant virtuoses like Busoni, Hofmann, and Rosenthal) 

MacDowell: Sonata No.3 Op.57 

Also Arthur Farwell various short pieces for the piano


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## millionrainbows

Martin Amlin's playing and composing can be heard on this disc. I really like his way of doing it.










Also, Kent Kennan, who taught composition at UT:


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## millionrainbows

Listening now to a John Harbison piece.

~


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