Classical Piano

Classical piano covers the written tradition: music that comes down to us as notation rather than as a recording, from the keyboard works of the baroque through the romantic era and into the parlour and concert pieces of the nineteenth century. The point of difference from the jazz shelves here is where the authority sits. In jazz the recording is the text, and a transcription tries to capture one particular performance. In classical piano the score is the text, and the performance is an argument about it.

That makes these files useful in a slightly different way. A transcription of a classical piece is a reading of it, one pianist's choices about voicing, rubato and pedalling made explicit, which you can study, argue with and then set aside in favour of your own. Having the two hands on separate channels helps here more than anywhere: the left hand in this repertoire is often carrying an inner voice or a counter-melody rather than just an accompaniment, and being able to isolate it makes the architecture audible.

The shelf also holds American composers who worked in classical forms without ever being fully admitted to them, which is where the nineteenth-century dance pieces and character pieces in this catalogue belong. They were written for domestic pianos and popular concerts rather than conservatoires, and they reward a light hand and a good sense of rhythm more than they reward reverence.