Music for Pianos

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Mission Statement for Music for Pianos

 Within the compass of its seven octaves, the piano is capable of reproducing all the features and all the configurations of the finest musical creations.  As a result, pianists have at their disposal the greatest collection of solo literature that has been composed for any musical instrument.  In addition to the standard advanced repertoire, there is an even greater library of teaching literature that can be studied in preparation for this advanced repertoire and its study can greatly influence the advancement of a players musical and technical abilities.  Anyone who seriously desires to extend his or her musical knowledge or create something new can ever devote sufficient thought or study to this resource.

It is the aim of Music for Pianos to introduce the visitor to a minute cross section of this literature.  Some old ones, some new ones and some neglected ones.  It is hoped that players and piano instructors may find pieces that are suitable for study, teaching and performance.

Against this background, I consider that any means of making this literature more widely known and popular has some merit.  The MIDI file may only give a vague idea to the listener of how these works sound and the manner in which they should be played but it is hoped that even these imperfect MIDI piano files will now and then reveal a trace, a little obliterated perhaps, of a composers inspiration.  Audio mp3 versions of the files are available on some pages and in the near future all MIDI files will have their mp3 equivalent avilable for instant download.

The Music for Pianos MIDI site contains self sequenced MIDI files, MIDI files produced by scanning paper Piano Rolls and a  number of live MIDI recordings.

Piano music is mainly from the romantic and late-romantic periods; composers include

Male Composers

Women Composers

 
In addition there are comprehensive pages on the Life and Times of Clara Schumann with a Catalogue of her published and unpublished works, and a page on the Life and Music of Fanny Hensel 

mp3 files

  The mp3 files are recorded using the stereo sampled sound of a Yamaha Grand Piano.  All mp3 files available for sale can be played on either your computer, mp3 player, i-pod, or burnt to a CD making a compilation of your choice. The CD can then be played on any computer, car CD player or Hi-Fi System.

Other Pages

Arrangements for piano of ballet music from Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and Giselle.

Jazz standards; some in piano jazz trio format

Arrangements for piano of operatic music; selections from Aida, La Traviata, Carmen, Norma, Rigoletto, Lucia de Lammermoor and Samson and Delilah.

Pieces composed by Johannes Brahms, Albert Ketèlby, John Bratton and Leon Jessel. A selection of Nursery Rhymes arranged by Eric Halstead.

Over 160 Christmas pieces on five pages.  MIDI files for piano and Church Organ

1. Christmas Carols
2. Christmas Songs
3. Christmas Oratorios
4. Christmas piano music
5. Christmas Piano Rolls
    

1. J.Lawrence Cook Page
2. Adam Carroll Page
3. Ballet Piano Rolls
4. Classical Piano Rolls
5. Light Opera Piano Rolls
6. Novelty Piano Rolls
7. Operatic Piano Rolls
8. Irving Berlin Page
9. Fritz Kreisler Page
10. Zez Confrey Page
     

Visitors are welcome to download the MIDI files for personal listening but any reproduction on web sites or use for commercial purposes must have my prior permission. Do not link directly from your web page or E-mail to the MIDI files on my site.  If you do use a MIDI file make sure you copy the file via your server to a folder on your computer(Right click on "play midi" then save to a folder on your computer).  You may think it is smart to link directly to my server but your links won't work for long.

The music playing on opening this page is Variation 18 of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini to listen to the other 23 variations go to The Rachmaninoff Page