Stephen Kovacevich (born 1940), who has also been known as Stephen Bishop and Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich is an American classical pianist and conductor. He was born in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California, to a Croatian father and an American mother. He made his concert debut as a pianist at the age of 11; then, at the age of 18 he moved […]

Together with Lang Lang and Yundi Li, Sa Chen (born 1979) is considered as one of today’s most important Chinese pianists and a veritable international sensation. Originally a student of Professor Dan Zhao, China’s most eminent piano teacher, she won first prize in the 1994 China International Piano Competition and fourth place in the 2000 International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition […]

For decades people who were fortunate enough to see and hear esteemed pianist Artur Rubinstein (1887-1982) perform left concert halls spellbound. Rubinstein went for the soul of the audience as he wrapped his soaring and spirited playing around each listener. His magnificent interpretation of Chopin remains without equal. Biographer and music historian Sachs first heard Rubinstein play in 1959, but […]

This is a lovely performance on an invisible piano by comedy genius Rowan Atkinson (also known as Mr. Bean). The air piano act include two Beethoven sonatas: the first movement from the Pathétique Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op.13 and the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2. This was a […]

Pianists post-Liszt, however, blended improvisation with playing from memory so that “Performing a composition by heart fostered the impression that interpretation could have the freedom and spontaneity of an improvisation, but linked to music of greater complexity and–implicity–quality” (from After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance by Kenneth Hamilton, 2008). While there’s some element of improvisation (interpretation is […]

New Urtext sheet music of the Goldberg Variations by Bach has been published by Piano Street today: The complete score is now available for download for Gold members from the Piano Street Sheet Music Library. ***FREE SHEET MUSIC SAMPLE*** Have a look at the FREE sheet music sample of the Aria and Variation 1 while listening to Murray Perahia playing […]

Between 1981 and 1984 Leonard Bernstein recorded nearly all of Brahms´s orchestral works with the Wiener Philharmoniker to honor the 150th anniversary of the composer´s birth in 1983. As an example of the unique Zimerman/Bernstein collaboration, here´s the second movement of the second Piano Concerto in B flat major Op. 83: The outstanding Polish pianist, Krystian Zimerman won 1st prize […]

“It is not just sound. The problem is that this content cannot be really be articulated in an objective, rational, scientific way — with words. If it were possible to articulate it in an objective, rational, scientific way, the music would not be necessary.” In the Masterclasses series with Daniel Barenboim, he speaks about what it is and what it […]

Alongside the second and third piano concerti, Rachmaninoff´s “Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini” is probably among his best-known. It has frequently been used as theme music for motion pictures. In the comfort of his own Villa Senar on Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, which he designed himself to be reminiscent of his family estate, Ivanovka, in Russia, Rachmaninoff composed the Rhapsody […]

Dudley Moore, was an English actor, comedian and musician. This video clip is from the 1950’s-60s British comedy group “Beyond the Fringe. Dudley Moore plays a very funny but also musically ambitious parody of a Beethoven piano sonata based on very odd yet well-known thematic material, the whistling tune from “Bridge Over the River Kwai”. Want to play it yourself? […]

In December 2007 American pianist Leon Fleisher reached a high point in a remarkable career when he was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor in Washington, D.C. A child prodigy, Fleisher began studying the piano at age four, gave his first public recital at eight, and at nine was taken under the wing of the legendary Austrian pianist and teacher Artur […]

Igor Stravinsky characterized Prokofiev as the greatest Russian composer of his day. Prokofiev was also an excellent pianist, and often performed his own works. Some of his solo piano music performances were recorded for HMV in Paris in 1935, and he was also soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra in the first recording of his third piano concerto, recorded in […]