Beth's Piano Studio
3790 Kersdale Place
Grove City, Ohio 43123
614-420-6367
bakloes@gmail.com
Featured Composer for April Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy was born in France. His music is called Impressionistic and he is credited with founding this style. This style did not try to give a clear, exact melody and rhythm, but only vague outlines with soft, colorful tones and shimmering effects.
He wrote “The Children’s Corner” for his daughter Chou-Chou. He found the inspiration for some of the pieces in this suite in Chou-Chou’s toys, including her stuffed elephant.
He wrote works for piano and for orchestra. Some of his best-known works include Clair de Lune from the Suite Bergamasque for piano, and Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, a tone poem for orchestra.
When he was 25, he was warned to “avoid vague impressions, since this is one of the most dangerous enemies of truth in art”. (from New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.)
The Maid With the Flaxen Hair (from Preludes Book 1)
The Serenade of the Doll (from “The Children’s Corner)
Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum (from “The Children’s Corner)
Clair de Lune (From “Suite Bergamasque)
Featured Composer for March
Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn was born in Germany in 1809 and wrote music during the Romantic Era. His parents were his first teachers and he started learning piano from his mother at the age of six. When Mendelssohn was twelve, his composition teacher took him to meet Goethe, a great German writer, who was so impressed by Felix that he wanted to hear him play every day.
When he was 17, he composed an overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play by Shakespeare. The theme of this overture is still used frequently as a wedding recessional!
When he was 19, he became aware of all of Bach’s music that had been neglected for half a century. He dedicated himself to reviving the works of Bach, forming a Bach Society and supervising a complete edition of Bach’s works.
Most of his piano works are “Songs Without Words”, which were short expressive pieces. He wrote 48 of these, and often dedicated them to friends or enclosed them in letters or birthday cards.
Mendelssohn composed all musical forms: symphonies, concertos, cantatas, chamber music, oratorios, operas and incidental music, songs, and solo pieces for both piano and organ. He was also a writer, poet, musicologist, linguist, and a professional water color landscape artist.
He toured Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Scotland, Switzerland, and England.
Wedding March (from Midsummer’s Night Dream)
Wedding March (from Midsummer’s Night Dream)
Venetian Boat Song (from Songs Without Words)
Tarantella (from Songs Without Words)
Praeludeium
Featured Composer for February
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach grew up in a large family of musicians, who played the violin, oboe, and organ, so he grew up loving music. He lived in the Baroque era, and is considered one of the greatest musicians of that time.
His oldest brother taught him to play the harpsichord and organ, and he decided his career would be in church music. He was known as an outstanding church musician and organist. One of his best-known organ works is the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.
The “Anna Magdelena Notebook” (named after his second wife) is a well-known group of pieces that this composer wrote down. They were favorites of his family, although not all were composed by Bach. He also wrote music for his students, including 3 of his sons who grew up to be composers. He had 20 children altogether, who all learned to play musical instruments.
The “Well-Tempered Clavier” (clavier means keyboard – harpsichord or clavichord in the Baroque Era) is another well-known collection written by Bach. It consisted of two volumes, each with a prelude and fugue in each major and minor key and helped establish the scale system of 12 major keys and 12 minor keys that we now use.
All of Bach’s music was signed S.D.G. (Soli Deo Gloria) which means “to the glory of God”.