Pianist Frantisek Janoska was born in Budapest, Hungary. He started playing the piano when he was 5 years old. He then studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, and the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria. Frantisek won many competitions, and played for many years with the Roby Lakatos Ensemble. Frantisek sometimes plays gypsy style duets based on classical pieces with his brother Roman Janoska. He founded the Janoska ensemble in 2013 (which is made up of Frantisek, his two brothers, and their brother-in-law) . The ensemble performs and records gypsy style improvisations based on classical pieces (all in their own unique style).
Here is a funny video of Frantisek playing the piano… Enjoy.
Hello dear blog viewers. Here is a Polonaise that I wrote called “Moonlight on the Vistula.” The Vistula River is the longest river in Poland. It goes from Silesia (Southern Poland) to the Baltic Sea near the very old city of Gdańsk. The river passes through the edge of historic Kraków and goes through Warsaw. Here is a YouTube video of my Polonaise for your listening pleasure. If you would like to purchase the sheet music for this piece, please go to this link: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/moonlight-on-the-vistula-22540565.html?srsltid=AfmBOortHkk-tkQlvygPrs-AhStQbA-5zXIdHvevYvMmI_w7v2dzztec
I started composing and arranging music in 2021. Since then I have published a few piano pieces, an arrangement for two violins and harpsichord, several organ pieces, two pieces for violin and piano, and one choral piece. I am still working on more arrangements and compositions. If you are interested, I have YouTube demo recordings of some of my compositions and arrangements on my website www.robertjandukarm.com . Links to purchase sheet music can be found under the YouTube demos under the Compositions/Arrangements section of the Home Page of my website. You can also do a search for Robert Jan Dukarm on SheetMusicPlus.com and purchase my sheet music there. Thank you for your support.
In the meantime, here is one of my compositions which is a waltz for piano called “Fragrances of Spring.” Enjoy.
Gerald Moore was an English pianist. He played for many of the great singers and musicians of the 20th Century. During Moore’s lifetime, pianists who accompanied singers and instrumentalists were often treated as second-rate musicians. Accompanists were not paid much, and their names were often featured in small lettering on concert posters. Gerald did his utmost to turn the situation around by lecturing about the art of piano accompaniment, writing books for singers and accompanists to help them better understand and interpret art songs and other repertoire, and by performing and recording with many of his esteemed colleagues. He also wrote a very witty autobiography called “Am I Too Loud?” in which he mentioned many funny anecdotes and talked about several of the singers he worked with and befriended.
One of Gerald Moore’s favourite songs (which he recorded and performed many times with singers) was Franz Schubert’s “An die Musik” which translates to “To the Music.” He arranged the song for solo piano, recorded it in 1949, and famously played it at his final performance after the singers he accompanied asked him to play a solo. Here is Gerald Moore playing his piano arrangement in a recording from 1949.
Victor Borge was a highly accomplished pianist and musical comedian who was born in Denmark. Early on in his career he had to leave Europe because of the Nazis and WWII. Victor wanted to become a professional concert pianist, but decided that he would be more successful doing a comedy act using classical music. He came to the US and developed his own unique style of comedy. Victor Borge had his own TV show called “Comedy in Music” which was one of the longest running and most successful shows in television history. He told many different types of jokes. A few of those jokes involved music and classical music composers.
He rarely played a piece of piano music all the way through without stopping or cracking a joke. Here is a rare performance of Victor Borge playing Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune from start to finish. You can hear that he played very musically. Enjoy.
Walter Mony was a violinist, violist, conductor, and music lecturer. He was born in Canada, had his first music lessons there, and then studied in the United States and London, England. He studied under several top violinists including, Albert Sammons, Max Rostal, and Henryk Szeryng. When he was in his 20s, Walter was the Assistant Principal (assistant concertmaster) of the London Symphony, and also a member of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham. Walter was a member of the internationally famous Nederburg Harp Trio with which he made many recordings on major record labels. Walter also made many chamber music recordings and recordings as violin soloist with orchestras, including recordings of contemporary music written especially for him. He moved to South Africa and became Head of Music at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Apart from his regular teaching, for many years Walter taught music to poor African children in South African Townships for free, even lending them his expensive violin bows and violins to play on (not knowing if he would ever get them back). In 2005, Walter Mony moved to Victoria BC, Canada and became the Head of Strings at the Victoria Conservatory of Music where he taught students of all levels, including students in the post-secondary Music Diploma Program. I was privileged to be one of his students from September 2006 to December 2008 for the first two years of my Bachelor of Music majoring in violin performance and teaching. Walter Mony passed away in January 2009.
Anna Bender (1919-2004)
Anna Bender had a remarkable career of over 60 years as a pianist in South Africa during the late 20th Century. She performed and made recordings with some of the world’s most famous musicians between the years 1950 and 1970. Anna travelled all over South Africa and former Rhodesia working as an accompanist. She also did a solo piano recital in Prague in 1992. Anna received a Fellowship from Trinity College of Music in London for solo piano. She got a degree in Cultural History from the University of Pretoria and published five volumes of Afrikaans Art Songs. Anna Bender passed away in 2004.
Here are two pieces from an album that Walter Mony and Anna Bender recorded together called, Favourite Requests for Violin. The album was released in 1960. The links provided are from a streaming service called Boomplay. The album was available for a short time on YouTube, but seems to have been taken down. I am providing a link to two pieces, Souvenir by Frantisêk Drdla and the Waltz in A Major by Johannes Brahms (arranged by David Hochstein), plus a link to the whole album if you wish to listen to more of it. Enjoy.
Many musicians such as flute players, violinists, violists, cellists, trumpet players, trombone players, and tuba players can carry their instruments to and from rehearsals and performances. Pianists unfortunately cannot carry their instruments around with them as they are not portable like the instruments I mentioned above. The pianist usually ends up playing an unfamiliar piano in an unfamiliar acoustic space, be it a concert hall, or some other space such as a school theatre or senior’s residence. This presents a huge challenge because the pianist has to change the way they play to figure out how to coax the best sound out of an unfamiliar instrument, and also adjust to the acoustics of the performance space (which may be a completely dry acoustic or a very wet and echoey space). The piano itself may also be in pristine condition, be almost unplayable, or sound bad.
Virtuoso pianist Anton Kuerti (1938 – ), who is well known in Canada, demonstrates in a short 6 minute video some of the things that can be done to fix tonal defects and regulate the piano action to make it easier to play before a performance. This is not recommended as something the average pianist should do, as it takes special knowledge about pianos, and most theatres and concert halls would not allow a pianist to mess with a piano unless they were a qualified piano technician.
Hello dear blog readers. I recently released an album of Schubert dances on the piano called Schubertiade: Dances by Franz Schubert. You can listen to the album here, and download it or purchase a CD.
Franz Schubert was an Austrian composer who lived during the late classical and early romantic eras. He wrote chamber music, piano music, symphonies, operas, but it is for his around 600 lieder (art songs) that he is best known. For those songs Schubert used poems written by the top poets of his time. He not only composed beautiful melodies, but also wrote piano accompaniments that were very ingenious in the way they helped to tell the story behind the poems.
Here is one of Schubert’s most beloved art songs called Seligkeit (which means bliss). This is a lively charming little waltz tune. In this recording it is sung by Soprano Kathleen Battle and accompanied on the piano by James Levine. On the homepage of my website I have put a link where you can purchase my arrangement of this song for piano solo. Enjoy.
Johannes Brahms was a German Romantic composer, pianist, and conductor. He wrote solo piano music, chamber music, symphonnies, piano concertos, a requiem, and organ works. Some of his first compositions were written for the pipe organ. Brahms had a dream of becoming an organ virtuoso, but abandoned that idea because he struggled to play the organ well. Instead, Brahms became a piano virtuoso. He gave the premiere performances of his piano concertos. Brahms music is full of various rhythms, meters, and counterpoint. His introduction to Hungarian and gypsy folk music at a young age influenced his compositional style, and explains his fascination with irregular rhythms and use of rubato (robbed time) in his music. Brahms’ music was traditional in the sense that he used traditional classical forms when writing his music. His music was a complete contrast to the bombastic, showy “modern” music of the time such as that of Franz Liszt. Liszt apparently thought that Brahms’ music was too “hygienic”, and Brahms disapproved of Liszt’s music, apparently falling asleep during one of Liszt’s piano recitals during a performance Liszt gave of his b minor piano sonata.
Julius Katchen (1926-1969)
Julius Katchen was an American pianist who is especially well known for his recordings of Johannes Brahms’ piano music. He made his debut performance when he was 10 years old, playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in d minor. Conductor Eugene Ormandy heard about young Julius and invited him to play in New York with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Julius Katchen studied music with his grandparents Mandell and Rosalie Svet until he turned 14. His grandparents taught piano at the Moscow and Warsaw Conservatories. In 1947 Katchen toured Europe and moved to Paris, France. He died of cancer at the age of 42 in 1969.
Julius Katchen’s solo piano recordings of the works of Johannes Brahms are very popular among pianists, and those recordings are often described as one of the best recordings of Brahms’ piano works.
In this recording, Julius Katchen plays Brahms’ Intermezzo Op. 118, No.2 from his Op. 118 six pieces. I hope that you enjoy this beautiful piano piece.
Musical Treats 