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Thursday, July 3, 2014

Pieces Every Collaborative Pianist Should Be Acquainted With - Trumpet Edition

I've been in conversations recently with a pianist who is just beginning to explore collaborative work. As we talked, he asked for suggestions of important repertoire to learn. Rather than just spouting off an answer, I asked him which instrument he would most enjoy working with right away. His response? Trumpet.

This got me to thinking. Wouldn't it be great to have a recommended list of repertoire sorted by instrument type that gave pianists a starting point for learning important works they would encounter? I know it certainly would have been a great benefit to me in my early years as a collaborative pianist when I had a bit more time to learn notes at a more relaxed pace.

Back to my friend. Since I had spent a lot of time playing in the trumpet studio in graduate school, I was able to come up with suggestions based on my experiences fairly quickly. My recommendations were (in no particular order):

  • Paul Hindemith, Sonata
  • Halsey Stevens, Sonata
  • Kent Kennan, Sonata
  • Joseph Haydn, Concerto in Eb Major
  • Georges Enesco, Legende

What pieces would you have included in this list? I still wish we had a list like this for the major instruments....with comments about some of the challenges and maybe even a little historical background on the piece. (Could this be a project for me to tackle? Hmmm....) Does such a list exist somewhere that you are aware of? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

3 comments:

  1. I would add the Goedicke Concert Étude and the Hummel Concerto. I think Chris Foley started some lists on his blog, but I don't remember him getting beyond a couple of the string instruments.

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  2. Thanks, Victor! Both the Goedicke and the Hummel are great additions. I'll have to look for those lists over on Chris' blog as well. I've had so few opportunities to play with stringed instruments that I'm sure his suggestions would be great for me to look at.

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  3. Here's the link to Chris Foley's list of the essential sonatas for violin and piano. I'll definitely be taking a look at some of this rep in the coming months. http://collaborativepiano.blogspot.com/2007/12/core-repertoire-violin-sonatas.html#.U7ixZRaWKFY

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