2 Pianos,4 Hands,Piano Duet - Level 4 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.945464

Composed by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Giovanni Battista Pescetti. Arranged by Kiyoshi Tamagawa. Baroque. Score. 12 pages. Mastery for Strings Press #5999147. Published by Mastery for Strings Press (A0.945464).

The practice of adding an accompaniment to a composition originally created for a solo instrument is a time-honored tradition in Western art music, whether the additional music be for one or a few instruments or an entire ensemble. In the latter case a concerto movement can be fabricated from a solo work.

The Concertino Barocco (Little Baroque Concerto) takes as its basis two pieces of the Baroque era that have long been popular repertoire for advancing students of the keyboard: the Solfeggio (or Solfeggietto) by C.P.E. Bach, and the third movement, Presto, from the Sonata in C minor by Giovanni Battista Pescetti. These works are transformed into two miniature concerto movements by adding and interpolating short tutti passages at various points in the form, rather in the style of Antonio Vivaldi. Not a note has been added or subtracted from the original keyboard solos, so that a student who has mastered the originals may play this Concertino simply by memorizing the exact points in the original pieces where additional music for the orchestra has been added and they must wait to continue.

2 Pianos,4 Hands,Piano Duet - Level 2 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.757074

Composed by Piano II: Jean Philippe Rameau, Piano I: Simon Peberdy. Arranged by Simon Peberdy. Baroque,Children,Instructional,Standards. Score. 5 pages. Simon Peberdy #4321405. Published by Simon Peberdy (A0.757074).

One of a series of classics in new arrangements, with a new additional piano part by Simon Peberdy. Piano II is the original piece. The pieces are of grade 2-3 standard, so a great introduction to playing music for 2 pianos.

This piece comes from Easy Pieces for 2 Pianos Book 4, the fourth in a series of 5 books.
Video of all of Book 4: https://youtu.be/lwNeO_YaBEI

For more compositions and arrangements, please visit www.simonpeberdymusic.com

(The mp3 recording is a computer generated one at the moment).

Piano and orchestra - difficult - Digital Download

SKU: S9.Q3160

Composed by Rodion Shchedrin. This edition: piano reduction for 2 pianos. Downloadable, Piano reduction. Duration 32 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q3160. Published by Schott Music - Digital (S9.Q3160).

Shchedrin, son of a composer and music teacher, underwent a thorough musical training in Moscow. His versatility and dazzling competence across a wide variety of musical genres are surely a result of his studies. The composer is also an exceptional pianist and frequently performs his own piano works (concertos, sonatas, 24 preludes and fugues, etc.) on the concert platform. While employing a variety of modern compositional techniques he has, nevertheless, succeeded in uniting traditional and contemporary forms. His work is suffused with his love for Russian folkmusic, poetry and literature, yet it is not just relevant in his homeland but speaks to a wider audience. His more recent works too, are characterized by this fusion of a deep Slavic sensitivity with outstanding virtuosity.

3 (3. auch Picc.) · 3 (3. auch Engl. Hr.) · 2 · 2 – 4 · 3 · 3 · 1 – 4 P. S. (I: hg. Crot. [chrom.] · Tr. [h.] · Choclo · Glass-chimes; II: Gong [h.] · Tamt. [t.] · Tr. [m.] · Choclo · Guiro [m.]; III: Sonagli [Troika] · gr. Tr. · Bambusi [oder Guiro h.]) (3 Spieler) –
Str. (16 · 14 · 12 · 10 · 8).

Instrumental Duet,Keyboard - Digital Download

SKU: A0.1497852

Composed by Jenni Roditi. 21st Century,Classical,Contemporary. 17 pages. Jenni Roditi #1074264. Published by Jenni Roditi (A0.1497852).

Piano Duo 2 pianos/4 hands. Curve, Between the Octaves points to a fugal past, where lines enter and build in stately flow. It invites lines to intermingle, without assuming they will all arrive somewhere, or at the same time. A certain intensity builds, then scales, both up and down, free themselves from the discussion of the interleaving lines. The chromaticism suggests curving between harmonies, and is nearly always ambivalent. An assertive chordal climax intervenes to shake off the tensions, yet this peels away into further curvatures that twist and twirl, until a final resting point agrees to present itself.  
Names of all the movements in the suite Between the Octaves in the right order are Initiate, Surrender, Thread, Curve, Encircle, Ritualise, Ignite. The whole suite follows a long line from movement 1 to movement 7. However, individual pieces are well suited to be played alone too. Piano Duo is ideally two Steinway grands, otherwise, whatever is available. An enjoyment of the tensions and relationships generated between the two instruments: grand-upright, upright-electronic keyboard is to be explored as a positive. Each piece creates its own world in the suite and can be part of smaller subgroups taken from the suite, in any combination, but the order of the pieces needs to be maintained if more than one is played. 
Here is a taste of the background to the musical world of this 53 minute compositional suite. During a reflective time I read the following: The whole philosophy of dharma art (Buddhist art) is that you don't try to be artistic, but you just approach objects as they are, and the message comes through automatically. (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, from 'True Perception The Path of Dharma Art.' Shambhala 2008, p.133.) The 'objects as they are' became the 'octaves as they are'. As the pieces were composed the octaves had a centring and clarifying role that allowed other material to circulate around or play against them. They acted as pivots, repetitions, drones, ostinati, pointillist nodes, pedals, melodic features, struts, harmonic turnpikes, breathing spaces, bass lines: musical imperatives. The octaves called the musical shots most of the time. When the music pulled a semitone up or down and away from the octaves (as it did quite often) it was especially telling in the context of the ringing spaces the octaves were creating. I became interested in the subtle dislocation that two pianos could provide. By dislocation I mean a degree of tension between the natural acoustics of the two instruments in the room and the players idiosyncrasies as musicians.  The whole point of this work was to examine the nature of my syntax, grammar, and compositional thinking. The title demanded one thing above all: what notes am I going to use between these octaves?? My choice of notes was derived in most instances from the tempo, pitch, and rhythm of the initial octaves at the beginning of each piece alongside the individual word titles that I set out to explore as musical images. The audio was developed from Sibelius software, via MIDI to Logic samples of a Steinway grand piano.

2 Pianos,4 Hands,Piano Duet - Level 4 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.972673

Composed by James Siddons. Contemporary,Folk,Jazz,Spiritual. Score. 25 pages. James Siddons Music and Writings #6698569. Published by James Siddons Music and Writings (A0.972673).

Performance Note

Sonata Hymnica No. 6 is scored for two pianos and three performers. One  performer (or player) sits at Piano I and may also serve as the conductor. At Piano II, Performer 1 plays from the treble  staff and Performer 2 plays from the bass staff. There are possible variations in this, such as having four pianos (two pianos  doubling the other two), or having two performers at Piano I, with Performer 2 playing only the bass-staff rhythmic pattern that  begins in measure 37. A standing conductor (not playing piano) may be desired.

 Although repetitive, the music in this sonata rarely repeats itself  exactly; hence, further minor improvisations by the performers are appropriate, keeping with the improvisatory nature of oral  tradition.

Program Note (for use in concert programs)
by James Siddons

 The Sonata Hymnica series by James Siddons consists of piano solos that explore the world of American hymns and  vernacular religious songs in the 1880-1920 era, when rural and small-town churches relied on pianos for music, and, in an age before microphones and amplification, the acoustics of wooden floors, walls, and high ceilings. These sonatas are not hymn arrangements but explorations of the sounds that can be created by a piano in a reverberant environment, all the while keeping in mind the essential message of the familiar words  sung to the various hymn tunes. Sonata Hymnica No. 6 is the first in the series to be for piano ensemble, and the second (after No. 3) to be based on the worship music of the 19th-century African American church. This sixth sonata also explores the singing world of the black congregation and choir as well as the piano. Their singing was shaped  by the sounds and intonations of the piano and the heritage of European music behind it, as well as the contours and cadences of the religious folk songs known as Spirituals. But the black congregations also sang hymns and choruses from the Classical tradition, and the Spirituals became the basis of many adaptations by white arrangers. Thus, we may speak  of  standardized adaptations of Spirituals as white black music, and black performance styles of Classical works as black white music. Piano ragtime music is a non-religious example of white music (the military march) made into black white music by the blending in of the syncopated rag rhythm. Sonata Hymnica No. 6 explores the intermingling of these two strains of American music as heard in the 19th-century black church.

In his classic book The Souls of Black Folk (Chicago, 1903), W. E. B. Du Bois confesses to not being a musician but nonetheless finding himself enthralled by the music of the Southern 19th-century African Americans. He refers to their singing as the Frenzy or ‘Shouting,’ when the Spirit of the Lord passed by, and seizing the  devotee, made him mad with supernatural joy . . . stamping, shrieking, and shouting, the rushing to and fro and waving of arms,  the weeping and laughing, the vision and the trance (p. 116). On another page, Du Bois speaks of . . . the songs of my fathers . . . swelling with song, instinct for life, tremendous treble and darkening bass (p. 163).

Sonata Hymnica No. 6 uses the African call and response form as well  as percussive polyrhythms.

Instrumental Duet,Keyboard - Level 4 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.1497866

Composed by Jenni Roditi. 21st Century,Classical,Contemporary. 24 pages. Jenni Roditi #1074279. Published by Jenni Roditi (A0.1497866).

Piano Duo - 2 pianos/4 hands. Ignite, Between the Octaves began with the impetus of static ‘pulsation’ (its original title) on repeated octaves. The piece is a fizzing dash of nodal vortices, small, then larger, spinning and tumbling and all the way to the finish line. This piece brings the complete suite of 7 pieces to a dynamic close, with a sense of ignition to new beginnings. The music echoes the opening F octaves of Initiate (movement 1). 
Names of all the movements in the suite Between the Octaves in the right order are Initiate, Surrender, Thread, Curve, Encircle, Ritualise, Ignite. The whole suite follows a long line from movement 1 to movement 7. However, individual pieces are well suited to be played alone too. Piano Duo is ideally two Steinway grands, otherwise, whatever is available. An enjoyment of the tensions and relationships generated between the two instruments: grand-upright, upright-electronic keyboard is to be explored as a positive. Each piece creates its own world in the suite and can be part of smaller subgroups taken from the suite, in any combination, but the order of the pieces needs to be maintained if more than one is played. 

Here is a taste of the background to the musical world of this 53 minute compositional suite. During a reflective time I read the following: The whole philosophy of dharma art (Buddhist art) is that you don't try to be artistic, but you just approach objects as they are, and the message comes through automatically. (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, from 'True Perception The Path of Dharma Art.' Shambhala 2008, p.133.) The 'objects as they are' became the 'octaves as they are'. As the pieces were composed the octaves had a centring and clarifying role that allowed other material to circulate around or play against them. They acted as pivots, repetitions, drones, ostinati, pointillist nodes, pedals, melodic features, struts, harmonic turnpikes, breathing spaces, bass lines: musical imperatives. The octaves called the musical shots most of the time. When the music pulled a semitone up or down and away from the octaves (as it did quite often) it was especially telling in the context of the ringing spaces the octaves were creating. I became interested in the subtle dislocation that two pianos could provide. By dislocation I mean a degree of tension between the natural acoustics of the two instruments in the room and the players idiosyncrasies as musicians.  The whole point of this work was to examine the nature of my syntax, grammar, and compositional thinking. The title demanded one thing above all: what notes am I going to use between these octaves?? My choice of notes was derived in most instances from the tempo, pitch, and rhythm of the initial octaves at the beginning of each piece alongside the individual word titles that I set out to explore as musical images. The audio was developed from Sibelius software, via MIDI to Logic samples of a Steinway grand piano. 

Instrumental Duet,Keyboard - Level 4 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.1497857

Composed by Jenni Roditi. 21st Century,Classical,Contemporary. 19 pages. Jenni Roditi #1074269. Published by Jenni Roditi (A0.1497857).

Piano Duo 2 pianos/4 hands. Encircle, Between the Octaves, originally called rotate as its impetus was to generate a steadily rotating music. Encircle was later chosen as a more evocative word. The harmony surprised me as it suggested shifts and colourations that I would not have expected to conjure. Two upper rotating parts with melodic narrative are supported by bass and baritone lower parts. The final section adds a dance-like short form to end what could otherwise have run and run and run. 

Names of all the movements in the suite Between the Octaves in the right order are Initiate, Surrender, Thread, Curve, Encircle, Ritualise, Ignite. The whole suite follows a long line from movement 1 to movement 7. However, individual pieces are well suited to be played alone too. Piano Duo is ideally two Steinway grands, otherwise, whatever is available. An enjoyment of the tensions and relationships generated between the two instruments: grand-upright, upright-electronic keyboard is to be explored as a positive. Each piece creates its own world in the suite and can be part of smaller subgroups taken from the suite, in any combination, but the order of the pieces needs to be maintained if more than one is played. 

Here is a taste of the background to the musical world of this 53 minute compositional suite. During a reflective time I read the following: The whole philosophy of dharma art (Buddhist art) is that you don't try to be artistic, but you just approach objects as they are, and the message comes through automatically. (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, from 'True Perception The Path of Dharma Art.' Shambhala 2008, p.133.) The 'objects as they are' became the 'octaves as they are'. As the pieces were composed the octaves had a centring and clarifying role that allowed other material to circulate around or play against them. They acted as pivots, repetitions, drones, ostinati, pointillist nodes, pedals, melodic features, struts, harmonic turnpikes, breathing spaces, bass lines: musical imperatives. The octaves called the musical shots most of the time. When the music pulled a semitone up or down and away from the octaves (as it did quite often) it was especially telling in the context of the ringing spaces the octaves were creating. I became interested in the subtle dislocation that two pianos could provide. By dislocation I mean a degree of tension between the natural acoustics of the two instruments in the room and the players idiosyncrasies as musicians.  The whole point of this work was to examine the nature of my syntax, grammar, and compositional thinking. The title demanded one thing above all: what notes am I going to use between these octaves?? My choice of notes was derived in most instances from the tempo, pitch, and rhythm of the initial octaves at the beginning of each piece alongside the individual word titles that I set out to explore as musical images. The audio was developed from Sibelius software, via MIDI to Logic samples of a Steinway grand piano. 

Instrumental Duet,Keyboard - Level 4 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.1497861

Composed by Jenni Roditi. 21st Century,Classical,Contemporary. 26 pages. Jenni Roditi #1074273. Published by Jenni Roditi (A0.1497861).

Piano Duo 2 pianos/4 hands. Ritualise, Between the Octaves finally found its identity with the word ritualise. It began as announce, became pronounce, then declare and went as far a pontificate for a title. At that point I realised I was mocking my own music and needed to take it more seriously. Ritualise brought out a meaning to the music that I hadn’t wanted to admit to. It is quite folk-like, in a primal and entrancing kind of way. I can imagine a communal dance for some ceremonial purpose in this music with both public and private elements.
Names of all the movements in the suite Between the Octaves in the right order are Initiate, Surrender, Thread, Curve, Encircle, Ritualise, Ignite. The whole suite follows a long line from movement 1 to movement 7. However, individual pieces are well suited to be played alone too. Piano Duo is ideally two Steinway grands, otherwise, whatever is available. An enjoyment of the tensions and relationships generated between the two instruments: grand-upright, upright-electronic keyboard is to be explored as a positive. Each piece creates its own world in the suite and can be part of smaller subgroups taken from the suite, in any combination, but the order of the pieces needs to be maintained if more than one is played. 

Here is a taste of the background to the musical world of this 53 minute compositional suite. During a reflective time I read the following: The whole philosophy of dharma art (Buddhist art) is that you don't try to be artistic, but you just approach objects as they are, and the message comes through automatically. (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, from 'True Perception The Path of Dharma Art.' Shambhala 2008, p.133.) The 'objects as they are' became the 'octaves as they are'. As the pieces were composed the octaves had a centring and clarifying role that allowed other material to circulate around or play against them. They acted as pivots, repetitions, drones, ostinati, pointillist nodes, pedals, melodic features, struts, harmonic turnpikes, breathing spaces, bass lines: musical imperatives. The octaves called the musical shots most of the time. When the music pulled a semitone up or down and away from the octaves (as it did quite often) it was especially telling in the context of the ringing spaces the octaves were creating. I became interested in the subtle dislocation that two pianos could provide. By dislocation I mean a degree of tension between the natural acoustics of the two instruments in the room and the players idiosyncrasies as musicians.  The whole point of this work was to examine the nature of my syntax, grammar, and compositional thinking. The title demanded one thing above all: what notes am I going to use between these octaves?? My choice of notes was derived in most instances from the tempo, pitch, and rhythm of the initial octaves at the beginning of each piece alongside the individual word titles that I set out to explore as musical images. The audio was developed from Sibelius software, via MIDI to Logic samples of a Steinway grand piano.