Ernst-Günter Heinemann

Debussy had originally planned the work with the Suite bergamasque (HN 381) in mind, but then published it separately in October 1904, with good reason. He was so taken with the brilliance and inventi...

'Have you played the Images ...? Without undue vanity, I believe that these three pieces can hold their own and will assume a place in the piano literature ... to the left of Schumann or to the right...

The cycle with three movements, composed at the end of 1907 and published at the beginning of the next year, contains a singular innovation: Debussy notated the highly differentiated piano part that g...

Debussy composed this cycle, and other masterful late works, in the summer of 1915. He had withdrawn to a country house near Dieppe with his family and composed with fevered concentration. The self-cr...

Debussy's early piano piece Tarentelle styrienne was published by Choudens in 1891. In 1903 the composer had it reissued under the new title Danse, with a few small revisions, by Fromont, with whom he...

Around 1900 Debussy composed 12 short pieces for two flutes, two harps and celesta as incidental music for the Chansons de Bilitis (recitation of ancient Greek poems by the courtesan Bilitis) by Pierr...

Debussy occasionally reacted to musical trends in his compositions, as was the case with American ragtime. Aside from Golliwogg's Cakewalk, in Children's Corner (HN 382), The little Negro is even toda...

The work was originally intended as part of the Suite bergamasque (HN 381), like L'Isle joyeuse (HN 386). Yet in the end Debussy chose other pieces for the Suite, and published Masques and L'Isle joye...

Between the years 1880-1882 Debussy occasionally accompanied Nadescha von Meck, Tchaikovsky's patroness, on journeys, also working as her house pianist. At the beginning of 1881 she thanked Debussy fo...

Around 1900 Debussy composed 12 short pieces for two flutes, two harps and celesta as incidental music for the Chansons de Bilitis (recitation of ancient Greek poems by the courtesan Bilitis) by Pierr...

César Franck's last piano work was published in 1888, two years before his death. The fact that this cycle did not enjoy the success of the Prélude, Choral et Fugue is hard to believe, given the expre...

Franck wrote almost all of his important works in his later years. This almost 20-minute-long cycle from 1884 is his best-known piano composition and is often played on concert platforms to this day....

The op. 7 Sonata was Grieg's first major piano work. While traditional in form and structure, its originality is expressed through the incorporation of elements from Scandinavian dances and folk tunes...

The 'Little Lyrical Pieces' - which is how the title still reads in the earliest editions - rank among Grieg's most popular works. He had just turned 24 when these delightful and easily playable minia...

Grieg's second book of Lyric Pieces was published 16 years after its predecessor, but immediately reprised the huge success of the former collection. Interestingly enough, the original title pages of...

This single edition - it is number 10 in the first volume of the Préludes (HN 383) of 1910 - shows the extent of Debussy's imagination as he conjures up the old city of Ys that has sunk into the sea....

The extraordinary popularity of the first two books of Lyric Pieces (opp. 12 and 38) was interpreted differently by Grieg and his publisher. Whereas Grieg would have liked to call his third book 'Spri...

Grieg's successful series of Lyric Pieces reaches a unique climax in the eighth book. After the publisher almost had to force him - Grieg was at the point of becoming tired of composing Lyric Pieces -...

Liszt's 'Transcendental Studies' of 1852 are without doubt among the triumphs of virtuoso piano music, and their visionary language and poetic expression make them a milestone of the romantic age. Thi...

Liszt's Funérailles is a broadly conceived, virtuoso funeral march that has found a permanent place in the repertoire of all great pianists while remaining within the reach of talented amateurs. This...

None other than András Schiff is collaborating with Henle Publishers for the edition of Mozart's piano concertos. His piano reductions are aimed at amateurs rather than professionals; his fingerings f...

This work only has the title in common with the well-known 'Images” I and II from 1905 and 1908. Debussy dedicated the three-part cycle to the daughter of a painter friend, writing: 'These pieces shy...

Liszt's piano cycle 'Harmonies poétiques et religieuses' (HN 639) was inspired by religious-philosophical poems of the French Romantic Alphonse de Lamartine. Whereas the cycle as a whole remained comp...

J. S. Bach's three gamba sonatas belong among the core repertoire of this low string instrument. They hark back to other works of his that were originally for different performing forces. What they al...

Edvard Grieg's only Cello Sonata remains one of the best kept secrets among cellists. Grieg wrote it for his brother John, an accomplished player of the instrument. Though not a string player himself,...