Pianist

For the passionate players, or early beginners, Pianist magazine will teach you the art of piano playing through professional advice, sheet music and lessons for all levels. Your piano playing journey starts here with the magazine that doubles as an entertaining read and the ultimate interactive piano teacher. Read, learn and play the piano with Pianist magazine every issue. Improve your piano playing and perfect your tone with 40 pages of specially selected sheet music. Whether it’s reading fascinating industry articles or putting your fingers to work with beautiful sheet music, you’ll be playing like an expert in no time with a digital subscription to Pianist magazine!

When life comes at you hard

Your chance to HAVE YOUR SAY

TURNING POINT • As Covid lockdown ended, Yevgeny Sudbin found himself facing a fearsome personal crisis. He talks to Jessica Duchen about his darkest moments and how he emerged – with a little help from his equally gifted pianist daughter Bella – out of the shadows

The Pianist's perfect place

A life less ordinary • Alice Sara Ott started out as most protégés do: lessons at four, big competition win at five, and a major record-label contract at nineteen. Now, as Jessica Duchen discovers, she’s broken the ‘classical musician’ mould and she’s enjoying every minute

THE POWER OF THREE SPOTLIGHT ON THE THIRD FINGER • Concentrated practice on the ‘weaker’ fingers can mean that the faithful middle is often overlooked: there’s much that this versatile third digit can do, explains Mark Tanner

Third finger forward • Mark Tanner’s advice for embracing the middle digit in three of this issue’s scores

SOLVING RHYTHM PROBLEMS • A sudden change of rhythm – even if just an odd-looking cluster of notes within a bar – can derail the flow of the music: Graham Fitch aims to keep you on track

FÉLIX DUMONT • This jovial Austrian hunting song will benefit from even articulation and rhythmic drive, says Melanie Spanswick

RACHMANINOV • A relatively ‘simple’ piece by Rachmaninov? Bring it on! Subtleties abound within its brief 16 bars, however, as Nils Franke explains

BRAHMS • Marked Allegro energico, this popular work has the tendency to be played a little too brutally. Lucy Parham suggests a more majestic approach

HANDLE PIANOS LTD

BEGINNERS KEYBOARD CLASS

Louis KÖHLER (1820-1886)

Melanie SPANSWICK

Félix DUMONT (1832-1917)

Vladimir REBIKOV (1866-1920)

Sergei RACHMANINOV (1873-1943)

Charles-Valentin ALKAN (1813-1888)

Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)

Robert Nathaniel DETT (1882-1943)

Baldassare GALUPPI (1706-1785)

George Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759)

Arthur FOOTE (1853-1937)

Mikhail GLINKA (1804-1857)

Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)

THE POWER OF MUSIC • As the American pianist Roger Peltzman brings his one-man play Dedication to London, he talks to Erica Worth about how his own mother’s traumatic past has made him a better pianist

AURAL TRAINING • Do we really need to work on our aural skills when there are so many other things to get done during precious practice time? There’s no escaping the benefits, says Matt Ash, who offers up some handy learning tools to boot

MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK… • The world record for most pianists at one keyboard is 88. If you don’t fancy finding 87 other players to join you for a tinkle, you might try with just another two or three. Music for six or eight hands is a whole world of fun, even if there are some surprising drawbacks, as Warwick Thompson discovers

LOOKING AFTER YOUR EARS • Our ears are as equally precious as our hands – so why do we often overlook the damage we may incur on them? John Thwaites tells us to be...