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Feeling stressed? Need to unwind? Then how about some gentle relaxing music for you to ease into. Come and join me as your host, James Quinn as I take you through some wonderful music as I play for you on my own piano ranging from Bach, Mozart, Chopin and more.
In this second episode of Series 1, I play some music by Mendelssohn, Liszt, MacDowell, Rachmaninoff and Wangha Chu.
Relaxing Piano Playlist Series 1
EPISODE 2
James Quinn 00:29
Hello and welcome to Episode 2 of the Relaxing Piano Playlist with your host James Quinn here at the piano, thank you very much for joining me. In this episode you will hear a number of pieces ranging from a wide variety of composers, ranging from the Romantic and the 20th century periods.
We start with a short work by the composer Felix Mendelssohn and the piece you will hear will be from his Songs Without Words, which in itself is a large collection of pieces, which he wrote and published into 8 separate books of these, all of them unique from each other ranging in both tonality, tempo and characterisation. In this very first offering you’ll hear No.4 in D Major, which comes from his seventh book which he published as Opus 85.
The next piece comes from the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt another new composer to the series. He was the inventor of the solo piano recital format as we know it today and was one of the most acclaimed virtuosos of the Romantic century. As we often know his music to be generally quite fast and loud, he does offer a more intimate and reflective sound in a number of his piano pieces. To demonstrate this you will hear a short work of his, his Consolation Number 3 in D Flat, of which he wrote 6 of these in total.
The next piece comes from another new composer in the form of the American Edward MacDowell. MacDowell was one of the country’s leading Romantic composers, who wrote exclusively for the piano, and even composed two piano concertos, and four Piano Sonatas. He is often known for his miniature piano works which were influenced by both nature and characters. To illustrate this, you’ll hear a short piece entitled To A Water Lily, which comes from his Woodland Sketches which he published as Opus 51.
Afterwards we go to another new composer, and one of my personal favourites, Sergei Rachmaninoff. Much like Liszt before him, Rachmaninoff was quite an dominating figure and wrote some of the most celebrated piano music which remains popular to this day, consisting of four piano concertos, the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and many other orchestral, choral and songs. He was very technically gifted and had quite a gift for writing very profound and colourful melodies with lush harmonies. To give you an idea of this, I will play for you his his fourth prelude in D Major which comes from his first set of 10 Preludes which he published as Opus 23.
Finally to finish off we have a very special piece, which comes from a Chinese composer by the name of Wangha Chu, and the piece is simply called Love Song, which is one of his two folksongs that he composed. The melody derives itself from a place called Kangding located in the Sichuan province of China. The composer is well noted for combining both Western and Far East tonalities in his piano compositions.
So to recap, here is the order just once more: Mendelssohn’s Song’s Without Words No.4 from Opus 85, Liszt’s Consolation in D Flat, MacDowell’s To A Water Lily from his Woodland Sketches, Rachmaninoff’s Prelude No.4 from Opus 23 and finally the Love Song by Wangha Chu.
So sit back, relax, and I hope you all enjoy the music. Thank you.