Piano Music and Song

Brahms wrote much lovely piano music. His early piano solos tend to be long and technically very difficult, while his later ones are shorter and often of a poetic, reflective nature. Moussorgsky's 'Pictures from an Exhibition', which was later orchestrated by Ravel is often plaved in its original piano version, and Franck's 'Prelude, Chorale and Fugue', and 'Prelude, Aria and Finale' are two large, cyclic works in which themes from one movement are used in another.  Grieg's piano music is slighter, and much of it is playable by the average amateur.  

    Brahms again heads the list as a song writer, with his hundreds of songs of all types, ranging from his well-known children’s songs and arrangements of folk songs to his poetic Settings of 'To a Nightingale', 'In Summer Fields' and 'Faint and fainter is my Slumber'.  Another great German Lieder writer of this period is Hugo Wolf His many finely constructed songs are romantically imaginative, and very difficult both to play and sing.  Although he wrote other works, he is known solely as a songwriter.  Moussorgsky, Dvorak and Grieg’s also wrote a number of fine songs, in most cases characteristic of their native country.