From a public recital. An arrangement for piano solo by Vladimir Horowitz of John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" march .

Sousa / Horowitz - Stars & Stripes Forever

From the George Gershwin Songbook. Recorded at a supper club. Playing for my supper. ;) Some friends and I went to a local supper club for dinner. The owner recognised me from one of my recitals and kindly gave me a free dinner. In thanks, I played this for him.

Gershwin - Sweet & Low-Down

An arrangement for piano solo by Carl Tausig of Schubert's Marche Militaire No.1, originally for piano four-hands in D. This Marche Militaire holds for me feelings of utter joy. When I was a child I must have driven my mother to distraction by insisting that we play the duet together several times a day. I am very happy to know this solo version that I can play by myself now that she's gone. I feel her sitting next to me, and it reawakens the childhood delight.

Schubert / Tausig - Marche Militaire No.1 in D flat

The sixth etude from the second set of Etudes Tableaux by Sergei Rachmaninoff, published in 1917. (Played by me.)

Rachmaninoff - Etude Tableau in A Minor, Op.39 No.6

A piano transcription by Clarence Lucas of the pastoral sinfonia from the second cantata in J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio. Recorded Christmas eve morning. Please excuse the quality of the performance -- it's only the second sight-reading.

Bach / Lucas - Sinfonia from the Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248(II)

A sentimental waltz by the Polish American pianist, composer, and teacher, Leopold Godowsky. The title in English means "Old Vienna," and below the title is the inscription "Whose Yesterdays look backwards with a Smile through Tears."

L. Godowsky - Alt Wien

The final movement, marked Precipitato, from Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 7 in B-flat Major, Op. 83, the second of the three "War Sonatas," written in 1939-1944. 

From a public performance.

Prokofiev - the Precipitato movement from Piano Sonata No.7

A keyboard sonata by Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) in E major, Kirkpatrick listing 380 (Longo listing 23). Andante comodo. Played on piano by me.

Domenico Scarlatti - Sonata in E major, K.380

This is the second movement from Schubert's Piano Sonata in A major, D.959, one of the final three sonatas he composed shortly before his death. It was not published until 10 years after he died. 
This second movement is marked Andantino, indicating a somewhat slow tempo. It begins with a poignant, even lamenting melody. The middle section is agitated and relatively harsh. This leads to a brief serene interlude that then returns to the original melody, now transformed to be less nostalgic and more foreboding.

Franz Schubert - 2nd movement from Piano Sonata in A major, D.959

The fifth of Liszt's set of Transcendental Etudes, called Feux Follets, or Will-o'-the-Wisp. It represents the ghostly flashes of light that can sometimes be seen over a marsh at night.

Recorded on a fabulous Fazioli at the showroom.

Liszt - Transcendental Etude No.5, Feux Follets

This is the fourth and last of the Ballades by Frédéric Chopin. Each is a one-movement piece for solo piano. The term "ballade" derives from a form of poetry which tells a dramatic and noble story. The musical ballade is an innovation of Chopin, and it influenced later composers, such as Liszt and Brahms, who wrote ballades of their own.

The structure of a ballade is a variant of sonata form. Two themes are introduced and then developed. Characteristic of the ballade is that near the end, when the themes are restated, they are presented in reverse order from the introduction. In this fourth of Chopin’s Ballades, the two themes are at times intertwined and developed simultaneously, producing a complex counterpoint unique to this ballade. For most of its duration, the fourth Ballade remains melancholic and profound.

This recording is from a public performance presented by me in Glasgow in June of 2009.


Chopin - Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52

Franz Liszt's 4th Transcendental Etude, named "Mazeppa" 

First recording on my new Fazioli F228. 
Too excited to record anything more contemplative. 


Franz Liszt - Transcendental Etude No.4 in D Minor - Mazeppa

Augustus Cull wrote these piano variations on the Star Spangled Banner over 70 years before it became the national anthem of the United States of America.

Augustus Cull - The Star Spangled Banner With Brilliant Variations (1861)

Robert Schumann composed a set of "Symphonic" studies for solo piano, and revised it several times. In the last revision, he had removed several variations on the main theme. After his death, Brahms prepared an edition restoring the deleted variations. This is the fifth and last of these variations. It's one of the most sublimely tranquil pieces by Schumann. It's hard to see why he removed it, and easy to see why Brahms restored it.

Schumann - Symphonic Etudes: Anhang Variation 5

This is the final etude from a set of 12 by Alexander Scriabin. It is probably his most frequently performed piano composition. 

This recording is from a performance of the entire set of etudes on 5 January 2014 in Bristol, England.

Scriabin - Etude in D-sharp minor, Op.8, No.12

Lowell Liebermann - Gargoyles, Op. 29 No. 4

Composed in 1976, Für Alina is one of the earliest of Pärt's works in his tintinnabuli (bell-like) style. No instrumentation, tempo, or expression is indicated in the brief, 2-page score. Here it is performed on piano solo. Its structure is somewhat like a palindrome: the number of notes in each cluster first increases successively from 1 to 8, then decreases back to 2, ending with 3.

Arvo Pärt - Für Alina

Prokofiev arranged for solo piano 10 selections from his orchestral score for the full-length ballet "Romeo and Juliet." This is the final of the ten selections, Romeo and Juliet Before Parting.

From a public performance of the complete set, December, 2013.

Prokofiev - Romeo & Juliet Before Parting

I composed this Barcarolle for my mother when I was eight years old. I played it on Christmas for my grandmother.

Barcarolle (1998)

Chopin - Etude in G-flat major, Op.25 No.9

A set of Scottish dances in E-flat major for piano by Beethoven.

A recording made several years ago.

Beethoven - Écossaises WoO 83

From the second set of Etudes-tableau, marked Appassionato.

Rachmaninoff - Etude Tableau in E-flat minor, Op.39 No.5

Rachmaninoff - Prelude in G minor, Op.23 No.5

This etude is a toccata that moves up and down the keyboard in multiple rhythms and ends with an effect of bells ringing in different pitches and times.

This etude is in my experience the most evocative depiction of a mathematical concept in music. It represents the Cantor function, which is sometimes called the devil’s staircase. The function was devised by Georg Cantor, a 19th-Century German mathematician, to serve as a sort of paradox that confounds naïve mathematical intuition. The intuition is that the mathematical derivative of a function corresponds to the slope of the line in a graph of the function. The Cantor function has a derivative of zero. By the naïve intuition, the value of the function should be constant (that is, have zero change). However, the function is not constant, but increases in value from zero to one across the range of its input, which is also zero to one.

A graph of the Cantor function resembles a series of rising steps, where the depth of each step (the “tread,” as it were) varies from step to step. This resemblance to an uneven set of steps prompted the functions nickname, devil’s staircase. Of course, this nickname conjures up all sorts of non-mathematical allusions, which the music exploits as well.


Ligeti – Etude No. 13: L'escalier du diable (The Devil's Staircase)

Sergei Rachmaninov - Prelude in D major (Andante cantabile), Op.23 No.4

Rachmaninoff - Prelude in D major, Andante cantabile, Op.23 No.4

Leopold Godowsky's free reworking of Jean Philippe Rameau's Tambourin.

Rameau/Godowsky - Tambourin

La Poule (The Hen) from the 5th Suite in the Nouvelles suites de pièces de clavecin by Jean-Philippe Rameau

Rameau - La Poule

The E-major etude from Op.10. It emphasizes legato technique.

Chopin - Etude Op. 10 No. 3

Chopin's Revolutionary Etude, Op.10 No.12.

From a school recital in March, 2006.

Chopin - Etude in C minor, Op. 10, No. 12 "Revolutionary"

Sergei Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G major, Op.32 No.5


Rachmaninoff - Prelude in G major, Op.32 No.5

Alexander Scriabin - Etude in C-sharp minor, Andante, No.1 from 3 Pieces, Op.2

Scriabin - Etude in C-sharp minor, Op.2 No.1

Beethoven - Piano Sonata in E major, No.30, Op.109 [2015]

I.  Vivace ma non troppo - Adagio Espressivo - Tempo I
II. Prestissimo
III. Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung


Beethoven - Piano Sonata in E major, No.30, Op.109

Charles Finnegan was born in the United States, but at the age of four months, he took his family to England where he lived for the next 15 years. After the deaths of his parents in an auto crash, he returned to America to live with his mother's family. At Universities both in the US and in England, he earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry and mathematics and a doctorate in mathematics. Throughout his life he expressed a deep devotion to music, and he became a fine pianist. In July of 2015, after enduring nearly two years that included several surgeries and multiple other treatments for metastatic pancreatic cancer, Charlie died. He was 25 years old.

Charles Finnegan

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