Maria Rose Rechner is an Ottawa based pianist and composer.  She released her first album Reflections and companion sheet music book of her original compositions in April 2024. https://mariaroserechner.hearnow.com


Maria Rose Rechner, Hope

Maria Rose Rechner is an Ottawa based pianist and composer.  She released her first album Reflections and companion sheet music book of her original compositions in April 2024. https://mariaroserechner.hearnow.com

Maria Rose Rechner, Hannah Grace Waltz

This is perhaps the most popular piano transcription of Bach’s well known chorale, by English pianist Myra Hess.

J.S. Bach/Hess, Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

Prince Igor is an opera in written by Russian composer Alexander Borodin.  The opera was left unfinished upon his death in 1887 and was edited and completed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov.   It was first performed in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1890.  This piece is from the Act 2 Polovtsian Dances, where maidens sing comparing love to a flower that droops in the heat of the day and is revived by night.  This piano transcription is by Russian composer, pianist and conductor Felix Blumenfeld.

Alexander Borodin/Blumenfeld, Polovtsian Dance from Prince Igor

This is my favourite from Bach’s English Suite No. 3 in G Minor,  believed to have been composed around 1714. I recently learned that a "Musette" is both a dance form and baroque musical instrument ... a small, elegant bagpipe that was fashionable in French court circles. There is typically a G bass note and a G major resonance to the pastoral melody. It provides a nice contrast with the Gavotte sections.

J.S. Bach, Gavotte and Musette from English Suite No. 3

Mazurka refers to one of the traditional Polish dances.  Frédéric Chopin composed this piece when he was just 17 years old. It was not published until 1855, after he had passed. Even as an early work, it demonstrates all the charm of his later compositions.

Chopin, Mazurka in A Minor, Op. 68 No. 2

In my humble opinion, Bach fugues are one of the wonders of the world. This is the first two pages of a piece originally composed for organ, that was later transcribed for piano by Franz Liszt.

J.S. Bach, Opening of Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543

Bach's Two- Part Inventions are a collection of fifteen short keyboard works originally composed for his eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann, and later rewritten as musical exercises for his students. The pieces are arranged in order of ascending key, covering eight major and seven minor keys. Each has two simultaneous musical lines that are harmonically interdependent, yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. They are all quite lovely and fun to perform.

J.S. Bach, Two-Part Invention in B Flat Major

Francisco Tárrega (1852 – 1909) was a Spanish composer and classical guitarist. Memories of the Alhambra requires a tremolo technique and this interpretation has been beautifully transcribed for piano by Debbie Center.

Francisco Tárrega, Recuerdos de la Alhambra

Franz Schubert's Impromptus are a series of eight masterworks for solo piano composed in 1827, the year before he died. It’s amazing to me, that there were so many original compositions towards the end, as if he knew that he was running out of time.

Schubert, Impromptu Op. 90 No. 1

This arrangement includes a piano transcription of the orchestral accompaniment to the solo piano part.

Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 23, K.488 Adagio

This a beautiful piano transcription by Wilhelm Kempff (1895 – 1991) ... German pianist, teacher and composer who was also well known for his transcriptions of works by J. S. Bach.

J.S. Bach/Kempff, Siciliano from Flute Sonata No. 2, BWV 1031

Composed in 1890, Debussy's Reverie was one of his first solo piano works that caught people’s attention. The gently repetitive theme feels like gradually descending into a dream-world.

Debussy, Reverie

This is perhaps Chopin’s best-known Nocturne and often regarded as his most famous piece, composed when he was just twenty years old. The Op. 9 set of three nocturnes was first published in 1832.

Chopin, Nocturne in E Flat Major, Op. 9 No. 2

I am an amateur pianist with an ongoing passion for this musical instrument.  These are some favourite pieces, performed on a Yamaha Disklavier grand piano.

DavidR

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