piano-piece

Updated: May 6, 2025

For half a century we have had so much pioneering and scientific exploration after piano color and tenderness and fire, that men have neglected its might and its tragic powers. Where is the piano-piece since Beethoven that has the depth, the breadth, the height of this huge solemnity? Chopin's sensuous wailing does not afford it. Schumann's complex eccentricities have not given it out.

Rupert Hughes - Contemporary American Composers: Being a Study of the Music of This Country, Its Present: Conditions and Its Future, with Critical Estimates and: Biographies of the Principal Living Composers; and an: Abundance of Portraits, Fac-simile Musical Autographs, and: Compositions

And there is much besides that Ravel and Debussy have in common. They have each been profoundly influenced by Russian music, "Daphnis et Chloé" showing the influence of Borodin, "Pelléas et Mélisande" that of Moussorgsky. Both have made wide discoveries in the field of harmony. Both have felt the power of outlying and exotic modes. Both have been profoundly impressed by the artistic currents of the Paris about them. Both, like so many other French musicians, have been kindled by the bright colors of Spain, Ravel in his orchestral Rhapsody, in his one-act opera "L'Heure espagnol" and in the piano-piece in the collection "Miroirs" entitled "Alborada del Graciozo," Debussy in "Ibéria" and in some of his preludes. Indeed, a parallelism exists throughout their respective works. Debussy writes "Homage

Paul Rosenfeld - Musical Portraits: Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers