Esther Kahn
Composers' Series, The - Volume 5 Piano Solos (Kahn)
Composers' Series, The - Volume 5 Piano Solos (Kahn)
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Esther Kahn (1877-1962)
23 piano solos from 1894 to 1949 are represented in this collection and includes biographical notes about the composer, editorial and performance notes about each work.
As one of the first music therapists in Australia, Esther Kahn’s music was very successful in the treatment of her patients and as music therapy was fundamentally important to her as a composer it is possible to understand why her compositions have been written in the style in which they exist. The piano works are very formally structured – mostly in a basic ternary form with some of the waltzes in rondo form. They stay within a tonal structure of tonic and dominant keys with the contrasting sections almost always in a dominant or relative major/minor key. The phrases are always of a symmetrical length – either two, four or eight bar structures. As Esther’s pieces were written to be played by a pianist of her, or her students’ technical standard, they are of a medium to challenging level of difficulty without pandering to pedagogical compromises.
Level of difficulty - intermediate to advanced
Researched, edited and performed by Jeanell Carrigan
Volume 5 - Esther Kahn
Download music samples and/or full length sound files, YouTube
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Sample pages of each work
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Improvisata (originally published 1894) https://youtu.be/lMtWmxybL_Q
- Birthday Thoughts (originally published 1894) https://youtu.be/qtrSgsoZPMg
- Intermezzo no. 1 (Morceau de ballet) op. 25 (1906) https://youtu.be/JCSLx6sqaRA
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Xmastide (1910) https://youtu.be/JeVp2woNxVA
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Coronation Waltz (1911) https://youtu.be/oXlq2EhT4Tw
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Day Dreams - a Waltz (1911) https://youtu.be/-VyCmxU8cSw
- Valse de fées (Morceau de salon) https://youtu.be/wwrpuXU2jFg
- Intermezzo no. 2 (Echo) op. 30 https://youtu.be/HRyjSGCZy8A
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Sweet Idleness entr’acte (1913) https://youtu.be/FbD5qLCbSWQ
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Hush Song (1914) https://youtu.be/JQEGr3FQsRE
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Barcarolle (1914) https://youtu.be/Tys_ek8SRH0
- En avant. Marche Militaire https://youtu.be/7hhP7IW4_fU
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Powder and Patches Gavotte (1919) https://youtu.be/ObVLY1Y8oNQ
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Valse Brillantè in E Major (1921) https://youtu.be/MYCr85hxUWg
- The Watermill (1922)
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Spring Song (1924) https://youtu.be/Et4Rj-jmQsI
- Memories of Youth: Five graded piano solos (1936)
- Minnows
- A Half Holiday
- Hide and Seek
- Columbine
- ‘Midst Heather and Wattle (1949)
- Slumberland – Josef Kretschmann (arr. Esther Kahn) https://youtu.be/bFQ5f797Pl8
- A Mozart Impression
ISMN 9790720227405
$35.00 for instant PDF download
As part of 'The Composer's Series' many of these works have been performed by Jeanell Carrigan on a CDs: Nostalgia (Wirr080); Forest Magic (Wirr109)