Johann Sebastian Bach is more or less the alpha and omega of piano playing: there is hardly a piano pupil who did not start off with his little preludes or his inventions. And almost all pianists regard his Well-tempered Clavier as an unsurpassed highpoint in the history of piano music

Of the twelve composers in our series “At the piano”, Franz Schubert was undoubtedly the least at home at the piano – but nevertheless what masterpieces he left us for this instrument! There is hardly any pianist who is not immediately captivated by the cheerful yet melancholy atmosphere of Schubert’s impromptus and Moments musicaux

This volume opens with especially easy minuets written by Mozart when he was just eight years old. A successful mix of well-known and unusual pieces leads the player all the way to the profound Fantasy in d minor

Franz Liszt is still regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time: a superb virtuoso whose own piano works also bristle with extreme technical difficulties. But no one needs to be afraid of big names

Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas are the “New Testament” of music, according to Hans von Bülow. Our selection here does not take things quite so solemnly, because we have also taken the opportunity to show the more “worldly” side of the composer, with dances, bagatelles, the unusual character piece “Lustig und traurig” (“Happy and sad”), and of course the indestructible “Für Elise”. As usual in our series “At the piano”, all the pieces are arranged progressively from easy to medium level of difficul

Brahms’s music does not have to be difficult or melancholy – our selection here proves it. Even less advanced pianists will find playable, immediately appealing pieces amongst his works for piano.

You do not need to be a piano virtuoso to enter into the dream world of French Impressionism. With Debussy this is especially straightforward because he knows how to create masterly miniatures possessing poetic depth, even with simple technical means

Although Frédéric Chopin was one of the greatest piano virtuosos of his time, even pianists of moderate technical ability can enter into his Romantic, magical realm