Uploaded January 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
I am playing a composition by Japanese composer Mayumi Kato. There can be not much found about her but the most important thing we know is: Her style is distinct and beautiful, her pieces often challenging. She manages to transport nostalgia and playfulness at the same time. I also like how her Japanese descent is transported through her style. Her music is truly full of life and beauty.
Her pieces were made popular by Pianist Paul Barton:
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzSEchvesNHaGbDmXIpOwqnGdy4i6QsQw&si=DatOFMkwo6nOLjiw
In the descriptions you will also find links to download her sheet music. Thank you, Mayumi, for providing the world so generously with your music and art.
More pieces from Japanese composers:
Mayumi Kato: Winter Waltz: youtu.be/o9vJm-CK604
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence: youtu.be/ei58w2w9NUc
Sonata for Flute and Piano: youtu.be/ZufC84gIWnw
Ondo no Funauta: youtu.be/n8sXJIOtsA8
#piano #mayumikato #changethestory
I am playing a composition by Japanese composer Mayumi Kato. There can be not much found about her but the most important thing we know is: Her style is distinct and beautiful, her pieces often challenging. She manages to transport nostalgia and playfulness at the same time. I also like how her Japanese descent is transported through her style. Her music is truly full of life and beauty.
Her pieces were made popular by Pianist Paul Barton:
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzSEchvesNHaGbDmXIpOwqnGdy4i6QsQw&si=DatOFMkwo6nOLjiw
In the descriptions you will also find links to download her sheet music. Thank you, Mayumi, for providing the world so generously with your music and art.
More pieces from Japanese composers:
Mayumi Kato: Winter Waltz: youtu.be/o9vJm-CK604
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence: youtu.be/ei58w2w9NUc
Sonata for Flute and Piano: youtu.be/ZufC84gIWnw
Ondo no Funauta: youtu.be/n8sXJIOtsA8
#piano #mayumikato #changethestory

![Sandra Labsch: Waves [Easy beautiful piano cover]
”Waves“ (Wellen”) by Sandra Labsch is one of my go-to pieces when teaching my students their first beautiful early intermediate piano pieces. In this piece you can learn a lot about chords, pedal use and the distinction between melody and accompaniment.
Sandra Labsch is a German piano pedagogue based in Mannheim. She publishes her works on her YouTube Channel ”ZauberKlavier” (eng. MagicPiano): https://www.youtube.com/c/ZauberKlavierSandraLabsch
Buy sheet music of her:
https://www.zauberklavier.de/erschienene-noten/sandra-labsch-12-zauberhafte-monate-hoerbei
More early intermediate piano pieces to impress:
Summer Nights Dream: https://youtu.be/itgujC74axE
Angel‘s Voices: https://youtu.be/GrrCx4gugao
From foreign lands and people: https://youtu.be/UwNpGalZHOM
#piano #waves Sandra Labsch: Waves [Easy beautiful piano cover]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sFJSvMTQla8/mqdefault.jpg)



![USA National Anthem (Star Spangled Banner) Piano Instrumental Cover
I am playing the National Anthem of the USA (Star Spangled Banner) as an Instrumental Piano Cover.
More anthems:
Germany: https://youtu.be/0p98WvNN3qI
Japan: https://youtu.be/tN6OsfMNADU
The Star-Spangled Banner is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from the Defence of Fort MHenry, a poem written on September 14, 1814, by 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by British ships of the Royal Navy in Outer Baltimore Harbor in the Patapsco River during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812. Key was inspired by the large U.S. flag, with 15 stars and 15 stripes, known as the Star-Spangled Banner, flying triumphantly above the fort during the U.S. victory.
The poem was set to the tune of a popular British song written by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society, a mens social club in London. To Anacreon in Heaven (or The Anacreontic Song), with various lyrics, was already popular in the United States. This setting, renamed The Star-Spangled Banner, soon became a well-known U.S. patriotic song. With a range of 19 semitones, it is known for being very difficult to sing, in part because the melody sung today is the soprano part. Although the poem has four stanzas, only the first is commonly sung today.
The Star-Spangled Banner was first recognized for official use by the U.S. Navy in 1889. On March 3, 1931, the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution (46 Stat. 1508) making the song the official national anthem of the United States, which President Herbert Hoover signed into law. The resolution is now codified at 36 U.S.C. § 301(a).
The United States of America (USA or U.S.A.), commonly known as the United States (US or U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America, between Canada and Mexico. It is a federation of 50 states, a federal capital district (Washington, D.C.), and 326 Indian reservations. Outside the union of states, it asserts sovereignty over five major unincorporated island territories and various uninhabited islands.[j] The country has the worlds third-largest land area, largest maritime exclusive economic zone, and the third-largest population, exceeding 334 million.
Paleo-Indians migrated across the Bering land bridge more than 12,000 years ago. British colonization led to the first settlement of the Thirteen Colonies in Virginia in 1607. Clashes with the British Crown over taxation and political representation sparked the American Revolution, with the Second Continental Congress formally declaring independence on July 4, 1776. Following its victory in the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), the country continued to expand across North America. As more states were admitted, sectional division over slavery led to the secession of the Confederate States of America, which fought the remaining states of the Union during the 1861–1865 American Civil War. With the Unions victory and preservation, slavery was abolished nationally. By 1890, the United States had become the worlds largest economy and established itself as a great power. After Japans attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. entered World War II. The aftermath of the war left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as the worlds two superpowers and led to the Cold War, during which both countries engaged in a struggle for ideological dominance and international influence. Following the Soviet Unions collapse and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the U.S. emerged as the worlds sole superpower.
The U.S. national government is a presidential constitutional republic and liberal democracy with three separate branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. It has a bicameral national legislature composed of the House of Representatives, a lower house based on population; and the Senate, an upper house based on equal representation for each state. Substantial autonomy is given to states and several territories, with a political culture that emphasizes liberty, equality under the law, individualism, and limited government.
One of the most developed countries, the United States has had the largest nominal GDP in the world since 1890 and accounted for over 25% of the global economy (15% based on PPP) in 2023. It possesses by far the largest amount of wealth of any country and the highest median income per capita of any non-microstate. The U.S. ranks among the worlds highest in economic competitiveness, productivity, innovation, human rights, and higher education. Its hard power and cultural influence have a global reach. The U.S. is a founding member of the World Bank, IMF, Organization of American States, NATO, Quad, World Health Organization, and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. USA National Anthem (Star Spangled Banner) Piano Instrumental Cover](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sg7aM16rbeA/mqdefault.jpg)


![Maurice Ravel, Pavane pour une infante défunte
Please enjoy my performance of ”Pavane pour une infante défunte“. This piece is an early work by one of the main masters of Impressionism Maurice Ravel.
Actually I came across this piece some months ago through a brilliant analysis of the piece by Pianist Henrik Kilhamn: https://youtu.be/kBS8e_GMkFM
Though the piece has a slow pace there are passages which are challenging. Very wide spread chords and melody and accompaniment in the right hand which have to be clearly distinguished. There are some more works by Ravel on my bucket list which I hope to post in the future.
My mic in this recording: https://amzn.to/3O9h6b5
Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess) is a work for solo piano by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), written in 1899 while the French composer was studying at the Conservatoire de Paris under Gabriel Fauré. Ravel published an orchestral version in 1910 using two flutes, an oboe, two clarinets (in B♭), two bassoons, two horns, harp, and strings.
History
Ravel described the piece as an evocation of a pavane that a little princess might, in former times, have danced at the Spanish court.The pavane was a slow processional dance that enjoyed great popularity in the courts of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
This antique miniature is not meant to pay tribute to any particular princess from history, but rather expresses a nostalgic enthusiasm for Spanish customs and sensibilities, which Ravel shared with many of his contemporaries (most notably Debussy and Albéniz) and which is evident in some of his other works such as the Rapsodie espagnole and the Boléro.
Ravel dedicated the Pavane to his patron, the Princesse de Polignac, and he probably performed the work at the princesss home on several occasions. It was first published by Eugène Demets in 1900, but it attracted little attention until the Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes gave the first performance on 5 April 1902. The work soon became very popular, although Ravel came to think of it as poor in form and unduly influenced by the music of Chabrier.
Ravel intended the piece to be played extremely slowly – more slowly than almost any modern interpretation, according to his biographer Benjamin Ivry. The critic Émile Vuillermoz complained that Ravels playing of the work was unutterably slow. However, the composer was not impressed by interpretations that plodded. After a performance by Charles Oulmont, Ravel mentioned to him that the piece was called Pavane for a dead princess, not dead pavane for a princess. When asked by the composer-conductor Manoah Leide-Tedesco how he arrived at the title Pavane pour une infante défunte, Ravel smiled coyly and replied, Do not be surprised, that title has nothing to do with the composition. I simply liked the sound of those words and I put them there, cest tout.[8] But Ravel also stated that the piece depicted a pavane as it would be danced by an Infanta found in a painting by Diego Velázquez.
When Ravel published his orchestrated version of the Pavane in 1910, he gave the lead melody to the horn, and specified a non-generic instrument: the score calls for 2 Cors simples en sol (two hand-horns in G).The teaching of the valveless hand-horn had persisted longer in the Paris Conservatory than in other European centers; only in 1903 had the valve horn replaced it as the official horn of primary instruction. The orchestral score was published in 1910. The premiere was given on 27 February 1911 in Manchester, England, conducted by Sir Henry Wood. Reviewing the concert, the critic Samuel Langford called the work most beautiful and added, The piece is hardly representative of the composer, with whom elusive harmonies woven in rapid figuration are the usual medium of expression. In the Pavane we get normal, almost archaic harmonies, subdued expression, and a somewhat remote beauty of melody.
The first gramophone recording[clarification needed] of the Pavane was made in 1921 in Paris. A later recording, made in Paris in 1932 is sometimes thought to have been conducted by the composer, but was actually conducted by Pedro de Freitas Branco, under the supervision of Ravel, who was present at rehearsal and the recording session.
Ravel himself made a piano roll recording of the piece in 1922. (His performance is approximately five minutes and forty seconds in length.)
Please leave a comment. I appreciate the interaction with you and enjoy mutual inspiration. Wishing you the best!
#RavelPavane #PavanePourUneInfanteDefunte #PavaneForADeadPrincess Maurice Ravel, Pavane pour une infante défunte](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/teyADvSvGWE/mqdefault.jpg)

