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We are pleased to announce our new publications in July 2021.

Ernest Chausson: Sonate pour piano
“Sonate pour piano” was composed by the French composer Ernest Chausson the year after he entered the Paris Conservatoire.  For many years the manuscript of this work was in the possession of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, but for some reason it has never been published. For this publication, Masanori Enoki, a composer, pianist and graduate of the Paris Conservatoire, has revised and commented on this work. This work is strongly influenced by Beethoven and Schubert, and has a very different expression to Chausson’s music as we know today. The theme of the third movement is also used in his clarinet and piano work “Andante et Allegro”.

Richard/Strauss: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Concert Transcription for piano)
The German-born French pianist Édouard Risler arranged Richard Strauss’s late 19th century symphonic poem “Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche” for solo piano. The leading French pianist of the time, Alfred Denis Cortot, was also greatly influenced by Risler. The works of Richard Strauss could not be published in Europe until 2020 due to copyright laws. When the Italian pianist and composer Francesco Libetta performed this arrangement at the Festival de La Roque-d’Anthéron, many people became aware of its existence and demanded its publication. This edition includes a commentary not only by Libetta but also by Dan Sato.

Excerpt from the foreword by Francesco Libetta
The path of his musical life is well-recognizable in the piano version of the score of Till Eulenspiegel. In Risler’s version, the intricate polyphony in Strauss’ score is meticulously reproduced on the keyboard, presupposing in the performer an extraordinary technique of digital independence. The sound masses are practically never recreated through the means of the piano’s free resonances; the octaves are intended to be very rapid, Saint-Saëns style (in fact, Risler also transcribed for two pianos some of his Études). Finding the indispensable timbral colors thus becomes an inordinately demanding task. If the sound masses heard in the orchestral version cannot rely on long piano pedals, which would prevent the necessary polyphonic clarity, the resulting demand for every single finger must be extreme. The number of notes to be played very quickly could force even the most experienced pianists to slow down tempi unnaturally. Moreover, Risler often prescribes large and risky leaps that are fundamental to the understanding of the harmonic discourse, and such gestures cannot be performed with prudence (that is, by slowing down) without the expression or the musical atmosphere being deeply suffocated. For the music’s full potential to be heard and understood, Risler’s transcription requires, in short, such cold-bloodedness and control of every musical parameter that, as is evident, generations of virtuosi have kept away from it. Risler’s manuscript was never published; annotated in pencil, with afterthoughts and corrections, it sat on the shelves of the National Library of France in Paris, protected by the rights on Strauss’ compositions, and remained a legend.

Walter Gieseking: Chaconne (über ein Thema von Scarlatti)
Walter Gieseking’s Chaconne on a Theme by Scarlatti was composed on board the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft’s ship “New York”, which Gieseking used on his tour from Germany to the North American continent. The German pianist Joseph Moog has recently released a CD containing this work on Onyx, but the score has only been privately published by Pelisorious Editions in Portland, Oregon. This edition has been carefully revised and annotated by the musicologist Satoru Takaku, and is now officially published. Due to copyright reasons, this work can only be shipped to certain countries.

Saburo Moroi: Piano Sonata C-major No. 1, Op. 5
We have been publishing the works of Saburo Moroi continuously for several years, and now we are pleased to add the Piano Sonata C-major No. 1 Op. 5 to our catalogue. Saburo Moroi wrote about ten piano sonatas, and according to the new work numbering system which he later adopted, this work is listed as “Op. 5”. There are only two piano sonatas that appear within the new opus numbering system, including this one. The sonata was composed during his studies in Berlin. It takes about half an hour to perform and was the longest piano sonata written by a Japanese composer at the time.

For the last few months all mail has been delayed in connection with COVID-19, especially international one. We have received very strong complaints from some customers regarding this every day. Although we truly understand the frustration of not receiving the products you purchased, we would like to inform you that we are not responsible for this issue nor are we able to fix it completely.

Nevertheless, we have been working hard to improve the situation. For example, we send the items as soon as possible after receiving your order. In addition, we have considered various mailing methods for mailing to countries where the delivery of Japan Post has been suspended, and now we are sending goods by UPS. However, there is a delay with UPS as well. According to the representative of UPS it may take several months before the goods arrive. (of course, it depends on the country). Therefore, we would like each customer to be aware of the delay before purchasing the scores. Otherwise, please consider purchasing the PDF versions or purchasing after the mail system has been restored.

We would like to thank all the customers who have purchased scores from us especially in this difficult situation. We will continue to do our best to provide quality scores.

We are so happy to announce that we finally agreed with a Japanese representative of American UPS. Since now we can ship orders to once unavailable countries as the USA, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, China, New Zealand, etc. It means that most of our customers can receive your orders. But significant delays occur yet; our local representative, Yamato Express, says it takes a few months because of insufficient cargo capacity.

UPS is an American logistics service who covers the worldwide area. Under the emergency state, UPS is selected by the government as one of the essential services who should continue their services. If you want to know how they are responding to COVID-19, see below:
https://www.ups.com/us/en/about/news/important-updates.page?

Dear customers,

we are so embarrassed to inform you all that the Japanese postal office will suspend temporarily their acceptance and delivery of items to some country including Italy, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Russia, and China(except Hongkong) because of COVID-19. And SAL and e-packet will be unavailable from all countries. These measures take effect from the 2nd of April. If you order mistakenly from these countries, we will refund you. We’ll let you know when they restart the international deliveries. We hope you and your relatives are well. For details, see the link below.

https://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/information/2020/0401_02_en.html

We are now preparing the publication of sheet music in Digital format.

Our latest publications include 3 works by Kishio Hirao(1907-1953), a Japanese composer of the pre-WW2 era. He is also known as a translator of Messiaen’s “Technique de mon language musical”. He studied at Scola Cantorum in France under Vincent D’Indy before WW2. Some works are published by Alphonse Leduc in France, but he couldn’t see them; he died at the age of 46. Very eminent talent in his generation.

-Sonate pour piano (revised version in 1951)
His sonate, one of the masterpieces of Japanese composer, illustrates a fusion of both European and Japanese sonority. 2 years before his premature death, he revised it and it has been unpublished.
https://muse-press.com/en/item/mp02302/

-Sonatine for piano (1951)
Rarely found item. It is appeared in his writings “Let’s compose together – our own music”, but totally forgotten. The manuscript is rescued from a trash can by the composer’s daughter, Haruna Hirao, pianist.
https://muse-press.com/en/item/mp02301/

-Variations on the theme of “Kōjō no Tsuki” for flute(or Okuralo), voice and piano
Short variations based on a very famous Japanese song melody. Okuralo is a flute-like instrument with a hint of the timbre of Shakuhachi, Japanese woodwind made of bamboo, and is innovated by a Japanese entrepreneur, Jirokichi Okura. Unpublished.
https://muse-press.com/en/item/mp02303/

The British pianist Mark Viner has written a piano transcription of Chorus of Hebrew Slaves from the Opera Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi. Muse Press will publish the transcription on 2nd of July through our webshop.

The transcriber Mark Viner described his transcription as follows:

The motivation for writing this transcription came not only from an ardent love of Verdi’s immortal original, but the fact that there is a striking absence of any substantial arrangement of it in the piano literature; a circumstance curious to relate considering the universal popularity of the work during an especially fertile era of pianist-composers parading newly-minted transcriptions, paraphrases and fantasies on operas of the day.

While writing this transcription I sought to give as faithful and fulsome an impression of Verdi’s original within the confines of the piano as might be mustered. In doing so, it is my wish that this offering goes some small way towards filling a gap in the literature and upholding the tradition of the pianist-composer.

Price：1,500 yen (1,389 yen VAT excluded).
Date of release：2nd of July, 2018（on the webshop of Muse Press）
Page numbers: 8 pages
ISBN: 978-4-909668-06-6

Mark Viner is especially known as an interpreter of the romantic piano music. He has recorded CDs for Piano Classics, including the piano works of Charles-Valentin Alkan, Franz Liszt, Sigismond Thalberg, Cécile Chaminade. He is recently appearing on the front cover of International Piano Magazines 50th issue.

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Mark Viner Profile

Mark Viner is recognised as one of the most exciting British concert pianists of his generation and is becoming increasingly well-known for his bold championing of unfamiliar pianistic terrain.

Born in 1989, he began playing at the age of 11 and two years later was awarded a scholarship to enter the Purcell School of Music where he studied with Tessa Nicholson for the next five years during which time he gave acclaimed performances at London’s St. John’s, Smith Square and the Wigmore Hall. Another scholarship then took him to the Royal College of Music where he studied with Niel Immelman for six years, graduating in 2011 with both first class honours in a Bachelor of Music degree and winning the Sarah Mundlak Memorial Prize for Piano after having gained the highest mark in the year for his final recital and, following a bursary from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, he graduated with a distinction in Master of Performance in 2013.

After winning 1^st prize at the Alkan-Zimmerman International Piano Competition in Athens, Greece in 2012, where his official début recital in the Hellenic capital was hailed by the press as the most exciting musical event of 2012, engagements at home and abroad have flourished.  Invitations to festivals include the Pharos Arts Foundation, Cyprus, ProPiano Hamburg and Raritäten der Klaviermusik, Husum in Germany, Indian Summer in Levoča, Slovakia, and the Cheltenham Music Festival and Oxford Lieder Festival in the United Kingdom, while radio broadcasts include recitals aired on Deutschlandfunk and interviews on BBC Radio 3. Engagements in his hometown of Oxford include recitals at the Holywell Music Room, the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building and the Sheldonian Theatre where he made his début with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra under the bâton of Marios Papadopoulos. On another occasion he was invited to play for the royal visit of H.R.H. The Prince of Wales. Following his affiliation with with Keyboard Charitable Trust, he has recently embarked on three extremely successful tours of the USA, Germany and Italy.

Aside from a busy schedule of teaching and performances he is also a published writer and his advocacy for the music of Charles-Valentin Alkan and Franz Liszt has led to his election as Chairman of both the Alkan Society and the Liszt Society in 2014 and 2017 respectively. He is very active in the recording studio and his recordings of music by Thalberg, Liszt and, more recently, Alkan on the Piano Classics label have garnered critical acclaim.

We are delighted to announce the publication of Kohei Tanaka/Pianeet’s “GUNBUSTER FANTASY” & “Incomplete Concerto”. It will be available for advanced sale at the concert by Yui Morishita(Pianeet) & Takashi Yamada in Kanagawa on 26th of May, 2018. The general release will take place on 28th of May 2018 via our webshop.

The transcription for piano “GUNBUSTER FANTASY” was based on the Japanese composer Tanaka Kohei’s original pieces that were composed for the sci-fi anime “Aim for the Top!”. In fact, this anime is known as “Gunbuster” rather than “Aim for the Top!” outside Japan. What is the “Gunbuster” ?… It is a space-going giant robot which was developed by the human for fighting against the space monsters invading the earth. The “GUNBUSTER FANTASY” was completed by Pianeet (Autonym: Yui Morishita) in 2011 and recorded on his debut album called “Singularity“. In addition to the album’s release, a video of his performance of “GUNBUSTER FANTASY” can be available on YouTube and Niconico. Pianeet is describing this piece as below:

“GUNBUSTER FANTASY” has the structure which is intended to remind listeners of the original anime story, based on the original musics composed by Kohei Tanaka. It would be appropriate to regard the “FANTASY” as the combination of suite or medley of the original sound tracks and overture style. As regarding that the musical motifs of “Gunbuster” and “Noriko” are respectively “1st theme” and “2nd theme” of G minor sonata form, we will have deeper understanding of the importance of the two motifs and the whole structure of the work. The recapitulation part  is actually out of typical sonata form, but the tonal relation between the themes is intentionally theoretical.

The second transcription by Pianeet is “Incomplete Concerto”. This is originally composed by Kohei Tanaka and it was used for the TV anime “Violinist of Hameln” as an opening theme song. When Pianeet performed its transcription at a concert in Kanagawa, he described on Twitter as bellow:

Mr. Tanaka says that the Incomplete Concerto is one of the best three works ever he has composed at least until 2009.
I’m fascinated every time I play the piece. This is absolutely cool!

Acknowledgments:
Thank you very much to Masanori Enoki (composer, pianist) for helping to edit/proofread this publication.

Price：2,500 yen (2,315 yen VAT excluded).
Date of advanced sale：26th of May, 2018 – at this event
Date of general release：28th of May, 2018（on the webshop of Muse Press）
Page numbers: 52 pages
ISBN: 978-4-909668-03-5

Yui Morishita – Profile

Yui Morishita, piano Yui Morishita is a Japanese pianist and composer. After graduating from Junior and Senior High School at Komaba, Tsukuba University, Yui Morishita studied piano at Tokyo University of the Arts and its Graduate School. In 2004, he won second prize at the Tokyo Music Competition. At his final recital of the Graduate School in 2006, he was chosen as one of the outstanding students to take part in the Bösendorfer Joint Recital (held at Hamarikyu Asahi Hall). He has given solo recitals at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan Recital Hall and also performs widely as orchestral soloist, song accompanist, and chamber musician. In addition to his playing, he provides music for films and he writes too. He is a strong advocate of the music of Alkan: he has edited and written commentary for the Japanese editions of his music and he has published a series of articles for Piano Teachers’ National Association website. He gave an all-Alkan recital in 2013, commemorating the 200th anniversary of his birth. Morishita is Associate Producer of the Chofu Festival in Tokyo, and also music staff of the Conducting Department at the Tokyo University of the Arts. In the online community, especially on video-sharing sites such as YouTube, he is also known under the name of “Duke of Pianeet”, and his CD “Singularity” released in 2011 became Amazon Japan’s top-selling CD in classical music.

http://www.morishitayui.jp/

Additional publication of Vincenzo Maltempo’s transcription, Prelude from Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde” is now on pre-order. We’ll start shipping it with his Cadenza to Liszt’s 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody. Thus those who have ordered the former publication can save additional shipping cost.

Wagner/Maltempo: Prelude from “Tristan und Isolde”

As if originally intended for the work for piano, Maltempo captured Wagner’s mature chromatic counterpoints and transcribed them with highly refined pianistic language. You can find Maltempo’s highly accomplished technic of transcription.

12 pages for content. 1500 yen without VAT. It will be published early April. We now accept your pre-order on our site.