Years ago I acquired a used copy of Jane Magrath’s book, The Pianist’s Guide to Standard Teaching and Performance Literature, published in 1995 by Alfred Publishing. It has served me well for many years, especially in my early days as a piano teacher when I was learning how to appropriately level and select repertoire for my students. In 2021, the Frances Clark Center published an updated edition, re-titled, Piano Literature for Teaching and Performance: A Graded Guide and Annotated Bibliography. I’ve had my eye on it for a while, but was reluctant to part with $60 not knowing if this new edition would have enough changes or improvements to justify replacing my well-worn older edition. It was a long shot, but I decided to see if I could find a copy to look at via our fabulous interlibrary loan system, and lo and behold, they managed to track one down from a private college in Georgia! So as I’m perusing the two books and making note of the commonalities and difference, I thought perhaps it would be helpful to share those here for anyone else facing the same conundrum!
The most notable difference when I picked the book up from the library was the size. The 1995 edition is 6×9″ while the 2021 edition is 9×12″ – a full 2x larger! The former contains 569 pages and the latter 634, so there is considerably more content in the new edition.
The next thing I was curious to see is whether there were any changes in the leveling. I appreciate that the 2021 edition includes piece examples for each of the listed composers to specify the assigned level. The only change I noticed in the overview is that Tchaikovsky’s Album for the Young, Op. 39 has been moved from a Level 4 designation to a Level 5 designation. Two female composers – Florence Price and Amy Beach – have also been added to the overview. One of the features outlined by editor E.L. Lancaster of this edition is “the expanded listings of music by women composers and other underrepresented composers.”
The font appears to be the same size in both editions, but the 2021 edition is more spacious, resulting in a cleaner layout and plenty of room to make notes in the margins. Much of the verbiage remains the same, with brief tidbits about each composer and concise background information about some of the collections. Various entries have been modified and expanded throughout the book. Each entry still includes a helpful description along with the assigned level. I also appreciate that Magrath includes information about where the pieces may be found (particularly helpful is the IMSLP denotation!). One surprise I discovered while counting the composer names in the index is that there are fewer total entries in this edition than in the first one. Seventy-three composers were removed and sixty-six were added (give or take a couple in case of a counting error!) in this 2021 edition. There is no explanation given as to why certain composers were removed, but just know that you may want to hang onto your old edition even if you decide to upgrade.
In going through this comparative process, I was reminded anew of what a vast treasure of piano repertoire we have available as piano teachers. A huge thanks to Jane Magrath for her decades of work in compiling and updating such an invaluable resource. Any piano teacher who takes a few hours to sift through this tome will undoubtedly emerge with a collection of new repertoire gems for both personal enjoyment and to pass along to their students!
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