Learning with the classics: an instructional anthology for the elementary to late intermediate pianist

This essay focuses on the need for an anthology of high quality repertoire from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras. Although method books prove to be beneficial to a student’s early studies, they move at a relatively slow pace and lack a great variety of literature, time signatures, and key signatures; all of which classical repertoire can provide. Additionally, many of the available anthologies are not always useful to students who could benefit from instructional commentary. Several anthologies are outdated, have poor fingering suggestions, and contain little or no instruction. Still others feature limited stylistic periods and composers from which to learn.

Due to the need for a current, varied, and pedagogical collection, I have created this anthology using works found in The Iowa Music Teachers Association repertoire syllabus. This syllabus, recognized as one of the finest in the nation, contains high quality selections from the Baroque Period to the Contemporary Period. From these works, students will learn from a variety of composers’ approaches while also gaining further knowledge of music history, theory, and technical skills.

The anthology contains pedagogical notes along with each piece which give information on the composer’s background and each work’s context. In addition, several practice strategies are given. Due to copyright requirements, the repertoire for this anthology has been taken from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods in order to provide students with public domain scores.