The Magic Link: Piano Albums by Schumann and Tchaikovsky

The Magic Link includes music scores for all 24 pieces of P.I. Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album and 18 selected pieces from R. Schumann’s Album for the Young. While providing excellent Romantic repertoire, its scope is more far-reaching than conventional sheet music publications. Formatted as a lively dialogue between a teacher and her students, The Magic Link provides essential instructional material that teachers can use with their students. This volume explores the source of composers’ inspiration and explains how the music was created. It shows thematic links between the two albums and demonstrates the compositions’ connections to composers of previous periods, highlighting how Tchaikovsky and Schumann were influenced by earlier masters. This first-of-its-kind book helps teachers and parents introduce students to an in-depth process of musical education. It guides them through understanding the basics of piano literature and musical text analysis, touching on serious issues accessibly and enjoyably. The book boasts delightful illustrations. Atmospherically related to the musical piece to which they are attached, these illustrations contribute to the learning process by inspiring new students’ imaginations. While being a completely standalone publication, The Magic Link employs the best traditions of celebrated Russian teaching methods to exhaustively explore the children’s albums that Rada Bukhman also addresses in Discovering Color behind the Keys: The Essence of the Russian School of Piano Playing. As such, The Magic Link can also be seen as an indirect sequel to this landmark publication