Among the most appealing western music ever written are many art songs - music set to poetry, a genre also known by the German word lieder (songs)- composed by such historically great composers as Schubert, Schumann, Wagner, Debussy, Ravel, de Falla, Rachmaninoff, and several others.

It occurred to me that this fantastic music ideally should be accessible as solo piano pieces to those who may desire to play these songs without having to have them sung, in the same manner that any Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin or Harold Arlen song may be performed purely instrumentally. Consequently, I have created this volume of famous beautiful art songs as a judicious combination of the vocal and piano parts, but for piano solo alone, in the hope that your musical life will be immeasurably enriched, just as this incomparable music has enriched mine.