Solo Piano

Solo Piano is classical music for one pianist on an acoustic piano, using touch, voicing, pedal, register, and resonance to create a complete musical world without accompaniment. The sound can be singing, percussive, orchestral, whispered, virtuosic, devotional, or sharply modern, with tempo ranging from suspended adagio to dazzling prestissimo.

Solo piano became dominant as the fortepiano evolved into the modern grand and as domestic salons, public recitals, conservatories, and publishing created a vast market for keyboard works. Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Brahms, Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, and later Cage, Ligeti, Glass, and Pärt expanded its language, while recording made interpretive pianists into defining artists rather than merely transmitters of scores.