ELDERHOSTEL COURSES
CREATED AND TAUGHT BY MICHAEL HABERMANN

Read Remarks by ElderHostelers

• BEETHOVEN PIANO SONATAS - A SURVEY
  This course examines the greatest collection of sonatas in piano literature, Beethoven's 32.

• ROMANTIC PIANO MUSIC
  This period saw the creation of keyboard masterpieces we love deeply, and unceasingly. Course examines styles from the pens of the early Romantics. (Weber to Liszt).

• MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION
  Explore fascinating music built upon recurring bass-lines or harmonic progressions. Masterpieces of the Passacaglia, Chaconne, Ground, and Ostinato forms are examined in depth. You'll never hear a bass-line the same way again!

• KEYBOARD WIZARDS: Virtuosos and the Literature
  Entertaining survey of dazzling recorded performances of dare-devil piano showpieces from early times to the present.

• CHANGING STYLES OF PIANO PERFORMANCE
  A comparative study of recordings from 1900 to the present reveals that musical interpretations have changed considerably. Is piano playing better today than it was 80 years ago?

• SOUTHPAW PITCHING
  Discover amazing piano literature performed by a single, unaccompanied hand. Samples of right hand solos are also presented. Explore works by Ravel, Prokofiev, Saint-Saëns, Bartók and many others.

• NEGLECTED COMPOSERS: BURIED TREASURES, FORGOTTEN MELODIES
  Are these neglected figures, once famous, some infamous, deserving of our attention? The music of Sorabji, Gottschalk, Ponce and others truly offers us something we can't get elsewhere.

• HYPHENATED COMPOSERS
  Bach did it all the time, but nowadays some consider transcriptions sacrilegious. Many composers' original masterworks and their various re-incarnations will be compared, dissected - and evaluated.

• KEYBOARD MUSIC OF FRANCE
  Course introduces French masterworks written for the harpsichord and piano from early times to the present.

• PIANO MUSIC OF THE 20TH CENTURY
  Survey of the amazing variety of pianistic-musical styles from late romanticism and impressionism to the latest experiments of the avant-garde - all music written since the early 1900's.

• LATIN AMERICAN MUSIC
  Villa-Lobos, Ponce, Revueltas, Ginastera, Chavez... Heroes in their native land, but relatively little of their music, unfortunately, is heard in the United States. An examination of the music of our Southern neighbors.

• MEXICAN (CLASSICAL) MUSIC
  Ponce, Chavez, Revueltas, Halffter ... well-known composers in their native land - but here relatively little of their music is heard. This course examines the music of our Southern neighbor.

• CODES, CIPHERS, MOTTOS
  ASCH, GADE, ABEGG, FAF, BACH, DSCH - Acronymns? Phone number prefixes? This course examines the use of motto themes, hidden and cross references, quotations and the like in the music of the masters.

• COMPOSERS REFORM AND MAKE AMENDS
  Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Rachmaninov, Stravinsky . . . These composers published pieces that they later revised extensively. Did these changes improve or ruin their youthful inspirations?

• A LA MANIERE DE...
  Musical tributes to peers and predecessors abound in the literature (for example, Schumann's "Chopin" in his Carnaval, Op. 9). This course pays homage to these musical blandishments.

• OPENERS & CLOSERS
  Mozart and Mendelssohn were masters by age ten, and yet, others (such as Verdi) produced their greatest masterpieces in their octagenarian years. Course explores the works of the extremely young and old.

• BACH THROUGH THE EARS OF HIS INTERPRETERS
  Key historical interpreters of Johann Sebastian Bach's music reshaped our perceptions of how his music should sound. Survey Mendelssohn, Liszt, Stokowski, Landowska, Gould and Carlos.