Il dolce suono sheet music in high quality

Gaetano Donizetti was one of leading composers of bel canto opera. He was born in 1797 in Italy. Despite his parents weren’t musicians, he quickly became professional composer. After signing a contract with a theatre manager who was impressed by his opera, Donizetti moved to Naples.

Donizetti composed mainly operas, but symphonies, oratorios, sonatas and cantatas weren’t alien to him as well as string quartets and duets. The world of classical music wouldn’t be that rich as it is nowadays if he would become an architect or lawyer as he intended in his youth. Donizetti was quick at composing but it didn’t affect neither his chamber pieces nor songs – they sound majestic and dramatic.

It's hard to forget the concert in The Fifth Element : the aria that Diva Plavalaguna is performing in Besson's film is written by Donizetti. Enjoy this fine music score: Scena and Aria Il dolce suono from Lucia di Lammermoor sheet music.

Chopin-Czerny. Polonaise Brillante Op.3

Composer since the age of seven, Chopin needs no introduction. A genius pianist, he forcedly lived in Paris for most of his life, but his compositions always have indelible Polish feel, influenced by folk motifs of his Motherland.

Chopin’s masterful piano miniatures are dramatically romantic, sincere and spiritual. Never before him was music that expressive. If it wasn’t for Chopin, polonaise and mazurka wouldn’t sound that poetic, there would be no such genre as a piano ballad and one of the craters on Mercury would stay nameless.

Introduction and Polonaise Brillante in C major, Op.3 is initially a composition for cello and piano. Luminously arranged by Carl Czerny for piano, it is available here:

Introduction and Polonaise Brillante in C major (Piano Arrangement), Op.3

Alkan Piano Sheet Music

Charles-Valentine Alkan is a French virtuoso pianist. Besides composing, he taught Chopin’s students after death of a Polish composer and translated Bible (as a whole!) to French. Unluckily, his translation didn’t live till our days. And what’s even sadder, several of his works were lost, too. First composition of Alkan dates 1828 and most of them are written for solo piano.

Friends of Alkan thought of him as of lively, warm and humorous person. Even the title of his "Funeral march on the death of a parrot" warrants his ironic nature, noticeable in his works, musically-challenging yet written by a deeply sensitive and open man.

During the 20th century, music of Alkan wasn’t frequently heard in the concert halls, but now more and more pianists turn to his worthy and innovative works.

Alkan piano sheet music is available here.

Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky

Pictures at an Exhibition is one of the most deservedly staged and re-arranged suites of Mussorgsky. Subheading of this work (A Remembrance of Victor Hartmann) is self-explanatory – it is dedicated to a composer’s close friend, an architect and painter, who died early from an aneurism. Mussorgsky himself outlived Hartmann by three years, dying in the age of 42, but his contribution is huge: Pictures at an Exhibition was re-arranged even for such instruments as glockenspiel, xylophone and marimba. There were so many of those who want to adapt suite for themselves that we can easily find two bands starting from “Tangerine” among them – Tangerine Dream and Tangerine Trees, respectively.

In 1991-1992 Arkadi Troitsky transcripted Mussorgsky's suite for a string orchestra. Troitsky is a composer, arranger, and conductor with a great experience. Download the high quality sheet music here: Pictures at an Exhibition, arranged by Arkadi Troitsky – who knows, maybe it will inspire you to play its parts on sitar or theremin!..

Video of another version of arrangement, by Ravel, is below: