S. Smith's Piano Music. Grande Fantaisie L' elisire d' amore

This piece is a brilliant piano fantasia on the themes from opera "The Elixir of Love"("L' elisir d'amore") by Donizetti. Smith showed masterfully feelings of the main characters of the opera: affection, coquetry, rivalry, jealousy, and above all, love - and made them festal and playful.
It’s surprisingly, that the composer retained in his piano piece the characters of the opera’s heroes. It seems the author is painting the image of a timid young peasant Nemorino, of the beautiful coquette Adina, dreaming of elevated love, of the cunning and tricky quack Dulkamar; of the brave but ignorant Sergeant Belcore and of many other characters. Following Donizetti, Smith makes his own parody interpretation of the legend about the magic love potion. In an effort to portray different characters, as well as to embody the comicalness of the situation, the author combines in The Grande Fantaisie 'L' elisire d'amore' absolutely contrasting moments, which require different manners of playing. Frequent changes of dynamic nuances, accents, techniques and ways of playing music help to create a vivid and colorful imagery of the piece. And the light, lofty theme of the "love drink" is a unifying element in such a multifarious and variegated work.
Smith has created a great piece - light, refined, but worthy of virtuoso performers and large concert halls.

S. Smith.The Last Rose of Summer

Some time ago I’ve found in the Internet a piece by Sydney Smith with a fascinating title - The Last Rose of Summer ... I have played it often and for a long time and every minute I immersed deeper and deeper in the amazing atmosphere, created in this work. The composer pictured very masterly the image of a lone flower, the summer’s ending and, probably, last hopes of us all.
Through skilful whirling passages, taking the whole piano keyboard, the barely hearable, modest melody begins to appear, gaining strength with its gradual development. Suddenly, the beautiful image appears to my eyes: a flower of astonishing beauty, growing in the stormy ocean among the fading summer’s nature. This defenseless essence makes you unwittingly stop and reflect. What a grace, elegance and therewith power are hidden in this fragile rose! The composer shows with amazing precision her thin, almost transparent petals, the drops of dew, fallen that very morning on the accurate, as if specially cut leaves. It seems you even start feeling the subtle aroma emanating from this plant. And what a tranquility and tenderness come over the listener while the short moments of contemplation! You draw such a strength and endurance from it!
The Last Rose of Summer ... the ending summer... As if it were our farewell to something. But still, the last hope remains in the soul.
That is the very natural beauty, which we usually do not notice, the last hope, which we all so desperately need.

Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto (Piano Transcription)

I love romantic music so much and perform romantic concertos for piano and orchestra with great pleasure! Sometimes I take scores at home, play a piano solo part and imagine the sound of an orchestra. Recently I’ve found scores with the piano transcription of a violin concerto by Mendelssohn. This was a Paraphrase of the composer Sydney Smith. He was able to merge the solo and orchestral part into one unity. Now, I enjoy learning of this piece. I wonder how Smith could keep all the beauty of the concert by Mendelssohn. The piece has practically lost nothing over the only piano sound. On the contrary, such pieces allow the pianists to perform the whole piece by themselves and immerse in the beauty of music. Especially as its difficulty level is not very high and many musicians could enjoy its practicing thus.
While performing of the piano transcription of the Mendelssohn's Violin concerto, you get into the world of a lone, misunderstood human soul, seeking for calm and serenity. I sometimes have this feeling by myself. May be that's why this work is so clear and close to me.

Sydney Smith. Fantasia La Traviata for Piano

I'm a big opera fan, you know. And I was so happy, when I’ve found sheet-music by Sydney Smith some time ago! This author has a few fantasies on themes from operas by various composers. I was deeply interested in «La Traviata». I’ve been right looking for music scores my pupils could play at the concert. And I set my choice on this piece. It contains everything what I needed: beautiful music and numerous playing techniques, which can effectively adorn the performance.
The piece’s playing techniques are very diverse. You can work out the chord-playing technique (octaves occur often) by practicing this fantasy. You can demonstrate your skills in playing cantilena (beautiful melodies are enough here). And the musicians, who succeed in fast virtuosic playing, having good fingering techniques, will also enjoy this piece. It has a large number of passages.
So, you can give a very spectacular performance and show all your performing skills due to Fantaisie brillante sur l'opéra de Verdi La Traviata, Op.103, which has everything you may need. And though you have to take some pains in its practicing, believe me, the thing is worth the effort. I recommend it strongly.

Liszt's Transcriptions

There are many things in the world which are worth to learn. Math, riding, swimming, Italian language, tango, figure skating, well, I don’t know…and a lot of other things, just I can not guess it in this minute. Oh! I should add the piano playing of course! It would be really great to find a time for all this activities. The time, this is what we never have enough. Even if choose one from that all our interests, for example piano playing, we don’t have enough time to play or listen all the greatest music ever written. So, we continually have to choose the most interesting pieces or performances for us.
I had read that the great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter never played any transcriptions but only original piano works, because he believed that the life is not enough to play all piano repertoire and too short to waste it with music, which was transcribed. Well, I think if there are any transcriptions worth to be played, then these are the transcriptions of Franz Liszt, which are absolutely independent and completed works, real masterpieces should I admit.