The Twentieth Century: A Repertory of Piano Works by Major Composters of Our Times (Anthology of Piano Music, Vol. 4)

I'm no expert at the 20th century classical repertoire, and a pretty moderate pianist so this collection is absolutely perfect for me: a stimulating and wide-ranging survey of western classical music for the piano. This collection starts welcomingly with Debussy, Satie and Scriabin, but that's about as much 'pretty' music as you'll find. From there on it's typically 1-3 pieces per composer (well, Bartok gets 9!) from a very broad list, the famous/obvious (Stravinsky, Ravel, Schoenberg) and the not-so-much (I'd never heard of Creston, Tcherepnin or about a dozen others!)Denes Agay is an excellent and kind curator: he skews to the easier pieces (I have some sense of how technical Scriabin can get) but chooses rewarding music, always unabridged. I always get a feeling of his personal passion for music and his joy in sharing his favorites from his mind-bogglingly diverse library of piano books.There are plenty of pieces well beyond my level (eg. Ives' 'Alcotts' from Concord Sonata) but I'm happier exploring some quirky but approachable Rebikov and Rieti. The mid-section is rather dominated by Eastern Europeans (Kodaly, Prokofiev, Bartok, Lutoslawski), until it finally drifts to America post-WW2, ending in the 1960's (two jazz-inflected Starer pieces are particularly enjoyable). Since it claims to cover the 20th century, there is arguably 30+ years of music missing, but I'm ok with that.As I mentioned, I didn't know many of these names when I picked up this book and that's been the delight of it: playing just a few things I know and discovering others 'from the page'. It's a fun book to explore if serialism, atonality and polyrhythms don't scare you away and an educational experience I have really enjoyed.

This repertory contains a diverse collection of twentieth century pieces in a varying range of difficulties, from early intermediate to quite advanced. It is an excellent addition to any pianists library.

I am using it everyday for piano lesson

These pieces are at a beginner-intermediate stage. For someone like me in the advanced level, I wouldn't recommend this unless you want a good sight reading workout.