February 2019

Spirio Spotlight

Music from film, Chinese New Year, Steinway Immortal Josef Hofmann

Steinway & Sons Spirio, the world’s finest high resolution player piano, makes you King of the Oscar Party with our music from moviesplaylist, featuring new medleys from French pianist–composer Jean-Michel Bernard of works by John Williams, Henry Mancini, Lalo Schifrin, Ennio Morricone and others. In honor of Chinese New Year, we highlight a range of classical and folk music of China, including the recent “Pining for the Spring Breeze” (望春风) from Zhang Chi. There is also new Chinese pop music, including Warren Lee performing Teresa Teng’s “The Moon Represents My Heart” (月亮代表我的心).

Spiriosync Video

One of the truly remarkable pianists of the first half of the 20th century was the great Josef Hofmann. For the first time, we bring his performances to Spirio.

A prolific composer and arranger, Hofmann was from an era of daring creativity. His arrangement of Chopin’s Minute Waltzfrom a 1938 performance is an excellent example. We have also been able to re-create his 1945 televised performance of Rachmaninov’s C-sharp minor Prelude — extremely rare footage of this artist — for this month’s SpirioSyncvideo.

What's New

More classical tracks this month come from a future star, 19-year-old Chinese pianist Wei Luo. Her expressive Mozart and Chopin are complemented by the startling virtuosity of her Prokofiev and Shchedrin. And Klara Min continues her exploration of the romantic works of Scriabin with the 2nd Piano Sonata. Antonio Pompa-Baldi brings two classical chestnuts: Paderewski’s Nocturne in B-flat major and Moszkowski’s Virtuosic EtudeOp. 72 No. 6., and Natasha Paremski plays jazz great Fred Hersch’s classical work Variations on a theme by Tchaikovsky.

Finally, we have more pop music this month — including a group of vintage 1970s tracksfrom David Osborne.