Available now: the first sheet music editions by Fazil Say!

The first printed editions of the popular piano works and encore pieces by the Turkish composer and pianist Fazil Say are available from us now.

With Black Earth, he presents to his audience a piece of Turkish tradition. The ballad was inspired by Kara Toprak, a popular song in Turkey. The piece begins and ends with the imitation of the Turkish lute Bağlama by muting the piano strings with the left hand. This unique sound blends with the sound of the piano, giving the work and the instrument a particular radiance.

The well-known 'Rondo alla Turca' by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart inspired Say to write a funny and lively jazz variant of this work. In Say's concerts, Alla Turca Jazz is one of the most popular encore pieces, always prompting rapturous applause from the audience. Say looks at the relationship between Western and Eastern music cultures with a sense of irony and full of wit. The rousing jazz fantasia is published in the Virtuoso Piano Transcription Series.

This series includes two other arrangements by Say:

Like Alla Turca Jazz, Paganini Jazz shows Say's penchant for combining famous examples with jazz and improvisation. His variations of the Capriccio No. 24 by Niccoló Paganini are based on the well-known theme and refer to different jazz styles ranging from Cool via Ragtime to New Age. The main difference between Paganini Jazz and variation cycles such as those by Brahms or Rakhmaninov is the open structure: The individual elements can be arranged, added and omitted at will so that new dramatic textures and surprises keep arising for the listener.

Since the 19th century, the Passacaglia in c-Moll BWV 582 by Johann Sebastian Bach with its outstanding polyphony has been a great example to many musicians. Having taken a strong interest in works by Bach since childhood, Fazil Say keeps including original works by Bach in his concert programmes. Say's piano transcription of Passacaglia in c-Moll for organ is a demanding version for his instrument, using the whole compass of the keyboard to enable the piano to produce the powerful sound of an organ.

Please follow the links below to see complete information and to get access to sound clips and score samples:

Black Earth	Paganini Jazz	Passacaglia	Alla Turca Jazz