Product Description

12 selections from the movie adaptation of this Broadway classic: Think of Me * Angel of Music * The Phantom of the Opera * The Music of the Night * Prima Donna * All I Ask of You * Masquerade * The Fairground * Journey to the Cemetery * Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again * The Point of No Return * Learn to Be Lonely. Includes biography and 8 pages of color photos from the film.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45233 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 80 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780634099090
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Customer Reviews

Good, but challenging
The book is great! however, I do think it is a book for more advanced piano students than what I was hoping for. I had gotten the book for one of my piano students who loves the musical, but she would only be able to play a very few of the songs even though she is in Level 5 of Alfred's. I decided to give the book to my married daughter to enjoy instead and found a couple of the selections in an Alfred's level 5 piano solo's book to give to my student. I do wish these music publishers would let us have a look at the music before we buy. That would certainly help to let the buyer know if it will be challenging, just right, or too easy. I agree that the bass clef was a little boring, but you can always improvise. For those of you who aren't sure, let me tell you that most of the songs (not all) have 4-5 sharps or up to 5 flats. "Think of Me" starts off with 2 Sharps, then moves into 3 flats. "Angle of Music" starts with 2 flats, moves into 5 flats, then back to 2 flats, moves to 5 sharps, and ends with 2 sharps. This gives you a good idea how the songs move throughout the book. If you like a challenging book, then you will enjoy this one--unless of course you are a concert pianist--then look for one with more difficulty.

An Improved Arrangement of ALW's Music.
I'm a huge Webber fan and was playing music book collections of his music back when I was 13. Well, when the movie came out, I took a chance that the sheet music will have improved from his earlier collection and it indeed had! The songs are richer plus all of the major songs are available. "Angel of Music", "MotN", and "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" are probably the most beautiful.

As for my meager complaints.. I still await a really complex release of these songs. I only found myself struggling with one song in the first day that I got the book. The biggest complaint I have in reference to this is the simplistic left hand. In the old and newer arrangements of these songs, the left hand often has to resort to lazily hitting one note. I know something more complicated could have been done with the left hand.

But then... if you are advanced enough to complain about the difficulty of this book, you should be advanced enough to ad-lib in your own improvements to the music. And, really, even John Williams' arrangements are at this level of difficulty, so I may be hoping for arrangements that are rarely released by any movie/musical composer.

So aside from those small complaints, the music is just beautiful in this book... the way you play them has a flow that reminds the player of how it is sung, entrancing. I highly suggest it to piano-playing fans of PotO.

Pleased with this book
I bought this for my wife and here is her review of the book:

I consider myself an intermediate piano player. I absolutely love this book and can't help coming back here to write a review for it. This book is actually much easier than I thought. I can start to play mostly by sight reading. The hard part maybe the frequent key change and some parts have lot of flats, but it is not really difficult as it appears. The book also includes some scenes from the movie. It is nicely arranged and the paper is of good quality too.
I enjoyed very much while playing the music.