The Hymn Collection: arr. Phillip Keveren The Phillip Keveren Series Piano Solo

Great Arrangements!
Every arrangement in this collection is creative, accessible and aesthetically pleasing. Super value in this collection. One of Keveren’s best!

Great book
The perfect book for church prelude, offertory, or postludes. Ths notes are not as complex as some of Keveren’s other works, but are perfect for the mid level pianist.

The arrangements are nice, but a little too easy (in terms of …
Nothing wrong with this book. The arrangements are nice, but a little too easy (in terms of difficulty to play) and simplistic for my taste.

Nice arrangements – Intermediate
These arrangements are very nice, but several are very short. These are good pieces that don’t require a lot of practice.

I paid £9.95 for this book. I did not receive it for free in exchange for this review.It should be noted that as well as the music, the lyrics to the hymns are included in the back of this book (however they are not printed on the music itself as the music is piano solo only and does not contain any vocal part). I photographed the contents page of the book to give the complete list of hymns it contains as well as a page of the actual music so the layout can be seen.I am a classical pianist. I have wanted to plays hymns for some time, but have found it extremely difficult to find music that is of a reasonable standard. I want to play pieces that involve more than playing a long line of chords one after the other and although there are many published scores for “Easy Piano” I find these musically too simplistic; the vast majority are written as accompaniments for people to sing to and come with the voice part which I don’t need. I was becoming quite frustrated by this, until I finally thought to search for “classical hymns”. This led me to several books, including this one. I had a little listen on youtube to see what the music was like, and what I was able to find seemed reasonably good, so I thought I’d give it a try. I also purchased “Treasured Hymns for Classical Piano” at the same time, and have also left a review of that book elsewhere on Amazon. The two books are very similar in presentation as well as the nature of the music they contain.As far as the musicality of the pieces in this book goes, at am relieved that at last I have found some worship music that sounds pleasing and can be played as a solo piece. All the pieces of music in this book stand by themselves as legitimate, and in many cases beautiful, works of music and do not need a vocal accompaniment. Although in the preface, Phillip Keveren says “hopefully, they will sound hard but play easy”, having seen the music, I must comment that these pieces are not for the beginner, and neither would I classify them as ‘easy piano’. I would say that the level of the music is attainable for someone Grade 5 or over.Like its counterpart “Treasured Hymns for Classical Piano”, the music is clearly presented. The print is large and easy to read and the spacing is wide. My only slight gripe is that there is hardly any fingering given, so you have to work it out for yourself. However, given that I often change the fingering anyway, it doesn’t really matter, except that it makes sight reading these pieces a little more work.With regard to layout, I am somewhat spoiled and have a rather high standard in this regard as I usually play G. Henle Verlag music which I believe to be the best presentation of classical music available. Needless to say, this book does not match that very high standard, nor did I expect it to. The music in this book seems overly spaced apart in comparison, but I suppose that does mean there is plenty of room to make notes and little comments for yourself to aid your playing of the pieces, although my personal taste would have preferred the music to have been condensed a little more.I cannot yet speak for how sympathetic and thoughtful the arrangement of the page turns is as I haven’t yet played a piece that covers more than two pages. When I find out I will come back and edit this review. However, I can already say that the book sits well on the piano and, with only a little bit of bending, the pages stay open and don’t flap about while you are trying to play. Whether the book will stand the test of time or whether it will eventually fall apart, only time will tell. I have known pieces of much-played music to literally end up in tatters after a period of time! It remains to be seen how sturdy this music turns out to be!Given that I have only had this book for 24 hours, I cannot comment on all of the pieces yet, but what I have played sounds beautiful, there are some very enjoyable key changes which add to their interest. I have no hesitation in giving this book 5 stars.

Beautiful arrangements.