What exactly is a "kamarinskaya"? (The word is pronounced with an accent on the second syllable—kaMArinskaya.) In his Album for the Young, Tchaikovsky* gives each piece both a Russian and a French title. In French, he identifies his Kamarinskaya as a Chanson populaire—a folk song. But the kamarinskaya is certainly not a "song" (just try to sing it!...

As a faculty member at the East Carolina University School of Music, I frequently taught our Piano Literature sequence. The last time I led these classes, I decided to add a new component to the second-semester schedule: films about pianist-composers. Hollywood through the years has found the artistic life irresistible, and there are quite a f...