PIANO

Piano is easy.  Maybe too easy, because almost anything goes, and that’s a problem.  There are piano versions of almost any wedding music listed on the harp and organ pages.  There is the standard classical piano repertoire.  Not that you’d want heavy-duty recital pieces as preservice music, but there are Bach French Suites, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven Sonatas, the Debussy Arabesques, this list could go on and on.  Standard repertoire piano literature shows the instrument off for what it’s supposed to be.

Does easy mean common?  Some clients simply land on piano because it’s less alien to them than organ or harp.  It’s like they mentally know what they’re getting.  Or they somehow associate it with being “contemporary”.   I would caution you to think about matching the music to the occasion.  You might like all kinds of piano music, but ask yourself: does it match people wearing tuxes and formal gowns?   Cocktail piano music doesn’t really work for all but the most casual of weddings.  Plus, nothing reminds me of an old-fashioned silent movie more than a pianist trying to fill up a huge space by banging on the instrument.  So check out how the piano sounds in the environment you’re using, and try to envision the atmosphere you want.

Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, Haydn, Mozart , Schumann…. standard piano repertoire

Piano transcriptions of standard wedding repertoire

Piano versions of hymns, folk songs, and contemporary worship music.

HARPSICHORD

If piano is easy because it can play anything, harpsichord is the opposite.  The only music that works on harpsichord is music that was written for harpsichord!  This music was being written from the mid-16th to mid-18th century.   Music of the Bach family, William Byrd and the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, Couperin, Dandrieu, Scarlatti, all were conceived for the delicate sounds of the harpsichord.  Suitable for an intimate, Old World setting.