Differentiating the piano from other percussion instruments is partly, and perhaps most meaningfully, its ability to imitate the human voice, to sound cantabile. This week on Hammered! the piano takes center stage and accompanies itself in a series of one-instrument art song recitals. 

The "vocal" music on these recitals falls into one of three categories: original music of a particularly lyrical kind, transcriptions / arrangements / paraphrases on existing songs, and straight up songs or song cycles. Take Monday, where two transcriptions by Franz Liszt of music by Richard Wagner ("Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde) and Franz Schubert ("Standchen") pair up with newly composed "songs" by Bright Sheng and Olafur Arnalds. 

Later in the week tune in for songs cycles of Olivier Messiaen, Robert Schumann, Alban Berg and others, plus solo music of Jonathan Harvey, Ben Broening and Lowell Liebermann.

Top three song cycles --- GO!