Comments

Sincere thanks to all listeners and supporters of my music for the wonderful feedback! Further comments highly appreciated :-)

Here are some of the thousands (!) of comments I have received so far:

I am absolutely in love with your beautiful compositions. You may just be one of my favorites <3

Your music is so underrated. Your nocturnes are absolutely beautiful. Great work!

I love your pieces very much. Beautiful, and students or me can learn lots from them.

I notice that you put many of your works online, can share us for free. Thank you so much.

I love that you give the player the ability to express so much... expression is why we musicians play.

Hello! Just wanted to say that I really like your Nocturnes.

I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say Field, Chopin, Fauré, then there is Beneking.

Keep your music playing

Just let me say that I love your music. I fell in love with The Swans - 12 valses melancoliques and I had to learn them all.

I am such a fan of yours! XOXO

I'm enjoying your one hand pieces so much, that I don't want to play with both hands yet, even though my right arm is almost better!

They are very emotive and poignant, yet also interesting to play technically.

Thank you again for these wonderful compositions.

I just wanted to write that I really adore your compositions!

I haven't been listening to anything else but your compositions for whole two months!

Hello Stephan. Just to show you one of our students playing your music. Thanks so much for composing such special pieces of art.

One of my students just broke her left hand so I was looking for some one-handed music and came across your set of 18 preludes at IMSLP.

They are absolutely beautiful!! Thank-you so much for sharing these.

Many call themselves composers; you are one of the few who deserves the title!

The enormity of your gift to the world is inspiring,

so much great music there for anyone who cares to listen and scores for anyone who would play it themselves,

hundreds and hundreds of pieces of music ... wow!

Brilliant compositions by Beneking . . . as I expected.

Significantly satisfying, on every level of my need for great music! Thank you, Stephan Beneking!

I have a dedicated intermediate-level piano student who broke her fingers in her left hand and won't be able to play with that hand for 5 months. Her mom thought she would need to discontinue lessons for a time, but I convinced her that her daughter could study one-hand compositions and more scales/chords/theory during those 5 months.

I discovered your website and your compositions on the imslp.org website, and am so grateful for your contribution to the classical music community! Thank you for offering your music for free downloading and printing. Thank you for creating beautiful compositions in original Prelude/Nocturne/Valse, etc. style.

Stephan, I like your music. It is moody in a very special melancholic way.

I do not recall having heard this style before. Keep up the good work !!

A short e-mail to thank you for your free music. I have downloaded a few booklets for beginners from your website, wonderful music which I am going to use in my teaching. A very generous offer. Many thanks once again.

Dear Mr Beneking. I am an amateur pianist and I have found you compositions on IMSLP as well as the link to your website.

The compositions are very interesting and it is a method completely different from the traditional ones, so a student learns with joy and interest.

I am grateful for your generosity in uploading your scores for free.

Thank you Stephan once again. Your music makes a difference to my teaching and students love it!

It is beautiful! And what's more just the sort of a thing that I was looking for for my young pupils to get used to all the keys of the piano. Simple to play and sounds pretty. Thank you so much for this great booklet. Shared it.

Dearest Stephan, I always did say, that you and your music were "Beethovenish".

I love your work Stephan - thank you for sharing it so generously with us :-)

Thank you for these pieces (18 Preludes for one hand alone). I found them this week as I was looking for something for a student with a broken wrist. She loves them and is so excited to have something to work on until her cast is off.

Just a quick message to say how much I enjoy listening to and playing your music

Stephan thank you so much for your beautiful (and FREE!) music - my students have been devouring your works, and lessons are so much more enjoyable (for myself and them)!

The Master of Melancholy....

Stephan Beneking is not only a creative composer, outstanding pianist and a story teller beside other things in music ! For me , he is a magicain full with a vivid shining artistic memory which transcend beauty that does not have a beginning nor does't know a final destination! When I listen to his music he seems to me like a collective memory that starts from sebastian Bach passing through Mozart to arrive somewhere near Beethoven passing by other composers gathering all their essencce in one whole bouquet that is made of love! I love this cunning wizard musicain for he is brave unique rich simple but most of all deep!

These days I am into your composes and I realize that they are very unique.. Hope everyone can see that way :)

Brilliant composition an superb playing!! it has been a joy to listen to and become absorbed in your music....this is delicate,intense...and beautiful..thank you both!!

Thank you for giving us a listen to your fantastic piano compositions.

Dear Stephan: you have the gift to send me to the sky with your music in an instant!

You could never become mainstream.. Nope.. far to beautiful of music for even a chance of that.. yes you are simply beyond that..

you are a great composer of neoclassical music now,it`s a great pleasure to play your wonderful pieces, congratulations Stephan

My childhood played before my eyes... Beautiful and enigmatic.

to confront this evil in a work of art and thereby transform it in a piece of human goodness is a victory against the dark, dark night. one

You are more than genius

The musical style of Stephan´s compositions is changing every time, from Bach to Schubert, from Schumann to Chopin and anything inbetween... Just beautiful

I love your style of composing, it´s so... Boisterous and unpredictable, as well as mysterious

Every part of this work is like a unique miniature (painting)...

Since I've discovered your work, I even don' t want to play Bach, or Schumann, or Satie, or Scriabine, even Chopin my favorite composer..

one of the famous Beneking-jewels; a great, tasteful interpretation with depth

The kind of music we look for but never find... here you showed us it still exists!

Chopin is alive :-)

amazing valse Stephan, I fall in love with the harmony of that piece, wonderful to start the new year with positive notes

Your valses are all so different but form a cohesive body of work. Really nice

...your melodic craft such a great gift for all piano lovers...

playing 'le désir éternel' is experiencing a fine tear-smile-balance. Adorable sensitive music.

You had me in the first measure.... Lovely. Lovely. Lovely!

wonderful Stephan...this is melting with the snowflakes on my window...what an image...thank you for this moment!

sometimes I cannot find the appropriate words to express my feelings when I listen to your music

Motif is very unique! I enjoy this piece as if to see the moving of wilde panther!

Toujours cette douce melancholie... Superbe!

This piece really doesn´t belong to our time. It is suitable for an audience that has a quiet, more human pace.

Something that we´ve long ago lost.

Fantastic! ... one of a kind melody!

This tune has deep soul in it. Strange and beautiful !

Very beautiful ! Sounds sometimes a little like Chopin. Sehr schön gemacht !

this melody took my breath away

sheer brilliance, super spectacular!

C'est magnifique !! J'aime beaucoup ! Je vais m'y mettre tout de suite !

I must say you have the minds of Debussy, Chopin and Alexandre Desplat put together. Your textures are pretty much like Debussy (thin and dreamy), your harmonies are like Chopin and your overall style is like Desplat. Nicely done.

Schubert aurait apprécié. Bel hommage.

I just want to let you know that your pieces are intense. I really love how they appear to be easy but then there are the "tricks" that you add to make them ridiculously challenging, whether it be the fast runnng notes which are intenseor the large jumps between the melodies.

Big Fan

I enjoy playing your 'strange little dreams' as much as the compositions of my favourite Kuhlau. This should be considered -from my point of view- as a huge compliment.

Congratulations Stephan, very nice ...

Graceful

Overall, wonderful job. I respect people who could write dreamy pieces this well. I find it hard to do that... XD. Once again, bravo!

I continue to enjoy playing your piano-scores.

Love the emptiness followed by the descending dissonances

Wow very nice my friend, I love the passion in this work! Great composition!

Wonderful! Something so different from other piano here on SoundCloud

Lovely theme since the beginning.