Hi all,
It is a while since I posted here - you gave me a lot of encouragement when I started piano as an adult learner a couple of years ago. In that time, I have had two great teachers, the first sadly moving away, and was lucky enough to find a second. My new teacher has recently moved to the UK, so, probably her only fault, is that she seems to struggle to find music for me - she has loads of books from her own country, but they are obviously harder for me to get hold of. She only teaches two adults so I think that is part of the problem as there seems to be lots of music aimed at children.

So I was just wondering if anyone can give me some suggestions of post grade 3 music. I'm not really interested in exams - can't say i enjoyed my recent experience - think I'm too old for that sort of stress!

But I would love to be able to play a wide range of music, I don't yet really have a favourite type, so any ideas would be very much appreciated.

I would suggest getting the book of Burgmuller Easy and Progressive Studies. They are very musical and really nice pieces to play, not just as technical studies. The level of difficulty ranges from Grade 2 - 5. I've also just bought a book of pieces called 'Enfantines' by Bloch. These shouldn't be too difficult for you and they are great pieces to play, although the book was quite hard to get hold of. The Mozart book of early pieces has some little gems in it too, and have a look at some easier pieces by Bach such as the Prelude in F that was on last year's Grade 4 sylabus as these are often good studies in contrapuntal playing as well as just being really beautiful.

Have fun!

Just a few more ideas for you:

I live in the Netherlands and I have third book of the European Piano Method / Europaische Klavierschule by Fritz Emonts. I am sure it is available in UK too.
It is a thick book, over a 100 pages, it contains pieces and exercises, a lot of non standard repertoire pieces from all style periods, also improvisation is taught, and a CD is included on which Fritz Emonts plays 90% of the pieces in the book. The cover is childish but the contents are very mature, grade 2 to 5/6+. It was about 25 Euros with the CD included. Recommended to look at.

Another not so expensive source of repertoire would be the old fashioned John Thompson lesson books, red cover, Modern Course for the Piano: look at the third and fourth grade books. They are thick, 90 pages or so, and they are more like varied repertoire albums than actual lesson books.

A favourite of mine is Kabalevksy Children's Pieces opus 27. One of the pieces is in the grade 4 list of this year. If you like Kabalevsky, it is great. Grade 2-6

An easy Scarlatti Sonata is K32 (aria) really beautiful, one page long. (Grade 2/3)

Then there is Heller, the studies opus 47 are really pieces not exercises at all. Some remind me of Mendelssohn, others of Grieg, etc. Grades 3-5.

Also by Heller, the Preludes pour Mademoiselle Lili opus 119 (I think), my personal favourite is no. 28. (Gr.3/4 I guess)

J.S. Bach, Notebook for Anna Magdalena.

20th Century minimal music: Fur Alina by Arvo Part (technically grade 1, musically grade 8 )

Erik Satie: Gnossiennes and Gymnopedies

Schumann: Album for the Youth, out of the first 16 or so pieces most are Gr. 3/4)

Tchaikovsky: Album for the Youth (The sick doll and The new doll have a really authentic Tchaikovsky sound)

A lot of the older music is freely downloadable from this site:
http://imslp.org/index.php?title=Main_Page&

Hope you will enjoy these.

Hi, I thought of a few more:

I find that for the 'sounds-pleasant-not-so-demanding' category of pieces, often the highest level of a lesson book series has very nice pieces.
For example: Piano Adventures by Faber&Faber, level 5 Lesson book. You can listen to the pieces here on their site:
http://www.pianoteaching.com/listeningRoom.../pa/level5.html

Another nice one is Hal Leonard Level 5, Piano solos, about 15 original contemporary pieces, has an optional play along CD too.
Both are around Grade 3.