My Life with the Great Pianists

My Life with the Great Pianists
Author: Franz Mohr
Publisher: Baker Books
Total Pages: 224
Release: 1996-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Mohr's humor and personal perspective on the lives of Rubinstein, Horowitz, and other artists mix music lore with quiet faith.

Great Contemporary Pianists Speak for Themselves

Great Contemporary Pianists Speak for Themselves
Author: Elyse Mach
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 484
Release: 2012-09-21
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0486173542

Revealing interviews with Arrau, Brendel, de Larrocha, Gilels, Horowitz, Tureck, Watts, 18 other artists. Intimate look at the concert scene and the life of a concert pianist. Introduction by Sir George Solti. Includes 51 photographs.

The Great Jazz Pianists

The Great Jazz Pianists
Author: Len Lyons
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 1989-03-22
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780306803437

This comprehensive survey of jazz piano, beginning with a brief history of the instrument within the jazz tradition and concluding with interviews that present twenty-seven pianists in their own words, is both wonderfully anecdotal and a serious piece of jazz history. Lyons has assembled a giant concert of piano voices—Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Teddy Wilson, Oscar Peterson, Keith Jarrett, Randy Weston, Cecil Taylor, Horace Silver, Dave Brubeck, Sun Ra, McCoy Tyner, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Chick Corea, and many others. The pianists are candid, intense, and always opinionated. Yet their responses are infused with a keen appreciation for fellow musicians, their contemporaries, and those who came before—Walter, Tatum, Ellington. For pianists everywhere, whatever their individual style, this book will speak to and for you as it expresses the thoughts of its many great artists.

Speaking Of Pianists

Speaking Of Pianists
Author: Abram Chasins
Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated
Total Pages: 356
Release: 1981
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

The author collects his reminiscences- and reactions stimulated by piano playing and piano music. So that his clavichord is well-tempered not only by his knowledge and feeling for its music, but also by his own association with many performers. He reestablishes Josef Hofmann as a great pianist and a greatly loved teacher; Rachmaninoff, the communicable and sumptuous melodist; Schnabel and Godowsky; the courtly Paderewski and the ebullient Rubinstein; Wanda Landowski and Backhaus, Gieseking and Serkin, Casadesus and Horowitz are all in this gallery of greats. He writes also of interpretation and teaching, of the ruthless stranglehold of concert management, of hi fidelity and its "high fatality" to the quality of recorded performances, and there is a substantial section of commentaries on particular works and composers- chiefly classical. Informed, but informally presented music appreciation which the general listener will enjoy- along with the contact with many concert pianists and the anecdotal asides.

The Piano

The Piano
Author: Susan Tomes
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2021-01-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0300253923

A fascinating history of the piano explored through 100 pieces chosen by one of the UK's most renowned concert pianists "Tomes . . . casts her net widely, taking in chamber music and concertos, knotty avant-garde masterworks and (most welcome) jazz."--Richard Fairman, Financial Times, "Best Books of 2021: Classical Music" "[One of] the most beautiful books I got my hands on this year. . . . About the shaping of this maddening, glorious, unconquerable instrument."--Jenny Colgan, Spectator, "Books of the Year" An astonishingly versatile instrument, the piano allows just two hands to play music of great complexity and subtlety. For more than two hundred years, it has brought solo and collaborative music into homes and concert halls and has inspired composers in every musical genre--from classical to jazz and light music. Charting the development of the piano from the late eighteenth century to the present day, pianist and writer Susan Tomes takes the reader with her on a personal journey through 100 pieces including solo works, chamber music, concertos, and jazz. Her choices include composers such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Robert Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Gershwin, and Philip Glass. Looking at this history from a modern performer's perspective, she acknowledges neglected women composers and players including Fanny Mendelssohn, Maria Szymanowska, Clara Schumann, and Amy Beach.

Speaking the Piano

Speaking the Piano
Author: Susan Tomes
Publisher: Boydell Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2018-06-15
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9781783273256

This is a book to appeal to a wide range of readers - pianists of every level from beginner to professional, piano teachers, musicians of all kinds, and the broader community of music-lovers.

The Pianist's Craft

The Pianist's Craft
Author: Richard P. Anderson
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2012
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0810882051

No pianist can experience the full flowering of her art without eventually grappling with those great musical minds who composed specifically for piano. In The Pianist's Craft, Richard Anderson collects from his fellow pianist-scholars 19 articles on the teaching, preparation, and performance of works by the greatest composers in the standard piano repertoire. This collection ranges in subject matter from Inge Rosar's meditation on playing Bach on the modern keyboard to Gary Amato's assessment of Haydn's sonatas, from Christie Skousen's review of tone production in Chopin to GwenolynMok's foray into recreating Ravel's works on an Erard piano, the same used by Ravel himself. Readers will find essays as well on Mozart's piano compositions, Beethoven's sonatas, the influence of Schubert's lieder on his piano works, and works by Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Bart k, Gershwin, and Crumb. The contributors--all recognized nationally and internationally for their contributions as performing artists, teachers, recording artists, and clinicians--write thoughtfully about the composers whose work they have studied and played for years. Each author addresses issues unique to the individual composer they have chosen to explore, examining questions of phrasing, tempo, articulation, dynamics, rhythm, color, gesture, lyricism, instrumentation, and genre. Valuable insight is provided into teaching, performing, and preparing these great works. In The Pianist's Craft these great artists and teachers answer questions for readers that are otherwise only addressed in conferences, master classes, and private lessons. In this collection of essays, key points of information and instruction are offered with over 200 musical examples included as illustration. The Pianist's Craft is intended for teachers and students of the intermediate and advanced levels of piano, instructors and performers at the university level, and those who love piano and piano music generally.