Men, Women and Pianos

Men, Women and Pianos PDF Author: Arthur Loesser
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486171612
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 674

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Book Description
A renowned concert pianist traces the instrument's design, manufacture, and music in a delightful "piano's eye-view" of the social history of Western Europe and the United States from the 16th to the 20th centuries.

Men, Women and Pianos

Men, Women and Pianos PDF Author: Arthur Loesser
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486171612
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 674

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Book Description
A renowned concert pianist traces the instrument's design, manufacture, and music in a delightful "piano's eye-view" of the social history of Western Europe and the United States from the 16th to the 20th centuries.

Men, Women and Pianos, a Social History, by Arthur Loesser. [Preface by Jacques Barzun].

Men, Women and Pianos, a Social History, by Arthur Loesser. [Preface by Jacques Barzun]. PDF Author: Arthur Loesser
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 655

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Book Description


A Natural History of the Piano

A Natural History of the Piano PDF Author: Stuart Isacoff
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307701425
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
A beautifully illustrated, totally engrossing celebration of the piano, and the composers and performers who have made it their own. With honed sensitivity and unquestioned expertise, Stuart Isacoff—pianist, critic, teacher, and author of Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization—unfolds the ongoing history and evolution of the piano and all its myriad wonders: how its very sound provides the basis for emotional expression and individual style, and why it has so powerfully entertained generation upon generation of listeners. He illuminates the groundbreaking music of Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Schumann, and Debussy. He analyzes the breathtaking techniques of Glenn Gould, Oscar Peterson, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Arthur Rubinstein, and Van Cliburn, and he gives musicians including Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Menahem Pressler, and Vladimir Horowitz the opportunity to discuss their approaches. Isacoff delineates how classical music and jazz influenced each other as the uniquely American art form progressed from ragtime, novelty, stride, boogie, bebop, and beyond, through Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Cecil Taylor, and Bill Charlap. A Natural History of the Piano distills a lifetime of research and passion into one brilliant narrative. We witness Mozart unveiling his monumental concertos in Vienna’s coffeehouses, using a special piano with one keyboard for the hands and another for the feet; European virtuoso Henri Herz entertaining rowdy miners during the California gold rush; Beethoven at his piano, conjuring healing angels to console a grieving mother who had lost her child; Liszt fainting in the arms of a page turner to spark an entire hall into hysterics. Here is the instrument in all its complexity and beauty. We learn of the incredible craftsmanship of a modern Steinway, the peculiarity of specialty pianos built for the Victorian household, the continuing innovation in keyboards including electronic ones. And most of all, we hear the music of the masters, from centuries ago and in our own age, brilliantly evoked and as marvelous as its most recent performance. With this wide-ranging volume, Isacoff gives us a must-have for music lovers, pianists, and the armchair musician.

Piano

Piano PDF Author: James Barron
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429900121
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
An alluring exploration of the people and the legendary craftsmanship behind a single Steinway piano Like no other instrument, a grand piano melds engineering feats with the magical sounds of great music: the thunder of a full-throated bass, the bright, delicate trill of the upper treble. Alone among the big piano companies, Steinway still crafts all of its pianos largely by hand, imbuing each one with the promise and burden of its brand. In this captivating narrative, James Barron of The New York Times tells the story of one Steinway piano, from raw lumber to finished instrument. Barron follows that brand-new piano-known by its number, K0862-on its eleven-month journey through the Steinway factory, where time-honored manufacturing methods vie with modern-day industrial efficiency. He looks over the shoulders of men and women-some second- and third-generation employees, some recently arrived immigrants-who transform wood and steel into a concert grand. Together, they carry on the traditions begun more than 150 years ago by the immigrants who founded Steinway & Sons-a family that soared to prominence in the music world and, for a while, in New York City's political and economic life. Barron also explores the art and science of developing a piano's timbre and character before its first performance, when the essential question will be answered: Does K0862 live up to the Steinway legend? From start to finish, Piano will charm and enlighten music lovers.

Men, Women and Pianos

Men, Women and Pianos PDF Author: Arthur Loesser
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780671468019
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


The Piano

The Piano PDF Author: Susan Tomes
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300253923
Category : MUSIC
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
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.

The Piano Tuner

The Piano Tuner PDF Author: Daniel Mason
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1400077710
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book A San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, and Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year “A gripping and resonant novel. . . . It immerses the reader in a distant world with startling immediacy and ardor. . . . Riveting.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times In 1886 a shy, middle-aged piano tuner named Edgar Drake receives an unusual commission from the British War Office: to travel to the remote jungles of northeast Burma and there repair a rare piano belonging to an eccentric army surgeon who has proven mysteriously indispensable to the imperial design. From this irresistible beginning, The Piano Tuner launches readers into a world of seductive, vibrantly rendered characters, and enmeshes them in an unbreakable spell of storytelling.

A History of Keyboard Literature

A History of Keyboard Literature PDF Author: Stewart Gordon
Publisher: Schirmer
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 584

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Book Description
Intended for the Music Literature course for music majors.

Pianoforte

Pianoforte PDF Author: Dieter Hildebrandt
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description


The Lost Pianos of Siberia

The Lost Pianos of Siberia PDF Author: Sophy Roberts
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 0802149308
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 443

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Book Description
This “melodious” mix of music, history, and travelogue “reveals a story inextricably linked to the drama of Russia itself . . . These pages sing like a symphony.” —The Wall Street Journal Siberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies, and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell. Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos—grand instruments created during the boom years of the nineteenth century, as well as humble Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the westernizing influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood. How these pianos traveled into this snowbound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers, and exiles. Siberian pianos have accomplished extraordinary feats, from the instrument that Maria Volkonsky, wife of an exiled Decembrist revolutionary, used to spread music east of the Urals, to those that brought reprieve to the Soviet Gulag. That these instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle. The Lost Pianos of Siberia follows Roberts on a three-year adventure as she tracks a number of instruments to find one whose history is definitively Siberian. Her journey reveals a desolate land inhabited by wild tigers and deeply shaped by its dark history, yet one that is also profoundly beautiful—and peppered with pianos. “An elegant and nuanced journey through literature, through history, through music, murder and incarceration and revolution, through snow and ice and remoteness, to discover the human face of Siberia. I loved this book.” —Paul Theroux