Great Pianists on Piano Playing
Godowsky, Hofmann, Lhevinne, Paderewski and 24 Other Legendary Performers
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Learning from a virtuoso is something that any piano student would love to do. But while master classes are rare, this remarkable book allows us to share the thoughts, musical insights, and experience of the world's greatest pianists.
In 28 separate interviews, these legendary artists talk about piano technique, musical development, what is required to achieve virtuoso piano artistry, and many other topics related to keyboard performance. Included are Busoni's "Important Details in Piano Study," Rachmaninoff's "Essentials of Artistic Playing," Paderewski's "Breadth in Musical Art," Grainger's "Modernism in Pianoforte Study," as well as fascinating perceptions and commentary from Bachaus, Carreño, Gabrilowitsch, Godowsky, Hofmann, Lhévinne, Scharwenka, and other masters.
Containing a wealth of information and practical advice, including biographical sketches of each musician, Great Pianists on Piano Playing is a one-of-a-kind collection that piano students, teachers, and any music lover will treasure.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Postcyberpunk Doctorow, a rising Canadian SF star, follows his Orwellian Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003) with nine too-near-future tales of aliens and the human alienated and it's often hard to tell the difference. In "Craphound," the author posits an Earth taken over by "bugouts," aliens obsessed with trading technological expertise for human junk, the ephemera that momentarily defines a society and then becomes silly or na ve when some new and more soul-destroying technological amusement arrives. That Faustian central metaphor of the thirst for technology as the ultimate source of spiritual corruption almost guarantees Doctorow's other absorption, his vision of Disneyland in "Return to Pleasure Island," a horrifying sidewise glimpse of the children's entertainment industry. Since the short story form seems somewhat restrictive for him, his best pieces, like his achingly funny reflections on adolescence ("The Year of the Hormone") and a Jewish superman in the era of the Pax Aliena ("The Super Man and the Bugout"), need at least novella-size room. His closing story, "OwnzOred," a shockingly original glimpse of 21st-century mankind tottering at the brink of a mortally steep cliff, is a polemic on fair-use freedom. By relentlessly exposing disenchanted Silicon Valley dwellers caught in a military-industrial web of khaki money, Congress-critters and babykiller projects, Doctorow explores the intersection of social concern and technology Never-Never land, or 2084? (Oct. 6)
