Piano Roles A New History Of The Piano

This delightfully written book examines every aspect of the history of the piano over the past 300 years. This new edition includes 47 color photos and 14 illustrations.

This delightfully written book examines every aspect of the history of the piano over the past 300 years. This new edition includes 47 color photos and 14 illustrations.

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.

The place of the piano in classical and popular musical cultures and its changing roles over the past three centuries are examined by eminent authorities. Everything about the piano is here: its invention, innovations in design, importance of piano lessons in girls' lives, images formed around the piano, and more. 153 b&w, 65 color illustrations.

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.

A fascinating celebration of the piano, including tales of its masters from Mozart and Beethoven to Oscar Peterson and Jerry Lee Lewis, told with the expertise of composer and author of Temperament, Stuart Isacoff. This history takes us back to the piano's humble genesis as a simple keyboard, and shows how everyone from Ferdinando de’ Medici to Herbie Hancock affected its evolution of sound and influence in popular music. Presenting the instrument that has been at the core of musical development over the centuries in all its beauty and complexity, this explores the piano’s capabilities and the range of emotional expression it conveys in different artists’ hands. A Natural History of the Piano is fast-paced and intriguing, with beautiful illustrations and photos, a must-read for music lovers and pianists of every level.

"Ernest Closson's History of the Piano was first published in English in 1947, three years after the appearance of the original edition in French. Closson (1870-1950) was founder and director of the Museum of the Conservatoire Royal in Brussels, which boasts one of the richest collections of keyboard instruments in the world, and he was therefore well qualified to write a book on their evolution. The greater part of the work is concerned with the development of the piano itself, from the delicate instrument invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori in Florence in the early years of the eighteenth century, to the sturdy modern 'grand'; but there are also chapters on related instruments such as the clavichord, the harpsichord, the virginal and the spinet. When Closson's book first appeared the subject was poorly documented and the opportunities for seeing and hearing old keyboard instruments were extremely limited, but today interest in them is widespread and they are very much more accessible (and better cared for). The issue of a revised edition of Closson's work, incorporating emendations made by the author since the publication of the French and English editions, corrections and additional material made in the light of subsequent research and documentation, a greatly expanded bibliography, and new plates and line-drawings of actions--though preserving the distinctive flavour of the original book--should therefore be most welcome. This book remains a clear and readable summary of the development and refinement of stringed keyboard instruments, valuable to anyone who has any experience at all with the piano or with its antecedents." --Dust jacket.

Roell uses company records and the popular press to chronicle the piano industry through changing values, business strategies, economic conditions, and technology. For Roell, as for the industry, music is a byproduct. Originally published in 1991. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.