Download or read book Men Women and Pianos written by Arthur Loesser and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-04-27 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Men Women and Pianos a Social History by Arthur Loesser Preface by Jacques Barzun written by Arthur Loesser and published by . This book was released on 1954 with total page 655 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Natural History of the Piano written by Stuart Isacoff and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Men Women and Pianos written by Arthur Loesser and published by . This book was released on 1964 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Piano written by James Barron and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book A History of Keyboard Literature written by Stewart Gordon and published by Schirmer. This book was released on 1996 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intended for the Music Literature course for music majors.
Download or read book The Piano written by Susan Tomes and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Dancing to a Black Man s Tune written by Susan Curtis and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As one of the creators of ragtime, Joplin moved between black and white society, and his experience offers a window into the complex forces of class, race, and culture that shaped modern America.
Download or read book The Lost Pianos of Siberia written by Sophy Roberts and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book The Piano Tuner written by Daniel Mason and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2003-12-16 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Men Who Have Made Piano History written by Alfred Dolge and published by . This book was released on 1980-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Weight of a Piano written by Chris Cander and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-01-22 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: USA TODAY BESTSELLER In 1962, in the Soviet Union, eight-year-old Katya is bequeathed what will become the love of her life: a Blüthner piano, on which she discovers an enrichening passion for music. Yet after she marries, her husband insists the family emigrate to America—and loses her piano in the process. In 2012, in Bakersfield, California, twenty-six-year-old Clara Lundy is burdened by the last gift her father gave her before he and her mother died in a terrible house fire: a Blüthner upright she has never learned to play. Now a talented and independent auto mechanic, Clara’s career is put on hold when she breaks her hand trying to move the piano, and in sudden frustration she decides to sell it. Only in discovering the identity of the buyer—and the secret history of her piano—will Clara be set free to live the life of her choosing.
Download or read book The First Fleet Piano Volume One written by Geoffrey Lancaster and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 919 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the late eighteenth century, a musical–cultural phenomenon swept the globe. The English square piano—invented in the early 1760s by an entrepreneurial German guitar maker in London—not only became an indispensable part of social life, but also inspired the creation of an expressive and scintillating repertoire. Square pianos reinforced music as life’s counterpoint, and were played by royalty, by musicians of the highest calibre and by aspiring amateurs alike. On Sunday, 13 May 1787, a square piano departed from Portsmouth on board the Sirius, the flagship of the First Fleet, bound for Botany Bay. Who made the First Fleet piano, and when was it made? Who owned it? Who played it, and who listened? What music did the instrument sound out, and within what contexts was its voice heard? What became of the First Fleet piano after its arrival on antipodean soil, and who played a part in the instrument’s subsequent history? Two extant instruments contend for the title ‘First Fleet piano’; which of these made the epic journey to Botany Bay in 1787–88? The First Fleet Piano: A Musician’s View answers these questions, and provides tantalising glimpses of social and cultural life both in Georgian England and in the early colony at Sydney Cove. The First Fleet piano is placed within the musical and social contexts for which it was created, and narratives of the individuals whose lives have been touched by the instrument are woven together into an account of the First Fleet piano’s conjunction with the forces of history. View ‘The First Fleet Piano: Volume Two Appendices’. Note: Volume 1 and 2 are sold as a set ($180 for both) and cannot be purchased separately.
Download or read book Steinway written by Ronald V. Ratcliffe and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2002-09 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The exquisite pianos produced by Steinway & Sons are revered by musicians, music lovers, and collectors around the world. Publishing to coincide with the firms 150th anniversary, this beautiful new edition celebrates the history of the family and the instruments it creates with fully updated text and a striking new cover. Interweaving the stories of the pianos, their creation, and the music they inspire with more than 200 photos, designs, sketches, and paintings,Steinway pays elegant tribute to these incomparable instruments."--Publisher's description.
Download or read book Our Own Devices written by Edward Tenner and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2004-06-08 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This delightful and instructive history of invention shows why National Public Radio dubbed Tenner “the philosopher of everyday technology.” Looking at how our inventions have impacted our world in ways we never intended or imagined, he shows that the things we create have a tendency to bounce back and change us. The reclining chair, originally designed for brief, healthful relaxation, has become the very symbol of obesity. The helmet, invented for military purposes, has made possible new sports like mountain biking and rollerblading. The typewriter, created to make business run more smoothly, has resulted in wide-spread vision problems, which in turn have made people more reliant on another invention—eyeglasses. As he sheds light on the many ways inventions surprise and renew us, Tenner considers where technology will take us in the future, and what we can expect from the devices that we no longer seem able to live without.
Download or read book Piano Servicing Tuning and Rebuilding written by Arthur A. Reblitz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-11-04 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over forty years, Arthur A. Reblitz’s Piano Servicing, Tuning, and Rebuilding has been the gold-standard manual for piano technicians and hands-on hobbyists who want to rebuild or maintain pianos. Reblitz demystifies the daunting prospect of working on a piano as he guides readers through every detail of upright and grand piano mechanics and describes servicing and repairs with understandable, easy-to-follow instructions. The third edition of this invaluable handbook includes over 60 new and 300 remastered images of piano anatomy, tools, and techniques; consideration of ivory alternatives and the newest adhesives and lubricants; new material covering the art of tuning by ear and today’s sophisticated electronic tuning devices; new repair and rebuilding techniques; and a brand new glossary of terms. Piano Servicing, Tuning, and Rebuilding provides piano technician and servicing programs, pianists, and amateur players and hobbyists around the world with an essential twenty-first-century guide to achieving peak performance and maximum longevity for their instruments.
Download or read book The Romanntic Piano written by Nancy Bachus and published by Alfred Music Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Summarizes the influence of society, style, and musical trends on the great piano composers from of the Romantic era, 1790-1910. Includes historical paintings, famous quotations, information about thirteen great composers, full-length piano solos, and 2 CDs of motivating solo piano performances played by concert pianist Daniel Glover.
