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Summary
Summary
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.
Author Notes
Stuart Isacoff , a pianist and writer, was the founder of Piano Today magazine, which he edited for nearly three decades. A winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence in writing about music, he is a regular contributor on the arts to The Wall Street Journal and has written for The New York Times, Chamber Music, Symphony, Musical America, Stagebill , and The New Grove Dictionary of American Music. Mr. Isacoff is also the author of Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization . He is on the faculty of the SUNY Purchase College Conservatory of Music. He lives in Closter, New Jersey.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Pianist and author Isacoff (Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization) again ventures into music's conceptual thickets, this time emerging with an encyclopedic and argumentative overview of all things piano: its antecedents, builders, players, popularity, and cultural status. It is not a strictly chronological history, as the main narrative is festooned with inset boxes, artist's photos, and backstory sidebars on topics ranging from "What's a Sonata?" to jazz icon Billy Taylor on "Learning from Tatum." Isacoff's main concern, it appears, is classifying how matters of style, sound, mood, and technique associated with such classical masters as Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, and others interrelate and perpetuate across genre into modern times. As Isacoff puts it, "Despite the large swath they cut across time and geography, many of these creators fell naturally into a handful of stylistic categories." Those groups-combustibles, alchemists, rhythmizers, and melodists-shape a piano gestalt through which readers will be impressed (and occasionally rendered numb) by the depth and diversity of Isacoff's research and references. And, of course, there's room for argument. To his credit, though searching for the affinities that may make music universal, Isacoff also illuminates elements of what may, in fact, make music timeless. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Piano Today founder Isacoff (Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization, 2001). The piano supplanted the harpsichord because the action of its hammers on the strings could create sounds both "piano e forte" (soft and loud)--hence the name pianoforte, eventually shortened to piano. Medici protg Bartolomeo Cristofori came up with the design in the late 17th century, but it was the playing and compositions of Mozart in the 1780s, writes Isacoff, that first made the instrument popular. By the 19th century, a piano was a necessary accessory in middle-class homes across Europe and America, sparking a boom in their manufacture and a flood of touring performers. Isacoff divides the pianists who dazzled the cognoscenti and the masses alike into four categories: the Combustibles, turbulent artists ranging from Beethoven to Jerry Lee Lewis; the Alchemists, atmospheric musicians such as Claude Debussy and jazzman Bill Evans; Rhythmitizers like Fats Waller, who stress the instrument's percussive qualities; and Melodists from Schubert to Gershwin, who give us the tunes we love to hum. Sidebars on everything from pedal technique to digital pianos further broaden the book's scope, as do short contributions from celebrity pianists (Emmanuel Ax, Billy Joel). Isacoff also exhaustively surveys the two great pianistic "schools": the flamboyant Russian style and the more intellectual German approach. Stuffing so much material into a single narrative occasionally leads to a loss of focus, particularly when dealing with composers, none of whom wrote exclusively for the piano. Nonetheless, the author's ability to convey his formidable erudition in the most engaging terms, coupled with his infectious enthusiasm for music of all kinds, make this a charming and highly readable potpourri. Informative fun for every variety of music lover.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* I love a piano! I love a piano! Irving Berlin exclaimed in an early song, and, really, who doesn't? The founder of the magazine Piano Today comprehensively tells us why in this encyclopedic account of the most mercurial and chameleonic of all natural (as opposed to electronic) instruments. After a fine teaser that is largely a tribute to the Promethean jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, and then a first chapter on the genesis of the modern piano, Isacoff presents the man who made the keyboard a star vehicle Mozart, of course as the lead-in to relating the dual rise of the piano craze and the traveling keyboard virtuoso-entrepreneur in the nineteenth century. In the middle of the book, Isacoff proposes four descriptive rubrics with which to distinguish the dominant characters of great pianists as either combustibles (e.g., Beethoven, Liszt, Cecil Taylor, Jerry Lee Lewis). alchemists (Debussy, Scriabin, Ellington, Monk, Bill Evans). rhythmitizers (Morton, Tatum, Waller, Professor Longhair), or melodists (Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Satie, Gershwin, Bud Powell). The concluding third consists of chapters on particular national schools of pianism (American, Russian, German, and other European varieties), one on cutting edge practitioners and the use of new media (e.g., YouTube) in the interests of the piano, and one on the revival of old instruments and performance practices. Fraught with, besides 142 pictures, sidebars containing piquant remarks by major pianists, this is a big slice of heaven for piano-lovers.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2010 Booklist
Choice Review
In this informative, comprehensive, and conversational overview, Isacoff (Conservatory of Music, Purchase College, SUNY) traces the history of the piano, contextualizing its music and performers. Organized into three main sections, the book describes the intersection of the music composed for the piano and the evolution of the piano into the instrument as it is known today. Chapters 1-5 address the history of the piano; chapters 6-10 describe composers who wrote for the piano, dividing them into four types (combustibles, alchemists, rhythmitizers, melodists); chapters 7-15 provide an overview of famous pianists and various schools of playing. Throughout the book, Isacoff intersperses quotations and anecdotes from prominent pianists and composers. This nonlinear overview of piano literature is refreshing although in places has potential to confuse, as Isacoff skips around in history and between genres. Still this a deft rendering of a great deal of material; Isacoff demonstrates a broad knowledge of literature, history, composer, performers, and genres. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. K. Boyd Butler University
Library Journal Review
In this engrossing study, pianist Isacoff (Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization) combines basic history of the construction and sound of pianos with witty discourses on composers and performers and their cultural context. Dividing the subject into thematic sections such as "Combustibles" or "Rhythmitizers" brings together similar stylists from across the centuries, while certain major schools such as that emanating from Russia are given separate treatment. Although the field of piano history books is already crowded, this title stands out for its distinctive inclusion of jazz figures such as Duke Ellington and for long quotations from artists ranging from Vladimir Horowitz to Billy Joel. Isacoff addresses the role of women musicians and brings to the fore valuable if long-forgotten names as well. The many photographs and drawings lend much humanity; diagrams and selected musical examples, contributor biographies, and sections of notes are all useful. VERDICT Pianists at all levels, music history buffs, and academics will appreciate Isacoff's insights and clever way with words; this is an enjoyable and informative book. [See Prepub Alert, 5/2/11.]-Barry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| List of Illustrations | p. xi |
| Chapter 1 A Gathering of Traditions | p. 3 |
| Chapter 2 The Piano Is Born | p. 18 |
| Chapter 3 The First Piano Superstar | p. 32 |
| Chapter 4 Piano Fever | p. 51 |
| Chapter 5 Performers on the Boad | p. 65 |
| Chapter 6 The Four Sounds | p. 85 |
| Chapter 7 The Combustibles | |
| Part 1 The New Testament | p. 94 |
| Part 2 Still Setting Blades | p. 113 |
| Chapter 8 The Alchemists | |
| Part 1 Chemistry | p. 126 |
| Part 2 Shock and Awe | p. 150 |
| Chapter 9 The Rhythmitizers | |
| Part 1 The American Adventure Begins | p. 162 |
| Part 2 All That Jazz | p. 176 |
| Part 3 Rock Solid or Teetering on the Brink | p. 186 |
| Chapter 10 The Melodists | |
| Part 1 Straight from the Heart | p. 195 |
| Part 2 Breeiy and Unflappable | p. 218 |
| Chapter 11 The Cultivated and the Vernacular | p. 230 |
| Chapter 12 The Russians Are Coming | p. 242 |
| Chapter 13 The Germans and Their Close Relations | p. 263 |
| Chapter 14 Keys to the World | p. 276 |
| Chapter 15 On the Cutting Edge | p. 295 |
| Chapter 16 Everything Old Is New Again | p. 308 |
| Appendix: Supplementary Notes | p. 321 |
| Contributor Biographies | p. 331 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 333 |
| Notes on Sources | p. 335 |
| Index | p. 347 |
