The Great Pianists: From Mozart to the Present

I found this book fascinating. It doesn't concentrate on biographical details of the great pianists, but rather on their personalities, idiosyncracies and their piano playing style as described by those who heard (and saw) them.

There's some delightful titbits in there, such as the fact that Liszt was a handsome man with long hair, who would throw his hands around, and toss his hair over his face, make dramatic gestures and fierce grimaces while playing. Ladies would swoon and scream and throw their jewellery on the stage while he played. The first rock star?

As well as anecdotes like that, the book is also a history of piano playing, from the piano's invention in Bach's day, until the time of writing, which was the 1980s. It gives a show more clear picture of the changes from baroque to classical to romantic to modernist. As a piano player, I found some fascinating insights there too, such as that it's a relatively new idea that the performer should slavishly adhere to what's written on the score - it was the norm for over a century to embellish and enforce one's own personality onto the music.

My only complaint is that the book finishes too soon - reading it now, I feel like I'm missing out on the rest of the story - it was written squarely in the modernist period, which I'm sure is over now. What are we at now? Post-modernist? Neo-romantic? Eclectic? I'd love someone to tell me. show less

Another indispensable work by Schonberg. Really gives you some idea of how the great pianists of the past (and a few of the present) approached their work and what the pre-recording era ones probably sounded like. This was especially interesting to me since my daughter is studying the piano, and though not a musician myself, I was fascinated by Schonberg's narrative, which includes lots of memorable anecdotes. Doesn't require a music degree to appreciate, and anyone with a hankering for some fine writing needs to discover Schonberg.

this book is absolutely FANTASTIC. I found it really readable and also incredibly informative. It's full of interesting anecdotes which I'm sure I'll never forget, as well as heaps of background on the development of pianos and piano technique from...well, Mozart to the present.
All pianists should read this! It's so much fun to read, and that really makes everything you read about stick.

When you read about Evgeny Kissin having 'potential' and the 'recent' winners of the Chopin competition not seeming to have much 'promise' you realise how long ago this was written, though!