Customer Reviews

Five Centuries of Keyboard Music (Dover Books on Music)

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John Gillespie has written an invaluable resource for anyone interested in solo keyboard music. There are brief biographies of the most important composers, and the author's recommendations of each composer's best solo keyboard works. Gillespie also mentions minor composers, and summarizes the "mood" of each musical period. I don't always agree with his critiques, but that just makes it more interesting. If you are a pianist, teacher, or student, you should own this book

Gillespie was professor of Music at the Indiana University. He endeavored to satisfy a wide range of interests. From the clavier literature student to the musical gourmet , he presents the different phases of keyboard development . Beware about the organ music . He prevents the organ music has its own niche and requires a separate volume .
Individual chapters and articles will be helpful in quickly locating information about particular composers , even the most unknown and sometimes neglected composers of the different countries and periods . Footnotes and bibliographies will be important for the professional , student , performer or simply casual investigator .
As result of the final reading you will obtain a precise scope about the development of the works for the solo keyboard , traditions , interconnections from the first works of the sixteenth century to the new composers of today.
A real must for the music lovers and every person sincerely interested in the evolution of the instrument.

I ordered this book out of a glossy Dover reprints catalog that I in turn ordered from the inside cover of a Dover reprint score. This five-century survey was my first introduction to keyboard music and 25 years later, bits and pieces of this book are still ingrained in my musical awareness. It has influenced the repertoire selections I have practiced, the repertoire I have sought when purchasing CD's, and its chapter-end bibliographies have directed my attention as to where to learn more. I first learned of the Liszt b-minor piano sonata reading this book & later sought out the seminal Horowitz recording of the same from the 1930's to hear what I was reading about. Any piano student starting out desiring to get a lay of the land would do well to begin here.

It's interesting to look back at this book and see which names and works did and did not make it into its pages. One glaring omission is Leopold Godowsky whose name appears nowhere, not even in the chapter on pianist-technicians. How tastes have changed!

I purchased it as a textbook. The conditions of this book which I received several weeks ago is just fine. However, the dealing fee (postage, I mean) is much expensive than the price of this book.