Customer Reviews

Great Pianists on Piano Playing: Godowsky, Hofmann, Lhevinne, Paderewski and 24 Other Legendary Performers (Dover Books on Music)

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If you play the piano with a passion, read this book. It gives many insights into how pianists from the golden age of pianism gave life to music on the keyboard. Hofman, Rubinstein, Paderewski,Sauer, Busoni, Bauer, Godowsky are just some of the greats. You can gauge for yourself how piano playing is expressed in terms of an art and a science. Not just body but mind too. Advice like not over-reliance on the metronome. Use your musical ear. You would have to read the book a couple of times before you find some common threads. They sure are golden threads to spin your music. Enjoy.

Accomplished pianists and those aspiring to become one all dream about how wonderful it would have been to study with or to have heard the legendary composers perform their own music. Unfortunately this can only be a dream, however, we do have access to performances given by the greatest virtuosos who indeed worked with their contemporaries. This book, 'Great Pianists On Piano Playing' offers invaluable insight to the thought process used by various artists to make their own performances unique, musically innate and stylistically enhancing such as Teresa Carreno finds great inspiration in Shakespeare, inspiration that was communicated in her interpretations of musical masterpieces. The various interviews with legendary virtuosos offer magnificent findings on how they decide to approach a composition, shape a phrase, choose a tempo, develop touch, how to concentrate and so much more. The bringing together of such pianists as Godowsky, Hofmann, Lhevinne, Paderewski and many others by James Francis Cooke is an ideal source of information and reference for all performers and especially students looking for what lies behind a virtuoso's success such as musical mother in the case of Emil Sauer or behind the notes where magical interpretations are truly created.

Author: Raymond Vacchino M.Mus. A.Mus. L.R.S.M. Licentiate(honorary)

I really enjoyed this book and learned so much from it to apply to my own piano practice.
Wonderful tips on good practice methods and pitfalls to avoid.

Lovely discussions about what makes artistic and spiritually enlightened playing, what the life of a virtuouso is like, and some comical analogies stemmming from the social and cultural norms from the time period being reflected.

Very worthwhile book.