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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very interesting,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Art of Piano Playing (Paperback)
His uncle Felix Blumenfeld was a Horowitz teacher.
Some of Neuhaus students among many others: - Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels, both considered top 10 world pianists. - The first teacher (the mother) of Andrei Gavrilov. - Radu Lupu. This book is funny as exemplified below by some excerpts: "Thinking about art and science, about their mutual relationship and contradictions, I came to the conclusion, for some reason or other, that mathematics and music are situated at extreme poles of the human spirit, that these two antipodes limit and determine the whole spiritual and creative activity of man and that situated between them is everything that mankind has created in the field of science and art". I found his above childish thoughts very interesting, perhaps meaning that everything is a linear combination of pure logic (math) and pure emotion (music). As I work with math and like to play piano I will tend to be a "complete" human being :-) Other of his "jokes": "When Emil Gilels came to study with me in the Moscow State Conservatory, I was once forced to say to him: You are already a grown man, you can eat steak and drink beer but so far you have been fed with a baby's bottle" "I remember that when Glazunov was about fifty his mother used to tell the washerwoman to be careful with the child's linen" "To play the piano is easy. I mean the physical process, and not the summit of pianistic art.It is obvious that to play the piano very well is just as difficult as to do anything else very well, for instance to pull teeth or macadam a road". "I must once more apologize for this excessively long history about myself; that is always somewhat indecent. But what can one do?" "Carl Czerny, the "dry and methodical genius" who has tortured generations of pianists wih an inexhaustible stream of studies and exercises..." And many more... His jokes are almost everywere. Otherwise the book has several useful recommendations and analysis about the art of piano playing and has chapters on "artistic image of a musical composition", on tone, on technique and on teaching activity. But be advised: Sometimes the book is a bit verbose, repetitive and philosophical. It is not directed only to technical problems.
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Whisdom of a teacher,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Art of Piano Playing (Paperback)
When I first read this book I knew almost notihng about interpritation. Since the first time I read it (because it's worth reading it more than one time) I have begun to play the piano in a totaly different way. There are plenty of usefull tips in it, although the author states that that was not in his intentions. The most important is that you must not struggle for a perfect technique or an nice sound, but those two elements should be the key to a meaningfull interpritation. As a book, it is very easy to read since it combines personal experiences and advice about piano-playing. It makes the reader seek for more similar books in order to learn how great pianists aproached a skore. It is excelent both for the beginner and the experinced pianist, who can get an idea of how the great teacher of Russia teached his famous studends (Richer, Gilels...)
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must for the young, A delight for the mature pianist,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Art of Piano Playing (Paperback)
If you love the piano, this book is almost as important as a good edition of the Beethoven sonatas and the Well-Tempered Clavier. A student of Leopold Godowsky and the teacher of Richter and Gilels, Mr. Neuhaus put together a very inspiring, almost revelatory book on the loftier spiritual and intellectual aspects of playing the piano. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
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