"An astonishingly versatile instrument, the piano allows just two hands to play music of great complexity and subtlety. For more than two hundred years, it has brought solo and collaborative music into homes and concert halls and has inspired composers in every musical genre--from classical to jazz and light music. Charting the development of the piano from the late eighteenth century to the present day, pianist and writer Susan Tomes takes the reader...

Learn a very simple, professional method for tuning with 17 lessons. The author, who taught at a piano tuning school, explains how to use basic tuning tools to correct a few notes or an entire piano. Repairs include fixes for sticky keys and adjustments to bottoms, capstans, hammer stems, and more.

An exploration of the people and the legendary craftsmanship behind a single Steinway piano. Alone among the big piano companies, Steinway still crafts all of its pianos largely by hand, imbuing each one with the promise and burden of its brand. Journalist and amateur pianist Barron of The New York Times tells the story of one Steinway piano, from raw lumber to finished instrument. He follows it on its eleven-month journey through the Steinway factory,...

A bravura performance! The artistic merit of performers with superior technique has long been almost ipso facto denied. At last, Mark Mitchell launches a counterattack. In essays crackling with pianistic lore, Mitchell takes on topics such as encores, prodigies, competitions, virtuosi in film and literature, and the erotics of musical performance. Liszt, Horowitz, and Argerich share these pages with the eccentric Pachmann, Ervin Nyiregyh ("the skid-row...

Guide to the Pianist's Repertoire continues to be the go-to source for piano performers, teachers, and students. Newly updated and expanded with over 250 new composers, this incomparable resource expertly guides readers to solo piano literature. What did a given composer write? What interesting work have I never heard of? How difficult is it? What are its special musical features? How can I reach the publisher? It's all here. Featuring information...

In 1962, in the Soviet Union, eight-year-old Katya is bequeathed what will become the love of her life: a Blüthner piano, built at the turn of the century in Germany, on which she discovers everything that she herself can do with music and what music, in turn, does for her. Yet after marrying, she emigrates with her young family from Russia to America, at her husband's frantic insistence, and her piano is lost in the shuffle. In 2012, in Bakersfield,...