Revealing interviews with Arrau, Brendel, de Larrocha, Gilels, Horowitz, Tureck, Watts, 18 other artists. Intimate look at the concert scene and the life of a concert pianist. Introduction by Sir George Solti. Includes 51 photographs.

" . . . a most precious book which every serious pianist and teacher must own." —Journal of the American Liszt Society Joseph Banowetz and four distinguished contributors provide practical suggestions and musicological insights on the pedaling of keyboard works from the 18th to the 20th century.

Children are naturally musical, but many parents don’t know when or how to begin their child’s formal musical education. Whether you wish to encourage your child’s musical growth, or would like to plan more advanced study, this book provides insight and guidance for parents of children from toddlers to teenagers. Beth Luey and Stella Saperstein walk you through the basics of finding the right instrument and instructor for your child, the ins and outs of music lessons, and successful ways to manage practice time. Along the way, they let you know what questions to ask and why. This is the place to find practical, friendly, and knowledgeable advice about marching band, orchestra, and recitals—even the possibility of a musical career. With a thorough list of resources and a glossary, this guide will help you encourage your child to channel that joyful ruckus into beautiful music.

The New Grove Musical Instruments Series, a companion to the much acclaimed New Grove Composer Biography Series, presents in book form many of the lengthy and informative articles published in The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments.

Useful work has been done in recent years in the areas of music psychology, philosophy and education, yet this is the first book to provide a wide assessment of what practical benefits this research can bring to the music practitioner. With 25 chapters by writers representing a broad range of perspectives, this volume is able to highlight many of the potential links between music research and practice. The chapters are divided into five main sections. Section one examines practitioners? use of research to assist their practice and the ways in which they might train to become systematic researchers. Section two explores research centred on perception and cognition, while section three looks at how practitioners have explored their everyday work and what this reveals about the creative process. Section four focuses on how being a musician affects an individual?s sense of self and the how others perceive him or her. The essays in section five outline the new types of data that creative researchers can provide for analysis and interpretation. The concluding chapter discusses that key question - what makes music affect us in the way it does? The research findings in each chapter provide useful sources of data and raise questions that are applicable across the spectrum of music-related disciplines. Moreover, the research methodologies applied to a specific question may have broader application for readers wishing to take on research themselves.

"The Victorian cup on my shelf--a present from my mother--reads 'Love the Giver.' Is it because the very word patronage implies the authority of the father that we have treated American women patrons and activists so unlovingly in the writing of our own history? This pioneering collection of superb scholarship redresses that imbalance. At the same time it brilliantly documents the interrelationship between various aspects of gender and the creation of our own culture."--Judith Tick, author of Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer's Search for American Music "Together with the fine-grained and energetic research, I like the spirit of this book, which is ambitious, bold, and generous minded. Cultivating Music in America corrects long-standing prejudices, omissions, and misunderstandings about the role of women in setting up the structures of America's musical life, and, even more far-reaching, it sheds light on the character of American musical life itself. To read this book is to be brought to a fresh understanding of what is at stake when we discuss notions such as 'elitism, ' 'democratic taste, ' and the political and economic implications of art."--Richard Crawford, author of The American Musical Landscape "We all know we are indebted to royal patronage for the music of Mozart. But who launched American talent? The answer is women, this book teaches us. Music lovers will be grateful for these ten essays, sound in scholarship, that make a strong case for the women philanthropists who ought to join Carnegie and Rockefeller as household words as sponsors of music."--Karen J. Blair, author of The Torchbearers: Women and Their Amateur Arts Associations in America

Shura Cherkassky's life story, like his piano playing, is provocative and captivating. At his death in 1995, Cherkassky was considered one of history's greatest pianists, as well as the last direct link to the Romantic piano tradition of Chopin, Liszt, and Anton Rubinstein. Cherkassky's story merits telling not only for his musical achievements but also for the inspiration he provided by demonstrating tenacity, integrity, common sense, and uncommon courage. Cherkassky began his concert playing life in Ukrainian Odessa at a time of lethal civil strife. Escaping with his parents to America, the child prodigy came under the tutelage of famed pianist Josef Hofmann, whose unfailing personal and professional assistance continued for more than twenty years. Cherkassky overcame poverty, prejudice against his Jewish origins, and unhappiness from his ambivalence over his homosexuality to forge an impressive touring and recording career, an enormous musical repertoire, and an intriguing personality both on stage and off. From his sensational 1923 American debut tour to sold-out concerts on six continents, Cherkassky retained his brilliance throughout a seventy-five year professional career. As a close friend for his last twenty years, author Elizabeth Carr traveled with Cherkassky on tour, attending recording and rehearsal sessions and watching him practice, plan programs, and cope with pianos, acoustics, conductors, and orchestras. Her role as confidante results in a keen understanding of Cherkassky both as a human being and a performer. Through observations, anecdotes, sixteen pages of photos, and personal correspondence reprinted in the book, this biography offers extensive research never before published, and an intimate look at the man and his music.