Great PianistsFrom Mozart’s fabulous legato that “flowed like oil” to Beethoven’s oceanlike surge, from Clara Schumann’s touch “sharp as a pencil sketch” to Rubinstein’s volcanic and sensual playing, The Great Pianists brings to life the brilliant, stylish, and sometimes eccentric personalities, methods, and technical peculiarities of history’s greatest pianists. Pulitzer Prize–winning critic and author Harold C. Schonberg presents vivid accounts of the artists’ performances, styles, and even their personal lives and quirky characteristics— such as Mozart’s intense competition with Clementi, Lizst’s magnetic effect on women (when he played, ladies flung their jewels on stage), and Gottschalk’s persistent nailbiting, which left the keys covered with blood. Including profiles of Horowitz and Van Cliburn, among others, and chapters detailing the playing and careers of such modern pianists as de Larrocha, Ashkenazy, Gilels, Gould, Brendel, Bolet, Gutierrez, and Watts, The Great Pianists is a comprehensive and fascinating look at legendary performers past and present. |
Contents
Preface | 13 |
In the Beginning | 19 |
It Should Flow Like Oil | 38 |
Thirds Sixths and Octaves | 51 |
In Profile and on the Road | 62 |
StringSnapper Hands on High | 78 |
In the Interim | 96 |
From Ireland to Bohemia | 106 |
An Archangel Come Down to Earth | 301 |
The Little Giant and Other Liszt Made Giants | 310 |
Some of the Leschetizky Group | 326 |
The Chopinzee the Buddha and Others | 332 |
The Ladies | 347 |
Composers at the Keyboard | 358 |
Dr Faust at the Keyboard | 366 |
Perfection Plus | 377 |
Romanticism and Its Rules | 127 |
Tubercular Romantic Poetic | 144 |
Thunder Lightning Mesmerism Sex | 161 |
Old Arpeggio Other Salonists and the American Penetration | 183 |
More Salonists and the Revolutionary in Octaves | 203 |
Two Sensitive Ones | 209 |
The First American | 217 |
The Virtuous | 229 |
Tyrant and Intellectual | 243 |
The Children of the Abbé | 255 |
Thunder from the East | 269 |
French Neatness Precision Elegance | 281 |
The Lisztianers and Leschetizki aners Take Over | 291 |
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Common terms and phrases
admired American Anton Rubinstein artist audience Bach Bach's became Beethoven Berlin Brahms Brendel brilliant Bülow Busoni C. P. E. Bach career Carl Czerny Carreño century Chopin Clara Clara Schumann classic clavier Clementi composer concert conductor Conservatory Cramer critics Czerny d'Albert Debussy debut Dreyschock Dussek Étude Europe fingers flat French Fugue gave Godowsky Gottschalk Hallé hand Hans von Bülow heard Henri Herz Henselt Herz Hofmann Horowitz Hummel improvisation instrument Josef Josef Hofmann Kalkbrenner keyboard keys later legato Leschetizky listeners Liszt Mendelssohn Moscheles Moscow Conservatory Mozart musicians never notes octaves orchestra Pachmann Paderewski Paris passages pedal performance pianist piano music piano playing pieces player Prokofieff pupils Rachmaninoff recital records repertoire rhythm romantic Rosenthal rubato Rubinstein Russian Saint-Saëns Schnabel Schumann sonatas sound Steibelt studied style Tausig teacher technique tempo tempo rubato Thalberg things tion tone took tour Vienna violinist virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz wrote York young