Stuart Isacoff > Quotes

“The handful of leading craftsmen turning out pianos during that time produced only around thirty to fifty of them per annum. But by 1798, piano maker James Shudi Broadwood could barely keep up with demand, writing to a wholesaler, “Would to God we could make them like muffins!”
― Stuart Isacoff, A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians--from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between

“Those admirers created so strong a ballast against possible Kremlin tampering with the jury vote that it was said years later by critic Tamara Grum-Grzhimailo that the seeds of perestroika were first planted in this moment,”
― Stuart Isacoff, When the World Stopped to Listen: Van Cliburn's Cold War Triumph, and Its Aftermath

“As Victorian-era prudishness set in, some upstanding citizens also took to putting coverlets over the instrument’s legs out of an exaggerated sense of modesty.”
― Stuart Isacoff, A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians--from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between

“Oscar is our Liszt and Bill Evans is our Chopin,”
― Stuart Isacoff, A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians - from Mozart to Jazz and Everything in Between

“They include conceptual artist and “environmental music” composer Annea Lockwood, who created a work entitled Piano Burning. Debuted in London in 1968, it requires the performer to select an upright piano in disrepair, put it in an open space with the lid closed, and set it on fire with a twist of paper doused in lighter fluid. (Optional balloons may be stapled to the piano.) “Play whatever pleases you for as long as you can,” she suggests. To which any responsible writer would add, please do not try this at home.”
― Stuart Isacoff, A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians--from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between

“Though his rivals at the competition were well trained, there was something different about Van’s art. For many in the audience it represented the face of freedom. Performing under the auspices of a repressive regime and before an intimidating jury of some of the world’s greatest musicians, he seemed to answer to no authority other than the shifting tides of his own soul. The mere act of hearing him became liberating. When”
― Stuart Isacoff, When the World Stopped to Listen: Van Cliburn's Cold War Triumph, and Its Aftermath

“Peterson revealed that he had decided the only way to get attention was “to frighten the hell out of everybody pianistically.”
― Stuart Isacoff, A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians--from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between

“To the young among his admirers, he was the fresh face of an emerging, better world; to the old, a balm for the pain of lost youth and the bitterness of mortality—a bright spot in a dreary world still pulling itself up out of the gray muck of war.”
― Stuart Isacoff, When the World Stopped to Listen: Van Cliburn's Cold War Triumph, and Its Aftermath

“The Soviet performers felt that every note had to be strictly controlled. They had excellent training, but the result lacked freshness and poetry.” That word, “freedom,” was secretly on the lips of many. In that sense, Van’s message became unintentionally political.”
― Stuart Isacoff, When the World Stopped to Listen: Van Cliburn's Cold War Triumph, and Its Aftermath

“Alkan even wrote a piece for four feet, called Bombardo-Carillon, in which the player’s legs are likely to get entangled during performance. (When Swiss-American pianist Rudolph Ganz was asked to perform Bombardo-Carillon with a female pianist, he declined on the grounds that he didn’t know her well enough.)”
― Stuart Isacoff, A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians--from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between

“The work had its own history of struggle. Originally intended as a showpiece for pianist Nikolai Rubinstein, it was dismissed by that renowned pianist as “worthless, absolutely unplayable.” His critical attack was stinging. “An outsider, dropping into the room,” claimed Tchaikovsky, “would have thought me a madman, without talent, ignorant, a worthless writer who had come to annoy a famous musician with his rubbish.” After Rubinstein bowed out, the music was premiered instead in Boston by Hans von Bülow.”
― Stuart Isacoff, When the World Stopped to Listen: Van Cliburn's Cold War Triumph, and Its Aftermath

“The Moscow audience had of course heard it many times before, but Van’s interpretation was extraordinary. The work’s thundering octaves and delicate filigree were perfectly rendered. Musical lines soared and swooped and darted swiftly to and fro, unfolding a narrative that sounded both noble and ardent, majestic fanfares alternating with lovelorn airs. From the concerto’s opening piano chords, which pealed like colossal church bells, to its dark bass rumblings and songful melodies, every tone was imbued with an inner glow, with long phrases concluding in an emphatic, edgy pounce. The effect was simply breathtaking.”
― Stuart Isacoff, When the World Stopped to Listen: Van Cliburn's Cold War Triumph, and Its Aftermath

“Recent breakthroughs in the field of neuro-science have shown that playing the piano is good for your brain. Dr. Gottfried Schlaug of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School spoke in 2009 at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., on the brain’s “plasticity”—its capacity to change—and announced that even nine- to eleven-year-old musicians show more brain activity than nonmusicians when performing tasks that require high levels of perceptual discrimination. Playing the piano, it turns out, is especially effective in enhancing skills in such important areas as pattern recognition and memory. To your health!”
― Stuart Isacoff, A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians--from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between

“To create solid and stable convictions in the minds of the uncultured masses, there must be something that appeals to the eye,”
― Stuart Isacoff, Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization

“It was the kind of moment on which the wheels of history turn.”
― Stuart Isacoff, When the World Stopped to Listen: Van Cliburn's Cold War Triumph, and Its Aftermath