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A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians - from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between
A beautifully illustrated, totally engrossing celebration of the piano, and the composers and performers who have made it their own.
With honed sensitivity and unquestioned expertise, Stuart Isacoff—pianist, critic, teacher, and author of How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization —unfolds the ongoing history and evolution of the piano and all its myriad how its very sound provides the basis for emotional expression and individual style, and why it has so powerfully entertained generation upon generation of listeners. He illuminates the groundbreaking music of Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Schumann, and Debussy. He analyzes the breathtaking techniques of Glenn Gould, Oscar Peterson, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Arthur Rubinstein, and Van Cliburn, and he gives musicians including Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Menahem Pressler, and Vladimir Horowitz the opportunity to discuss their approaches. Isacoff delineates how classical music and jazz influenced each other as the uniquely American art form progressed from ragtime, novelty, stride, boogie, bebop, and beyond, through Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Cecil Taylor, and Bill Charlap.
A Natural History of the Piano distills a lifetime of research and passion into one brilliant narrative. We witness Mozart unveiling his monumental concertos in Vienna’s coffeehouses, using a special piano with one keyboard for the hands and another for the feet; European virtuoso Henri Herz entertaining rowdy miners during the California gold rush; Beethoven at his piano, conjuring healing angels to console a grieving mother who had lost her child; Liszt fainting in the arms of a page turner to spark an entire hall into hysterics. Here is the instrument in all its complexity and beauty. We learn of the incredible craftsmanship of a modern Steinway, the peculiarity of specialty pianos built for the Victorian household, the continuing innovation in keyboards including electronic ones. And most of all, we hear the music of the masters, from centuries ago and in our own age, brilliantly evoked and as marvelous as its most recent performance.
With this wide-ranging volume, Isacoff gives us a must-have for music lovers, pianists, and the armchair musician.
With honed sensitivity and unquestioned expertise, Stuart Isacoff—pianist, critic, teacher, and author of How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization —unfolds the ongoing history and evolution of the piano and all its myriad how its very sound provides the basis for emotional expression and individual style, and why it has so powerfully entertained generation upon generation of listeners. He illuminates the groundbreaking music of Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Schumann, and Debussy. He analyzes the breathtaking techniques of Glenn Gould, Oscar Peterson, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Arthur Rubinstein, and Van Cliburn, and he gives musicians including Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Menahem Pressler, and Vladimir Horowitz the opportunity to discuss their approaches. Isacoff delineates how classical music and jazz influenced each other as the uniquely American art form progressed from ragtime, novelty, stride, boogie, bebop, and beyond, through Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Cecil Taylor, and Bill Charlap.
A Natural History of the Piano distills a lifetime of research and passion into one brilliant narrative. We witness Mozart unveiling his monumental concertos in Vienna’s coffeehouses, using a special piano with one keyboard for the hands and another for the feet; European virtuoso Henri Herz entertaining rowdy miners during the California gold rush; Beethoven at his piano, conjuring healing angels to console a grieving mother who had lost her child; Liszt fainting in the arms of a page turner to spark an entire hall into hysterics. Here is the instrument in all its complexity and beauty. We learn of the incredible craftsmanship of a modern Steinway, the peculiarity of specialty pianos built for the Victorian household, the continuing innovation in keyboards including electronic ones. And most of all, we hear the music of the masters, from centuries ago and in our own age, brilliantly evoked and as marvelous as its most recent performance.
With this wide-ranging volume, Isacoff gives us a must-have for music lovers, pianists, and the armchair musician.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
April 8, 2021
I have been blessed with the good fortune of being married to a pianist. I also grew up with an older sister who was a good pianist. I have always enjoyed piano music, and I highly respect all the work that goes into mastery of the instrument. I took many years of lessons myself and never achieve much proficiency. But I do have enough interest in the piano that when I came across this book I decided I needed to see what additional information I could learn about the piano and those who compose for it and play it.
This book's long subtitle pretty well sums up the scope of the subjects covered. There's a lot of ground covered, and I doubt that my mind was able to retain much of it. I've decided to fill the rest of this review with excerpts and quotations that caught my attention:
This book's long subtitle pretty well sums up the scope of the subjects covered. There's a lot of ground covered, and I doubt that my mind was able to retain much of it. I've decided to fill the rest of this review with excerpts and quotations that caught my attention:
"Oscar is our Liszt and Bill Evans is our Chopin," commented composer Lalo Schifrim referring to the popular conception that Liszt conquered the piano while Chopin seduced it. (p.8)In order to discuss famous composers the author decided to divide famous composers into the unique groupings inspired by the ancient building blocks of earth, wind, fire and water.
Comparing Taubert and Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann explained that the former was "inspired by poems, while the latter perhaps conversely should inspire one to write poetry." (p.18)
"It's invention [the piano] was to music," he declared, "what the invention of printing was to poetry. (p.18)
"Beethoven, in his tumultuous struggles, sometimes reaches to heaven," quipped twentieth-century conductor Josef Krips. "Mozart, of course, comes from heaven." (p.33)
An ancient cosmologist might note a relationship between the four components of the piano’s sound (the percussive pop, singing diphthong, shimmering wave, and gradations of volume) and the primary building blocks of the world described by Empedocles in the fifth century BCE: earth, water, air, and fire. They are, it turns out, also convenient metaphors for describing the nature of the musical universe.The author goes on to elaborate on the artists within these groupings. He admits that that the groupings are subjective and do not have clear boundaries. The following is one short quotation that compares Bach and Beethoven.
The element of fire, for example, suits the Combustibles, figures like the turbulent Ludwig van Beethoven, rock ‘n’ roll’s Jerry Lee Lewis, and jazz avant-gardist Cecil Taylor, who bring edge-of-your-seat volatility to the keyboard, exploiting the piano’s vast dynamic range to give birth to music that can smolder and explode.
The supple nature of water suggests the quality of the Melodists, such as Romantic composer Franz Schubert, classicist J. C. Bach, and jazz pianist George Shearing, whose streams of tones suggest sinuous waves, rising and falling and curling back on themselves in soft arabesques. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who declared that melody was the basis of all musical expression, claimed it was born of our most primitive impulses crying for release. But others have compared melody to nature’s gentle geometry: the soaring arcs of birds in flight, the spirals that build nautilus shells, the graceful undulations found in desert sands.
Air befits the world of the Alchemists, musicians such as jazz pianist Bill Evans, impressionist Claude Debussy, and bebop eccentric Thelonious Monk, who are masters of atmosphere. Combining tones (and silence) in mysterious ways, they transform the mundane ingredients of musical composition into haunting, resonant worlds, like alchemists changing ordinary lead into gold. While melody seduces, alchemy entrances. (p.91-92)
... ... ...
Finally, the solidity of the earth is the fundamental quality of the Rhythmitizers, like rock performer Fats Domino, Latin jazz pianist Arturo O’Farrill, and classical composer Sergei Prokofiev: musicians who take the percussive “pop” that brings every piano tone to life and place it center stage. Rhythmitizers bring the swing to jazz, the spice to salsa, and the trance to minimalism. If melody tugs at the heart, rhythm’s symphony of pulses ignites the rest of the body’s musculature with music that twitches, lurches, taps its feet, and wriggles its hips. (p. 94)
Romantic-era pianist Hans von Bulow perfectly captured Beethoven's significance when he described J. S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier as music's "Old Testament," and Beethoven's Piano Sonatas as its "New Testament." (p.95)The following is a comment about the neurological benefits of playing the piano which I'm not convinced is true. I can't help but wonder if students who are naturally more gifted with pattern recognition also happen to be the ones that thrive with music lessons.
Recent breakthroughs in the field of neuro-science have shown that playing the piano is good for your brain. Dr. Gottfried Schlaugh 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 non musicians 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. (p.330)One of the many artists discussed in this book was Van Cliburn which brought many memories to mind for me. I can remember when he won the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958 (during the Cold War). I remember my sister was particularly interested in his story—probably in the spirt of a typical teenage fan. Our family subscribed to Time Magazine, and I'm pretty sure that Van Cliburn's portrait was on one of Time's covers. Remembering my sister's piano playing and her interest in Van Cliburn are nostalgic memories that come to me with a touch of melancholia because she tragically died unexpectedly at the young age of nineteen.
January 28, 2025
A Celebration Of The Piano
Pianist and author Stuart Isacoff begins his new book, "A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians -- from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between" at a seemingly odd place well in the middle of the story. The book opens abruptly with a portrayal of the jazz pianist Oscar Peterson at the age of 81 moving his broken body to the piano at New York's Birdland and playing with the "effortless fluidity and clockwork precision" that were the foundation of his artistic expression. Isacoff explains that Peterson had spent long years in training as a classical pianist, and that his musical style melded classical elements with jazz. He juxtaposes Peterson's way with the piano with quotations from classical musicians Piotyr Anderszewski and Menahem Pressler, who is about the age as was Peterson. What Pressler says could have been said by Peterson and by many pianists:
"The other night I was playing the Schubert B-flat sonata on [a new piano Pressler had selected], and the piano was like a living soul. This was at the end of the day, and I was very tired. And yet I was reminded of what a happy man I am playing on such a piano. You become elated, invigorated, and inspired all through something built by a factory. It tells me that there is more to life than we can see."
The love of the piano, its breadth, and its tendency towards democratization are themes that run through Isacoff's "natural history" of the instrument. The large sweep of the book in a relatively brief 350 pages creates some difficulty. There is little room for in-depth treatment: the treatment of some important composers and performers is skimpy while relatively minor people and trends may receive too much attention. This problem might be difficult to avoid in a book of this type. The book also tends to skip around and to be slightly disjointed. From the beginning chapter which uses Peterson as a bridge between musical traditions, Isacoff veers back 300 years to the creation of the instrument, moves to a good chapter on Mozart as the "first piano superstar", and then offers chapters on the social history of the instrument and on the perils of performing. Isacoff illustrates his theme and tells the piano's story but at the price of stylistic awkwardness.
At the heart of his book, Isacoff develops what he calls four rough musical types, the "combustibles, alchemists, rhythmitizers, and melodists" (any serious musician will be a blend of all four components, but with certain emphases) and illustrates each type with a cross-section of composers and performers from classical to jazz to blues and rock. The musicians are as diverse as Beethoven and Schubert on the one hand and Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino on the other hand. The discussions of the musicians are short but revealing. Even better is Isacoff's attempt to draw parallels across seemingly different musical types, to show the diversity of music, and the shared love and passion that underlies commitment to it in any genre. The last several chapters of the book focus on various performers, particularly Russian and German pianists, including Horowitz, Rubenstein, Brendel, and Schnabel, American pianists such as Van Cliburn, and the eccentric Glen Gould. Isacoff considers the positive and negative results of piano competitions, the impact of technology and electronics on the piano, and much more.
The book is replete with over 300 illustrations of pianos and musicians which complement the text in bringing the story of the piano to life. In addition, Isacoff offers throughout many insets in the form of quotations from composers and pianists, such as the quotation from Pressler at the beginning of the review. Although they distract the flow of the text and occasionally reminded me of sound-bites, these insights are on the whole illuminating.
With the distractions I found and the small reservations I have about the book, I would not have missed it. I have been an amateur pianist and a lover of music for most of my life. It was moving the visit the piano and those who have written for and played it. The book reminded me of a great deal, taught me, and helped me understand my engagement with the piano.
Robin Friedman
Pianist and author Stuart Isacoff begins his new book, "A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians -- from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between" at a seemingly odd place well in the middle of the story. The book opens abruptly with a portrayal of the jazz pianist Oscar Peterson at the age of 81 moving his broken body to the piano at New York's Birdland and playing with the "effortless fluidity and clockwork precision" that were the foundation of his artistic expression. Isacoff explains that Peterson had spent long years in training as a classical pianist, and that his musical style melded classical elements with jazz. He juxtaposes Peterson's way with the piano with quotations from classical musicians Piotyr Anderszewski and Menahem Pressler, who is about the age as was Peterson. What Pressler says could have been said by Peterson and by many pianists:
"The other night I was playing the Schubert B-flat sonata on [a new piano Pressler had selected], and the piano was like a living soul. This was at the end of the day, and I was very tired. And yet I was reminded of what a happy man I am playing on such a piano. You become elated, invigorated, and inspired all through something built by a factory. It tells me that there is more to life than we can see."
The love of the piano, its breadth, and its tendency towards democratization are themes that run through Isacoff's "natural history" of the instrument. The large sweep of the book in a relatively brief 350 pages creates some difficulty. There is little room for in-depth treatment: the treatment of some important composers and performers is skimpy while relatively minor people and trends may receive too much attention. This problem might be difficult to avoid in a book of this type. The book also tends to skip around and to be slightly disjointed. From the beginning chapter which uses Peterson as a bridge between musical traditions, Isacoff veers back 300 years to the creation of the instrument, moves to a good chapter on Mozart as the "first piano superstar", and then offers chapters on the social history of the instrument and on the perils of performing. Isacoff illustrates his theme and tells the piano's story but at the price of stylistic awkwardness.
At the heart of his book, Isacoff develops what he calls four rough musical types, the "combustibles, alchemists, rhythmitizers, and melodists" (any serious musician will be a blend of all four components, but with certain emphases) and illustrates each type with a cross-section of composers and performers from classical to jazz to blues and rock. The musicians are as diverse as Beethoven and Schubert on the one hand and Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino on the other hand. The discussions of the musicians are short but revealing. Even better is Isacoff's attempt to draw parallels across seemingly different musical types, to show the diversity of music, and the shared love and passion that underlies commitment to it in any genre. The last several chapters of the book focus on various performers, particularly Russian and German pianists, including Horowitz, Rubenstein, Brendel, and Schnabel, American pianists such as Van Cliburn, and the eccentric Glen Gould. Isacoff considers the positive and negative results of piano competitions, the impact of technology and electronics on the piano, and much more.
The book is replete with over 300 illustrations of pianos and musicians which complement the text in bringing the story of the piano to life. In addition, Isacoff offers throughout many insets in the form of quotations from composers and pianists, such as the quotation from Pressler at the beginning of the review. Although they distract the flow of the text and occasionally reminded me of sound-bites, these insights are on the whole illuminating.
With the distractions I found and the small reservations I have about the book, I would not have missed it. I have been an amateur pianist and a lover of music for most of my life. It was moving the visit the piano and those who have written for and played it. The book reminded me of a great deal, taught me, and helped me understand my engagement with the piano.
Robin Friedman
March 10, 2013
Parts of this book were wonderful: I learnt a great deal about piano history and how the different composers fit together with their 'styles'. Grouping composers according to their sound and temperament was inspired: The Combustibles (Beethoven etc), The Alchemists (Debussy...), The Rhythmitizers (Ragtime piano etc) and The Melodists (Chopin...). Exploring the ethos and philosophy of the different composers is helping me to greater appreciate the Classical music, and I'm certain it will help my piano playing. At the least, it's taught me how to 'read' different composers. It was also good to carefully how they fit together chronologically, it was incredible how many master composers taught new master composers, who in term taught others. It's like a Family Tree, especially in Germany!
However, its structure and repetition was highly confusing, and began to drag by halfway through the book. I had the feeling that the author was trying to do too much, and ends up losing readers by simply becoming 'boring'. I imagine this is a book that a lot of people would 'shelve' before finishing. If Isacoff stuck to his wonderful analysis of the 'Four Sounds', which is certainly worthy of a book of its own, then the work would be much stronger. If so, it would earn 5 stars from me.
It would help the structure make sense if the chapters were separated into parts, which they certainly could be (and we are shown this in the title:
Part One: History of the Piano (Chapters 1-5)
Part Two: Composers and the Four Sounds (Chapters 6-10)
Part Three: Great Pianists (Chapters 11-16)
All in all, an entertaining read, if you don't run out of steam!
However, its structure and repetition was highly confusing, and began to drag by halfway through the book. I had the feeling that the author was trying to do too much, and ends up losing readers by simply becoming 'boring'. I imagine this is a book that a lot of people would 'shelve' before finishing. If Isacoff stuck to his wonderful analysis of the 'Four Sounds', which is certainly worthy of a book of its own, then the work would be much stronger. If so, it would earn 5 stars from me.
It would help the structure make sense if the chapters were separated into parts, which they certainly could be (and we are shown this in the title:
Part One: History of the Piano (Chapters 1-5)
Part Two: Composers and the Four Sounds (Chapters 6-10)
Part Three: Great Pianists (Chapters 11-16)
All in all, an entertaining read, if you don't run out of steam!
March 31, 2012
A plethora of keyboard artists are featured in this book, from piano’s first days to present. A chapter each is devoted to Combustables (those composers and pianists who pounded daylights out of the instrument), Alchemists (who emphasized rippling sounds piled up on one another), Rhythmizers (who accentuated dance-step “beats”) and Melodists (who generated hummable tunes). Shorter chapters are allocated to Russian, German and other assorted pianists. Early pianos didn’t have sound projection capabilities that came later. The 1821 invention of double escapement “added power steering and brakes to an old model car.” For piano enthusiasts this book presents an all-embracing history; a bit less appealing, though, for the casual arm-chair or concert fan such as myself. Some caustic comments by critics, e.g. “his music would have delighted the inhabitants of hell,” gave me a chuckle.
June 18, 2018
Worth Every page and every second you spend on this great book, Once you start reading, You are into it, Very technical, the great narration of the history with the deep insights of the writer between which makes the read two times better.......You will know a lot of great musicians you have never heard of before........If you really love the piano, this book is a Joyful Journey till the last line of the last page..........Amazing book
May 24, 2018
Often reads more like the work of a fan than a historian, and while that makes for an engaging read it's notably lacking in a certain scholarly rigor. Notable example: in his discussion of Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, Isacoff centers the narrative around pianist Bill Evans (motivated by the need to fit him into Isacoff's paradigm of "Rhythmitizers,""Melodists,""Combustibles," and "Alchemists") with no mention made of the significance of George Russell's modal theory. Also he pretty much sticks exclusively to classical, jazz, avant-garde, and early blues/rock & roll, with pretty much no discussion of artists outside those genres (and indeed very little in-depth discussion of artists born after 1950). Also his treatment of issues of race and gender is bumbling at best.
If you're looking for an entertaining book that will make you want to check out a bunch of music, though, it's pretty good for that.
If you're looking for an entertaining book that will make you want to check out a bunch of music, though, it's pretty good for that.
May 20, 2022
It took me so long to read this well written and insightful book, because I continually went to the computer to listen to, or to read about, pieces of music, composers, musicians, writers, Isacoff was writing about. Fantastic book. So many inner views. So much to return to to read about, to listen to again, and again. So glad I read this book. So glad I will read it again.
July 30, 2021
A delight to peruse and worth revisiting regularly for the gossipy snippets and flowery prose shared about composers from Czerny to Cage. Indispensable to the roundly educated pianist.
May 13, 2024
Es increíble todo lo que he aprendido sobre música, especialmente piano, leyendo este libro.
Es tan interesante leer sobre los compositores que todos conocemos... y con un lenguaje utilizado precioso en ocasiones.
Ojalá tuviera un súper cerebro para memorizar toda la información que contiene este libro, que es muchísima.
Es tan interesante leer sobre los compositores que todos conocemos... y con un lenguaje utilizado precioso en ocasiones.
Ojalá tuviera un súper cerebro para memorizar toda la información que contiene este libro, que es muchísima.
December 20, 2021
El libro trata básicamente sobre tres cosas: (a) la invención del pianoforte y su desarrollo técnico hasta el modelo actual, junto con su encumbramiento como instrumento paradigmático de la música "clásica", con Mozart; (b) La música para piano, para lo cual decide categorizarla de acuerdo a los cuatro elementos. Así, por ejemplo, las sonatas y conciertos de Beethoven quedan clasificados, junto a Bartok, el boogie-woogie y Jerry Lee Lewis, en "fuego"; y Debussy junto a Bill Evans (lo que es una obviedad), pero también junto a Schönberg. En fin, una clasificación igual de arbitraria y productiva que cualquiera. Finalmente (c), ordena a los intérpretes de piano (especialmente aquellos de los cuáles hay registro discográfico) de acuerdo a tradiciones nacionales (los rusos, los alemanes, etc). Como es natural, a medida que se avanza en el tiempo, esas tradiciones se van volviendo más difusas. Me parece que están todos los que tienen que estar. Cuando eché de menos a Gulda y a la Argerich, los pillé en un anexo.
El material sobre el que trata es no solo la música clásica de piano, sino que también el jazz y, en mucho menor medida, la música más popular.
Sirve fundamentalmente como un mapeo y guía y en ese sentido da para todas las estrellitas. Pero tiene el defecto de todos estos mapeos: en algún momento termina siendo un catálogo interminable de nombres, sin mucha información.
El material sobre el que trata es no solo la música clásica de piano, sino que también el jazz y, en mucho menor medida, la música más popular.
Sirve fundamentalmente como un mapeo y guía y en ese sentido da para todas las estrellitas. Pero tiene el defecto de todos estos mapeos: en algún momento termina siendo un catálogo interminable de nombres, sin mucha información.
January 11, 2012
Meh. If you don't know much about the piano, you'll learn a lot, most of it unimportant. If you do know a lot about the piano, you'll learn a lot, all of it unimportant. Heavy on the trivia, grabs for the stereotypes wherever possible, and light on the substance.
Lots of illustrations, both modern photographs and 18th/19th century reproductions. And lots of great extended quotations from notable musicians. The quotes and the art were more valuable than the book itself.
Lots of illustrations, both modern photographs and 18th/19th century reproductions. And lots of great extended quotations from notable musicians. The quotes and the art were more valuable than the book itself.
September 19, 2013
I found some of this fascinating and inspiring. I enjoyed reading about the lives, intrigues and interconnections of some of the classical composers. Not having read much music history, I found this book a good overview of the styles and evolution of music. However, I ultimately abandoned this book without finishing it because much is devoted to composers I am not familiar with and therefore ultimately lost interest.
September 3, 2012
Fascinating, but if there was organization to it I never figured it out. I got dizzy from going to topic to topic, century to century. The book starts with jazz piano.
August 25, 2016
If you love the piano, you won't be able to put this book down. It's an engrossing and popular book on the piano, pianists, and all things piano-related.
November 27, 2019
I wanted to like this more than I did. Scattershot and heavy on trivia and anecdotes. The Four Styles classification system isn't terribly persuasive.
May 27, 2017
(I'll say up front that as a professional pianist, I'm probably not the average audience for this book, but it's written in a way that should be accessible for anyone.)
The author's deep passion for the piano and is clear, and it's the reason this very ambitious book works. The scope he covers in terms of time, geography, and musical style is really huge, but it rarely feels that way.
My only major complaint is that, despite the promise of the title, the book is heavily focused on classical music. That's clearly where the author's interest and knowledge are strongest, and where he dives the deepest. By comparison, the coverage of jazz pianists is mostly surface-level, and other genres are even sparser. That's not a bad thing if you're into classical music (I am), but something to be aware of before reading.
Overall, a highly enjoyable overview of the history of the piano and everyone (and everything) around it.
The author's deep passion for the piano and is clear, and it's the reason this very ambitious book works. The scope he covers in terms of time, geography, and musical style is really huge, but it rarely feels that way.
My only major complaint is that, despite the promise of the title, the book is heavily focused on classical music. That's clearly where the author's interest and knowledge are strongest, and where he dives the deepest. By comparison, the coverage of jazz pianists is mostly surface-level, and other genres are even sparser. That's not a bad thing if you're into classical music (I am), but something to be aware of before reading.
Overall, a highly enjoyable overview of the history of the piano and everyone (and everything) around it.
January 31, 2018
This book is a love song to the piano, which also sang to me as a lifelong pianist. I loved getting an in-depth look into the creation and evolution of the instrument, as well as a deeper, contextual understanding of the lives of the composers who helped make it great.
My favorite thing about this book, though? Now I'm motivated to play the piano more regularly than I have in recent years. This is a piece of my life that has truly been missed.
I would definitely recommend this book to any pianist.
My favorite thing about this book, though? Now I'm motivated to play the piano more regularly than I have in recent years. This is a piece of my life that has truly been missed.
I would definitely recommend this book to any pianist.
March 19, 2018
There where a few moments where I was drawn into the historical narratives but I eventually became tired of reading the many individual biographies presented in the book. I did learn new names and stories of other pianists and I enjoyed digging deeper into the history of those I've already known. I did enjoy when the author disgressed and discussed the instrument itself and bits of music theory. I stopped paying attention to the biographies 3/4 into it and began speed reading just to get through the chapter. There isn't much mention of comtemporary pianists. Mostly discussed are classical painists and those up to the 70s. Overall it was a "good" read. Something that a beginner pianist or music enthusiast would enjoy and maybe keep for reference later. But I wouldn't read it twice.
January 27, 2020
The book begins with the origins of the piano and early performers. Then, instead of categorizing the history of composers as Classical, Romantic, Modern, etc., Isacoff divides them into Alchemists, Rhythmitizers, Melodists, and Combustibles. For instance, Alchemists go from Debussy and Schoenberg to Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, and Duke Ellington.
There are a lot of composers that I am planning to add to my Spotify playlist after reading this book!
There are a lot of composers that I am planning to add to my Spotify playlist after reading this book!
July 19, 2023
I found this to be a charming and worthwhile history of the piano and pianists. It suffers a bit from the "dancing about architecture" problem, but that's inherent to writing a survey like this. Ultimately you want to actually listen to music instead of trying to keep the quirks of Russian pianists straight in your mind. I learned a few things and got some good recommendations of people to listen to.
October 13, 2024
This and Schoenberg's book cover quite a lot of ground. This book also provides context into the construction of the piano as an instrument in itself, and presents an interesting categorization of piansts based on the four elements (kooky, I know, but it works to the degree that it helps structure the book's narrative)! Fun read, would recommend.
October 17, 2020
Loved the writing style but was a bit disappointed by the content. 90% of the book is devoted to Western male pianists and the structure was a bit all over the place as well. Still enjoyed it because of my love for this instrument and the fun anecdotes, but Isacoff could have done much better.
April 12, 2023
Starts off on the history of the predecessor to the piano, transitions to covering various pianists and musicians from different schools of study (jazz, contemporary, classical, etc). The second half gets a bit repetitive; the first half (third) is more engaging.
September 28, 2025
I liked the beginning of this, regarding the development of the piano and how various composers approached it, much more than the end. The focus on various pianists got a bit dry and repetitive for me. Piqued my interest of pianists in genres, such as jazz, that I don't usually listen to.
February 17, 2018
Fun interesting book for any fan of music and piano.
December 20, 2019
Excellent
January 1, 2020
Superb writing heightens my interest in a number of pianists and their music. Couldn't help feeling motivated by the writer's infectious enthusiasm. Great book.
June 1, 2022
Fascinating musical history.
January 29, 2023
Si tocas cualquier instrumento este libro es para ti para conocer la historia de la música y grandes compositores y músicos de la historia y por supuesto grandes obras !!!
February 2, 2024
Lovely survey of the piano, from the time of its invention to the modern day. Very readable, and definitely recommended to anyone with a fondness for the instrument.
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