Product Description

Among the world's instruments, the piano stands out as the most versatile, powerful, and misunderstood -- even by those who have spent much of their lives learning to play. In Piano Notes, a finalist for a 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award, Charles Rosen, one of the world's most talented pianists, distills a lifetime of wisdom and lore into an unforgettable tour of the hidden world of piano playing.

You'll read about how a note is produced, why a chord can move us, why the piano -- "hero and villain" of tonality -- has shaped the course of Western music, and why it is growing obsolete. Rosen explains what it means that Beethoven composed in his head whereas Mozart would never dream of doing so, why there are no fortissimos in the works of Ravel, and why a piano player's acrobatics have an important dramatic effect but nothing more. Ending on a contemplative note, Piano Notes offers an elegant argument that piano music "is not just sound or even significant sound" but a mechanical, physical, and fetishistic experience that faces new challenges in an era of recorded music. Rosen ponders whether piano playing will ever again be the same, and his insights astonish.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #207217 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-03
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
"Music is not just sound or even significant sound.... There has to be a genuine love simply of the mechanics and difficulties of playing, a physical need for the contact with the keyboard," writes Rosen, a concert pianist, music critic and National Book Award winner (for 1970's The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven). He explores those mechanics, difficulties and more in this thoughtful and wide-reaching blend of history, homage and memoir. In a slightly uptight but obviously learned manner, the author explains the various elements that the piano-playing experience entails, from a child's understanding of the fingering for a C major scale to an accomplished concert pianist's position on her stool. Rosen is mainly concerned with the physicalities of playing the instrument, and he takes readers from concert halls, discussing the order of pieces to be performed lest a pianist follow a work in E-flat major by one in D major to the recording studio, examining the facility with which one can splice piano music. Although nearly all of Rosen's examples are from the music of Bach, Debussy, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann and other classical musicians which may alienate readers who play jazz or popular piano his musings are indeed modern; he ponders what will become of the "dinosaur"-like piano in the 22nd century and addresses the problems of performing in a country where piano concerts are only de rigueur in large cities. Filled with trivia and thought-provoking commentary, Rosen's book is a sometimes dense, but important, study of the physical factors involved in tickling the ivories.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
From a professional's point of view, pianist Rosen carefully links the physical act of playing and the aesthetics of the music it produces, with movements of the fingers, arms, feet, and torso that introduce dance and gesture into the interpretation of music. He comments on the role of technique, which becomes routine and sublimated to how a score is interpreted; a hall's acoustics, audience interruptions, and the particular instrument played all affect a performance, but the technique is truly unconscious. Competitions and contests tend to breed standard performances thought to please judges, he says, while private concerts lead to experimentation, and public concertizing produces consistent performances. In recordings, a pianist tends to strive instead for perfection because a record freezes a performance. Finally, Rosen comments on the styles and manners of performers he has witnessed. He truly sheds light on all aspects of piano performance, and piano-music lovers and players alike will benefit from his thought-provoking and appreciation-enhancing comments. Alan Hirsch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
The New York Review of Books

If your shelves have room for one volume about the piano from glory to decline, Piano Notes is the book of choice.

The New York Times

A fascinating analysis of a performer's relationship to his instrument.

The Economist

Rosen brings all of his experience as one of the most

intellectually rigorous pianists and brilliant music historians alive today to this wide-ranging and approachable book.

American Record Guide

A gold mine of experience and wisdom.

Customer Reviews

A DELIGHT!
Enjoyable and wonderful. Well written, to the point...many anecdotes, but never mean...informative.

A great buy. Makes great present to anyone who is even vaguely interested in piano literature or music in general.

Do you play piano? Buy this book!
It's getting so that if Charles Rosen announced a forthcoming book on the collective memories of his summer vacations during his youth kind of thing, I would buy it! Bottom line, and obviously what I'm saying here is that I like the way he writes 'all' of his books, what he has to say and how he says it! A style that both holds and informs if you will. So too, he's "been the road" so the contents of these books draw on the cumulative wealth of his experiences whether it's a discussion of Beethoven's sonatas, the classical era itself and its stand-outs or this present book on the world of the pianist.

Regardless of one's level of experience on the piano, this book is an excellent read from a man who knows what he is talking about. It is NOT a book zeroing in on posture or breathing or "don't bang the keys" recitations or 'lectures' but rather a nitty-gritty practical tome that touches on various areas and what life with the keys is all about. The ups and the downs and all in between.

BTW, if books like these appeal to you written by folks who have "been there, done that" albeit well 'verifiably' so as is the case with Mr. Rosen, and as they equally appeal to me when I can locate such informative tomes, and as a classical oriented player making no excuses for literally loving the classical war-horse pieces, check out "Piano Pieces" by Russell Sherman [New England Conservatory]. Another great read!

Doc Tony

Confessions of a pianist
As a pianist I stand in awe of Charles Rosen's phenomenal analysis and exposure of the life, status, mind, intellect and passion of one of our most celebrated pianists. If there were ever any doubt about why one plays the piano, here is the answer. This is another MUST HAVE for any honest and serious pianist, either amateur or professional.