Great Pianists on Piano Playing
James Francis Cooke
êêêêêAlmost a hundred years ago, during the golden age of the piano in America, James Francis Cooke interviewed 28 famous concert pianists and assembled quite a book comprising essays based on these interviews that are delivered as first person autographs.
The pictures on the cover tell you what kind of book this is. The top three from left to right are Leopold Godowsky, Ignaz Paderewski and Josef Lhevinne. Those on the bottom from left to right are Josef Hofmann, Mark Hambourg and Percy Grainger. Besides these, one gets to read the views of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Ferruccio Busoni and many others whose legacy is now nearly forgotten.
Before I read this book, I knew that Godowsky was the man who wasn't content to leave the Chopin etudes alone but had to make them even harder; Paderewski was probably the first successful touring virtuoso pianist in America, a man who for a couple generations became synonymous with both pianism and Poland to most Americans; Hofmann was widely considered the pianist with the best technique (technic is how they spell it); Percy Grainger was an Australian who became famous for setting a lot of English folk tunes in elaborate and attractive piano arrangements, most famously The English Country Garden, and he traveled around a lot giving concerts of then modern music by people like Debussy and Cyril Scott. The other two I knew something about were Rachmaninoff, the last great Czarist Russian composer and Busoni, whose piano music is still championed along the fringes along with that of Scriabin. A lot of the other pianists in this book have faded into obscurity.
But what they say about piano playing, practicing, music etc. is still as fresh as it was in their own time. It will be obvious to anyone who reads this book that to be an even reasonably good pianist takes a lot of work. It is possible to chart the many ways that we in America have slid backwards from the pinnacles of musicianship established by these heroic artists. Teachers will take encouragement and students will find much advice and material for reflection. After reading this book, I decided to take a different turn in my own application, allotment of practice time, devotion to technic and scales, etc. If you're serious about piano study, this book is a must read.
