A Natural History of the Piano

August 29, 2011
Pianist and author Isacoff (Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization) again ventures into music’s conceptual thickets, this time emerging with an encyclopedic and argumentative overview of all things piano: its antecedents, builders, players, popularity, and cultural status. It is not a strictly chronological history, as the main narrative is festooned with inset boxes, artist’s photos, and backstory sidebars on topics ranging from “What’s a Sonata?” to jazz icon Billy Taylor on “Learning from Tatum.” Isacoff’s main concern, it appears, is classifying how matters of style, sound, mood, and technique associated with such classical masters as Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, and others interrelate and perpetuate across genre into modern times. As Isacoff puts it, “Despite the large swath they cut across time and geography, many of these creators fell naturally into a handful of stylistic categories.” Those groups—combustibles, alchemists, rhythmizers, and melodists—shape a piano gestalt through which readers will be impressed (and occasionally rendered numb) by the depth and diversity of Isacoff’s research and references. And, of course, there’s room for argument. To his credit, though searching for the affinities that may make music universal, Isacoff also illuminates elements of what may, in fact, make music timeless.

September 15, 2011

The subtitle accurately states the range of this lively, virtually all-inclusive survey of all things pianistic by Piano Today founder Isacoff (Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization, 2001).

The piano supplanted the harpsichord because the action of its hammers on the strings could create sounds both "piano e forte" (soft and loud)—hence the name pianoforte, eventually shortened to piano. Medici protege Bartolomeo Cristofori came up with the design in the late 17th century, but it was the playing and compositions of Mozart in the 1780s, writes Isacoff, that first made the instrument popular. By the 19th century, a piano was a necessary accessory in middle-class homes across Europe and America, sparking a boom in their manufacture and a flood of touring performers. Isacoff divides the pianists who dazzled the cognoscenti and the masses alike into four categories: the Combustibles, turbulent artists ranging from Beethoven to Jerry Lee Lewis; the Alchemists, atmospheric musicians such as Claude Debussy and jazzman Bill Evans; Rhythmitizers like Fats Waller, who stress the instrument's percussive qualities; and Melodists from Schubert to Gershwin, who give us the tunes we love to hum. Sidebars on everything from pedal technique to digital pianos further broaden the book's scope, as do short contributions from celebrity pianists (Emmanuel Ax, Billy Joel). Isacoff also exhaustively surveys the two great pianistic "schools": the flamboyant Russian style and the more intellectual German approach. Stuffing so much material into a single narrative occasionally leads to a loss of focus, particularly when dealing with composers, none of whom wrote exclusively for the piano. Nonetheless, the author's ability to convey his formidable erudition in the most engaging terms, coupled with his infectious enthusiasm for music of all kinds, make this a charming and highly readable potpourri.

Informative fun for every variety of music lover.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 15, 2011

In this engrossing study, pianist Isacoff (Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization) combines basic history of the construction and sound of pianos with witty discourses on composers and performers and their cultural context. Dividing the subject into thematic sections such as "Combustibles" or "Rhythmitizers" brings together similar stylists from across the centuries, while certain major schools such as that emanating from Russia are given separate treatment. Although the field of piano history books is already crowded, this title stands out for its distinctive inclusion of jazz figures such as Duke Ellington and for long quotations from artists ranging from Vladimir Horowitz to Billy Joel. Isacoff addresses the role of women musicians and brings to the fore valuable if long-forgotten names as well. The many photographs and drawings lend much humanity; diagrams and selected musical examples, contributor biographies, and sections of notes are all useful. VERDICT Pianists at all levels, music history buffs, and academics will appreciate Isacoff's insights and clever way with words; this is an enjoyable and informative book. [See Prepub Alert, 5/2/11.]--Barry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 1, 2011
I love a piano! I love a piano! Irving Berlin exclaimed in an early song, and, really, who doesn't? The founder of the magazine Piano Today comprehensively tells us why in this encyclopedic account of the most mercurial and chameleonic of all natural (as opposed to electronic) instruments. After a fine teaser that is largely a tribute to the Promethean jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, and then a first chapter on the genesis of the modern piano, Isacoff presents the man who made the keyboard a star vehicleMozart, of courseas the lead-in to relating the dual rise of the piano craze and the traveling keyboard virtuoso-entrepreneur in the nineteenth century. In the middle of the book, Isacoff proposes four descriptive rubrics with which to distinguish the dominant characters of great pianists as either combustibles (e.g., Beethoven, Liszt, Cecil Taylor, Jerry Lee Lewis), alchemists (Debussy, Scriabin, Ellington, Monk, Bill Evans), rhythmitizers (Morton, Tatum, Waller, Professor Longhair), or melodists (Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Satie, Gershwin, Bud Powell). The concluding third consists of chapters on particular national schools of pianism (American, Russian, German, and other European varieties), one on cutting edge practitioners and the use of new media (e.g., YouTube) in the interests of the piano, and one on the revival of old instruments and performance practices. Fraught with, besides 142 pictures, sidebars containing piquant remarks by major pianists, this is a big slice of heaven for piano-lovers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)