Bartolomeo Cristofori And The Invention Of The Piano

Author : Elizabeth Rusch
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1481444859
Total Pages : 52 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Music of Life written by Elizabeth Rusch and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning biographer Elizabeth Rusch and two-time Caldecott Honor–recipient Marjorie Priceman team up to tell the inspiring story of the invention of the world’s most popular instrument: the piano. Bartolomeo Cristofori coaxes just the right sounds from the musical instruments he makes. Some of his keyboards can play piano, light and soft; others make forte notes ring out, strong and loud, but Cristofori longs to create an instrument that can be played both soft and loud. His talent has caught the attention of Prince Ferdinando de Medici, who wants his court to become the musical center of Italy. The prince brings Cristofori to the noisy city of Florence, where the goldsmiths’ tiny hammers whisper tink, tink and the blacksmiths’ big sledgehammers shout BANG, BANG! Could hammers be the key to the new instrument? At last Cristofori gets his creation just right. It is called the pianoforte, for what it can do. All around the world, people young and old can play the most intricate music of their lives, thanks to Bartolomeo Cristofori’s marvelous creation: the piano.

Author : Stewart Pollens
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 110709657X
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Bartolomeo Cristofori and the Invention of the Piano written by Stewart Pollens and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-03 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive study of Bartolomeo Cristofori's working life, featuring detailed technical documentation about his instruments.

Author : Stewart Pollens
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521417297
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.95/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Early Pianoforte written by Stewart Pollens and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-09-14 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first comprehensive study of the history and technology of the early piano.

Author : Edwin Marshall Good
Publisher : Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780804733168
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Giraffes, Black Dragons, and Other Pianos written by Edwin Marshall Good and published by Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incorporating the results of recent research, this is a new edition of a book that received the American Musicological Society’s Otto Kinkeldey Award for the best musicological book in English published in 1982-83.

Author : Stuart Isacoff
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307701425
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Natural History of the Piano written by Stuart Isacoff and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 Temperament: 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 wonders: 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.

Author : Eva Badura-Skoda
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253022649
Total Pages : 510 pages
Book Rating : 4.46/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Eighteenth-Century Fortepiano Grand and Its Patrons written by Eva Badura-Skoda and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-20 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Badura-Skoda addresses the place of the piano in the eighteenth century from the perspective of a scholar and performer” (Eighteenth-Century Music). In the late seventeenth century, Italian musician and inventor Bartolomeo Cristofori developed a new musical instrument—his cembalo che fa il piano e forte, which allowed keyboard players flexible dynamic gradation. This innovation, which came to be known as the hammer-harpsichord or fortepiano grand, was slow to catch on in musical circles. However, as renowned piano historian Eva Badura-Skoda demonstrates, the instrument inspired new keyboard techniques and performance practices and was eagerly adopted by virtuosos of the age, including Scarlatti, J. S. Bach, Clementi, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Presenting a rich array of archival evidence, Badura-Skoda traces the construction and use of the fortepiano grand across the musical cultures of eighteenth-century Europe, providing a valuable resource for music historians, organologists, and performers. “Badura-Skoda has written a remarkable volume, the result of a lifetime of scholarly research and investigation. . . . Essential.” —Choice

Author : Sally Coveleskie
Publisher : Yorkville Press
ISBN 13 : 9780976744276
Total Pages : 32 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Henry the Steinway and the Piano Recital written by Sally Coveleskie and published by Yorkville Press. This book was released on 2007-03-01 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ana is not ready to play in the piano recital, but Henry the Steinway helps her prepare.

Author : Nicholas J. Giordano
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192506633
Total Pages : 184 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Physics of the Piano written by Nicholas J. Giordano and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-27 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does a piano sound like a piano? A similar question can be asked of virtually all musical instruments. A particular note-such as middle C-can be produced by a piano, a violin, a clarinet, and many other instruments, yet it is easy for even a musically untrained listener to distinguish between these different instruments. A central quest in the study of musical instruments is to understand why the sound of the "same" note depends greatly on the instrument, and to elucidate which aspects of an instrument are most critical in producing the musical tones characteristic of the instrument. The primary goal of this book is to investigate these questions for the piano. The explanations in this book use a minimum of mathematics, and are intended for anyone who is interested in music and musical instruments. At the same time, there are many insights relating physics and the piano that will likely be interesting and perhaps surprising for many physicists.

Author : James Barron
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 1429900121
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Piano written by James Barron and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An alluring exploration of the people and the legendary craftsmanship behind a single Steinway piano Like no other instrument, a grand piano melds engineering feats with the magical sounds of great music: the thunder of a full-throated bass, the bright, delicate trill of the upper treble. Alone among the big piano companies, Steinway still crafts all of its pianos largely by hand, imbuing each one with the promise and burden of its brand. In this captivating narrative, James Barron of The New York Times tells the story of one Steinway piano, from raw lumber to finished instrument. Barron follows that brand-new piano-known by its number, K0862-on its eleven-month journey through the Steinway factory, where time-honored manufacturing methods vie with modern-day industrial efficiency. He looks over the shoulders of men and women-some second- and third-generation employees, some recently arrived immigrants-who transform wood and steel into a concert grand. Together, they carry on the traditions begun more than 150 years ago by the immigrants who founded Steinway & Sons-a family that soared to prominence in the music world and, for a while, in New York City's political and economic life. Barron also explores the art and science of developing a piano's timbre and character before its first performance, when the essential question will be answered: Does K0862 live up to the Steinway legend? From start to finish, Piano will charm and enlighten music lovers.

Author : David Schoenbaum
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 039308440X
Total Pages : 753 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Violin: A Social History of the World's Most Versatile Instrument written by David Schoenbaum and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013 with total page 753 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history of the instrument, from its first appearance in the mid-sixteenth century to its modern use by artists, writers, and Hollywood and discusses how the affordable, portable instrument can be used to play Beethoven, jazz, and indie rock.