The literature of the piano: A guide for amateur and student

by Ernest Hutcheson

This is a guide to the world’s great piano music with specific help in the selection, interpretation, & performance of individual pieces. You will Enlightening information about composers, music, & music history Observations & practical advice Illustrated with more than 300 quotations from actual scores Convenient, graded lists of selections Helpful notes regarding editions & publishers Extensive bibliography Contents (main headings only) Introduction The instrument The literature before Bach Bach Bach to Beethoven Beethoven Weber, Schubert, & Mendelssohn Schumann Chopin Brahms Liszt French piano music Russian & polish composers Piano music since Liszt American composers Living composers Postscript to the amateur & student

Genres: Music

Hardcover

First published June 1, 1964

Reviews

[Eugene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ernest Hutcheson, the author who wrote The Literature of the Piano, was a pianist and pedagogue. His book is basically a chronological survey and evaluation of the keyboard literature ranging from early harpsichord literature to the piano literature of the 1950s/ 1960s.

There is no doubt that the book is dated, having last been published in 1964. Nonetheless, it is a treasure trove of information. Some chapters cover periods of music, or composers by nationality, while other chapters focus upon single composers, e.g. Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt etc. There are other chapters on The Instrument, Living Composers And The State of Music Since Hutcheson (including the magnetic tape and concrete electronic music), and two appendices by Ganz on Technique and Fingerings; fourteen chapters overall, 436 pp, with an extraordinarily detailed index listing pianists, composers, pieces cited (over 30 pages long).