This is our backup site. Click here to visit our main site at MellenPress.com

Subject Area: Music-Keyboard

A Study of Stravinsky's Sonate Pour Piano (1924) and Serenade en la: A Performer's Analysis and Comparison
 Boettcher, Bonna J.
1992 0-7734-9806-0 104 pages
A critical examination of two piano works by Igor Stravinsky from a performer's point of view, pointing our reflections of eighteenth-century forms and styles, while indicating some of the transformation brought about by the composer's musical personality. Develops special insights that supplement views of theorists and historians.

An Introduction, Analysis, and Performance Evaluation of Selected Piano Trio Literature of the Twentieth Century
 Starr, James
2003 0-7734-6540-5 384 pages


Biography of French Pianist Marcel Ciampi (1891-1980) Music to Last a Lifetime
 Bracey, John-Paul
1996 0-7734-8794-8 172 pages
Marcel Ciampi held the longest tenure in the history of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. In his long career he performed at least 60 solo recitals a year and collaborated with most of the musical legends of this century. This book chronicles his career and examines his influence on the Menuhin family, and includes a letter from Yehudi Menuhin for the project, and interview excerpts of Hepzibah and Yaltah Menuhin. The book also includes letters from Georges Enesco, Pablo Casals, Alfred Cortot, Vlado Perlemuter, Yvonne Loriod, Lazare Lévy, and many others. It chronicles the international careers of Ciampi's family. Includes many photographs. This book will appeal to music specialists, teachers, pianists, and anyone interested in another perspective on the music history of this century.

Cesar Franck--Composer, Teacher, Organist: A Guide to Research
 Flynn, Timothy
2024 1-4955-1239-8 468 pages
"The materials examined in the present study represent an overview of the scholarship regarding the life and music of Cesar Franck (1822-1890) as well as selected sources associated with nineteenth century French music in general. Studies pertaining to other composers and musical genres connected with Franck have been included to offer the researcher more extensive information regarding the composer's life and times. This monograph is not meant to be an exhaustive collection of material, but rather it consists of a cross section of what has been written about the composer, his music, and the history surrounding him. The purpose of this resource tool is to facilitate further research and deeper inquiry into Franck as a composer, teacher, and organist in addition to his influence upon music history through his works." (Dr. Timothy Flynn, "Preface") [This is a revised version of the book published by Pendragon Press in 2019].

Chronological Order for the Keyboard Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
 Flannery, Matthew
2004 0-7734-6336-4 348 pages
This work proposes a solution to what is often considered the central problem facing Scarlatti scholarship, determining the chronological order of his keyboard sonatas. In the data-poor arena of Scarlatti research, this work, avoiding a primarily musicological or organological approach, analyzes large-scale patterns of musical characteristics over all (or parts) of a sonata sequence founded primarily on the Parma manuscript. As a result of an extensive application of this analytic approach to the sequence, this work notes that many sequence patterns seem to be chronologically structured, that none seem anti-chronological, and that a few mirror historical changes in the music of Scarlatti=s time. These phenomena and other observations delimit something like a general history of Scarlatti=s musical development enriched further by a variety of localized events. Among some 26 patterns observed in the sequence are a systematic rise in Scarlatti=s use of the major mode, stepped increases in sonata compass that seem to accord with the sequential availability of larger keyboards, and both an increase in the rate at which the sonatas were combined into sets of two or three works and the use by Scarlatti of progressively complex techniques for doing so. This work also sketches a methodological background for the chronological proposal, including a discussion of why chronological order seems a superior interpretation of the sequence compared to the thought that it may have been reorganized, whether at random or by specific criteria. This study also discusses such subjects as the probable location of the 30 essercizi within the sonata sequence, the likely mis-location of several other sonatas, implications of chronological order from organology, a broadly dated window for the latter part of the sequence, the relationship between conservative and radical elements in Scarlatti=s compositions, a late-sequence change in his approach to writing slow sonatas, and the interplay of structural integration and musical diversity in the later sonatas. It presents a new catalog of the sonatas that, while substantially congruent with Kirkpatrick=s, proposes modifications to his ordering of the first hundred sonatas as well to a few other but smaller regions of the sequence.

Gilbert Kalish: American Pianist
 Freeman, Robert
2023 1-4955-1086-7 282 pages
"Gil's devotion to the music of our own time has been legion, making him the champion of three generations of living composers. If you were a senior master...you counted on Gil to internalize your language, your intent, and to breathe life into the marks on the page. If you were a young composer, you knew that you would have a powerful mirror held up for you in which you could see clearly where you stood, and where you needed to learn and to grow. ...His effect on the people fortunate enough to work with him--in any capacity--has been radiant. The pages that follow chronicle this extraordinary man and his influence. His story--which continues undiminished in the present day--is a joyous affirmation of everything we hold dear in our art and in our lives." -Robert Freeman (Preface) This book was originally published in 2021 by Pendragon Press.

Hérold-Herz-Liszt: Cavatine de Zampa (piano solo)
 Wright, William
2023 1-4955-1154-5 20 pages
"The Herold-Herz-Liszt Cavatine de Zampa, tastefully furnished with embellishments and minor melodic deviations by Liszt is published here for the first time. Liszt almost certainly performed it in Paris in 1832 prior to the latter part of April that year, that is, before he heard Niccolo Paganini play. The material that Liszt incorporated from a two-page "Zampa" autograph correction sheet held in the Albert Schweitzer Museum, Gunsbach, Alsace, exhibits Bachian ornamentation as found in the young composer's [1827] "Allegro Maestoso" manuscript, the opening measures of his Etude in F sharp major op. 6, no. 13 (S136). Schweitzer probably received the Liszt "Zampa" measures from his old Hungarian piano teacher, Isidor Philipp, during a three-day visit to the French capital at the end of September 1949." -William Wright ("Preface")

Images and Ideas in Modern French Piano Music: The Extra-Musical Subtext in Piano Works by Ravel, Debussy, and Messiaen
 Bruhn, Siglind
2023 1-4955-1108-1 428 pages
"This study undertakes to show that some music can be understood as portraying and nuancing, commenting on and interpreting a non-musical stimulus, and to elaborate in detail just how this is achieved in a number of small musical works. The result reveals that there is a wealth of possible relationships between musical components and the extra-musical stimuli that presumably brought them into being." Siglind Bruhn (Preface) This book was originally published in 1997 by Pendragon Press.

Johann Nepomuk Hummel: A Complete Theoretical & Practical Course of Instructions on the Art of Playing the Piano Forte Part III
 Kroll, Mark
2023 1-4955-1173-1 144 pages
This book contains an annotated facsimile of Part III of A Complete Theoretical and Practical Course of Instructions on the Art of Playing the Piano Forte by Johann Nepomuk Hummel with commentary by Mark Kroll. "A permanent monument to Hummel's pedagogical skill...Hummel's goal was to create a virtual compendium of techniques, performance practices and aesthetics." Mark Kroll [Introduction] This book was originally published by Pendragon Press in 2019.

Liszt and England
 Wright, William
2023 1-4955-1084-1 320 pages
"The present volume is based on diary entries, playbills, programs, press reports, and archival material, mainly from British and European sources. As such it represents the first comprehensive analysis of Liszt's executant, compositional, and and literary activities in London and the English provinces. Also incorporated is a detailed listing of the composer's London publications and selected correspondence while in England. A final chapter focuses on major developments on the Lisztian front from 1945 to the present day." -from the Author's "Introduction" This book was originally published in 2016 by Pendragon Press.

Messiaen's Contemplations of Covenant and Incarnation: Musical Symbols of Faith in the Two Great Piano Cycles of the 1940s
 Bruhn, Siglind
2023 1-4955-1181-2 296 pages
"Olivier Messiaen, master of sounds, was gifted with an unusual visual sense. While his physical eyes always needed thick glasses, his inner eye saw much that remains hidden to most. Music and Color is the title of the only volume of conversations published under the composer's own name rather than under that of the respective interviewer, thus drawing the readers' attention to the importance Messiaen attached to one of the basic aspects of visual perception. ...Were one to move in the direction of inner perception, one would arrive at the dimension of contemplations and visions. This book aims to direct its readers' interest specifically toward the metaphysical, theological, and sometimes mystical visions manifested in the two piano cycles whose movements are compiled under the titles of 'visions' and 'contemplations' respectively." -Siglind Bruhn (Preface)

Piano Teaching of Walter Hautzig, with 613 Examples From Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Chopin
 Rice-See, Lynn
2008 0-7734-4981-7 312 pages
Examines the teaching of Professor Hautzig, which continues the Romantic piano tradition of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe, and stresses individuality allied with faithfulness to the score. This book contains four black and white photographs.

Sergei Rachmaninoff - Symphony No. 1 - An Annotated Reconstruction of Eugene Ormandy's Performing Version
 Yaklich, Richard E.
2021 1-4955-0843-9 216 pages
Dr. Yaklich breaks down and studies legendary Philadelphia conductor Eugene Ormandy's performing version of legendary Russian pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff's First Symphony. He also explores the relationship between the two musicians, professionally and personally.

The American Piano Industry: Episodes in the History of a Great Enterprise
 Hettrick, William E.
2023 1-4955-1171-5 439 pages
"...I came upon the rich holdings of the New York Public Library in print copies of historical music-trade journals, which, I discovered, focused almost entirely on the American piano industry. ...My first significant use of this large body of literary material was my Newsletter reprinting of a selection of editor Harry Edward Freund's articles propounding his plan for a ritual bonfire of square pianos at Atlantic City. This event became a legend in the history of the American piano, and my fascination with the story led to my full study of the subject, which now serves as the basis of one of the chapters in this book." -William E. Hettrick (Preface) This book was originally published by Pendragon Press in 2020.

The Boston School of Harpsichord Building: Reminiscences of William Dowd, Eric Herz and Frank Hubbard by the People Who Knew and Worked with Them
 Kroll, Mark
2023 1-4955-1172-3 168 pages
"[In this book I] continue the story of the Boston School of Harpsichord Building...as told by some of the apprentices and successors still with us who have gone on to become successful builders, restorers, and experts in the field. Their eyewitness accounts add new dimensions to our understanding and appreciation of a glorious period in the history of harpsichord building." -Mark Kroll (Preface) This book was originally published by Pendragon Press in 2019.

The John Marsh Journals: The Life and Times of a Gentleman Composer (1752-1828), Vol. 1, Revised Edition
 Robins, Brian
2023 1-4955-1174-X 796 pages
"Until relatively recently the extensive Journals (History of my Private Life) maintained throughout almost his entire life by the English gentleman composer John Marsh (1752-1828) were known only to a small circle of musical historians. ...This present volume represents an attempt to bring Marsh's vibrant world to the wider attention of both scholars and a more general readership. ...I [have concentrated] primarily, although far from exclusively, on Marsh's interests in music, an approach one hopes would have met with the approval of the author himself." -Brian Robins, editor This book was originally published by Pendragon Press in 2011.

Wenzel Johann Tomaschek (1774-1850): An Autobiography
 Tomaschek, Wenzel Johann
2023 1-4955-1133-2 156 pages
Johann Wenzel Tomaschek was one of the most significant and fascinating musical personalities at the beginning of the 19th century. A brilliant pianist, teacher, composer and critic, he was known as the Musical Pope of Prague. He was a friend of Beethoven and Goethe, and taught such figures as the virtuosos Alexander Dreyschock and Jan Vaclav Voriskek and the critic Eduard Hanslick. Despite the fact that he composed over one hundred compositions, including operas, concerti, string quartets, symphonies, songs and religious works, he is known today almost exclusively for his characteristic piano pieces, variously titled "Rhapsodies", "Dithyrambs", and most often, "Eclogues". Though these titles all have their roots in classical poetry, the pieces in question combine aspects of classic style with fresh, new and even idosyncratic takes on contemporary musical thought. *This Autobiography first appeared in installments between 1845 and 1850 in the periodical "Libussa". An annotated Czech translation appeared in 1941 and excerpts have appeared in English in The Musical Quarterly in 1946 and The Musical Times in 1974. This volume [published originally by Pendragon Press in 2017] is the first complete English translation of the work. -Michael Beckerman ("Introduction") This work was translated by Stephen Thomson Moore. (Studies in Czech Music, No. 5)

Yella Pessl, First Lady of the Harpsichord a Life of Fire and Conviction
 Dower, Catherine
1993 0-88946-446-4 212 pages
Examines the career of Yella Pessl, a Bach specialist, virtuoso harpsichordist and pianist, authority on seventeenth and eighteenth century Baroque keyboard music which she wrote about and edited. It discusses her early years in Vienna; her American debut; the Bach Circle which she founded; presents four of her articles on keyboard music; includes interviews; recollections of Alexander Wunderer, her teacher; and a section on her musical sister who lived in Austria under Hitler's reign. It brings to light Pessl's disorganized years, life in mental institutions, and complete recovery.