Piano Forum

Piano Board => Teaching => Topic started by: cforlana on December 07, 2007, 07:44:17 AM

Title: Great Books on different piano styles of various composers
Post by: cforlana on December 07, 2007, 07:44:17 AM
I'm looking for books/textbooks, maybe an anthology regarding composer styles for piano.  I'd like a good source, a well-researched book, so I can turn to it whenever I need to review compositional styles (i.e. performing Debussy, stylistic comments).  There are some authors who have researched and written about one composer in great detail - I'd be interested in those. I'd like to mainly invest in a good home library, the books that are essential for any pianist, teacher, theorist; AND from a performance point of view.  Open to your suggestions :)
Title: Re: Great Books on different piano styles of various composers
Post by: mcgillcomposer on December 11, 2007, 01:37:02 PM
I'm looking for books/textbooks, maybe an anthology regarding composer styles for piano.  I'd like a good source, a well-researched book, so I can turn to it whenever I need to review compositional styles (i.e. performing Debussy, stylistic comments).  There are some authors who have researched and written about one composer in great detail - I'd be interested in those. I'd like to mainly invest in a good home library, the books that are essential for any pianist, teacher, theorist; AND from a performance point of view.  Open to your suggestions :)
Donald Francis Tovey has an excellent book on the Beethoven sonatas, as does Charles Rosen and a fellow by the last name Taub.

For the Mozart sonatas, there is always Badura-Skoda's book, although it is mainly concerned with historical performance practice.

Alfred Brendel has a collection of essays that deal with the performance of certain works - they are quite good too.
Title: Re: Great Books on different piano styles of various composers
Post by: dan101 on December 14, 2007, 11:48:41 AM
You've received some excellent advice alrady. Personally, I prefer the Concise Oxford Dictionary's compilation of musicians. They list countless composers and the publication is an invaluable reference.