Great Books on different piano styles of various composers

[cforlana]

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

[mcgillcomposer]

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.

[dan101]

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.