Mimi Ezust wrote:

>There is an excellent article on the technique of piano playing and how it
>developed (and became in some cases a crowd-pleasing sport!) in this
>current New York Review of Books (the October 21 issue).
>
>It is also online and can be found at this URL:
>   http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/index.html

i JUST GOt around to reading this article and found it to be, in a word,
brilliant, not too surprising considering Rosen's well-known ability to
explicate arcane matters.  To any of you on the list who have played the
piano at any level beyond the most elementary, much of it will ring true,
set out in a way that most of us would never have thought to explain it.

For instance, he emphasizes the way in the which the very physicality of
piano playing has influenced the course of music in the last two centuries.
And he talks about the effect the piano had on the art of modulation in
composition by its introduction of equal temperament, which virtually took
over instrumental composition, even in those pieces not using the piano.
He has some interesting things to say about this in regard to the current
'neotonal' composing styles.

There is an impassioned defense of 'composing at the piano', for so
long a practice derogated by musical snobs.  He implies that this notion
negatively affected such composers as Schumann, who 'felt ashamed of his
reliance on the piano for inspiration.'

And there is a fascinating section on the means by which, by emphasizing
certain notes in chords, the course of the harmonic meaning of the piece
at hand can be not only clarified, but beautified.

A mot:

'The danger of the piano, and its glory, is that the pianist can feel the
music with his whole body without having to listen to it.'

Scott Morrison