Playing the Piano for Pleasure

Dust jacket notes: "The author of this book is one of the star reporters of The New Yorker. He is also a novelist and short-story writer. Writing is his profession. His hobby is playing the piano. For the last twenty-six of his thirty-six years he has studied piano, and during the last eight years has pursued his study as a serious adult hobby. The result, in effect, is a book by an amateur, addressed to other amateurs. It is written lightly, persuasively, humorously, inspiringly. The book is divided roughly into two parts - (1) 'Goals' (the shorter part), which is an infectious report about piano study as a beloved and ever-growing hobby, and (2) 'Means' (the real heart of the book), which is in essence a manual for improving one's piano playing. It is full of concrete suggestions and instructions, based not only on the author's own experiences at the piano, but also on research conducted by interviewing such master pianists as Horowitz, Schnabel, Brailowsky, and Rosenthal. The pianistic wisdom of these giants is accompanied by gleanings from the writings of Liszt, Rubinstein, Leschetizky, Teresa Carreno, Hofmann, Paderewski, and Tobias Matthay. To amateurs: if you play the piano at all, this book will show you how to play better. If you play the piano well, it will show you how to play still better. If you studied the piano in youth and gave it up, it will provide a master plan for taking it up again without a teacher. For all except those who have never studied the piano at all, Playing the Piano for Pleasure points a delightful way for making piano playing a life hobby - absorbing, satisfying, and spiritually enriching."