The Art of Piano Playing by Heinrich Neuhaus

Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #1018106 in Books
Published on: 1995-03
Binding: Paperback
Customer Reviews

The Pianist's Bible
The Art of Piano Playing such a terrific book that every pianist should have it. I've read it through and will read it again and again. The information in this book is to the point. You can't help but come away with a better understanding of the art of piano playing

Very interesting
His uncle Felix Blumenfeld was a Horowitz teacher.
Some of Neuhaus students among many others:
- Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels, both considered top 10 world pianists.
- The first teacher (the mother) of Andrei Gavrilov.
- Radu Lupu.

This book is funny as exemplified below by some excerpts:

"Thinking about art and science, about their mutual relationship and contradictions, I came to the conclusion, for some reason or other, that mathematics and music are situated at extreme poles of the human spirit, that these two antipodes limit and determine the whole spiritual and creative activity of man and that situated between them is everything that mankind has created in the field of science and art".

I found his above childish thoughts very interesting, perhaps meaning that everything is a linear combination of pure logic (math) and pure emotion (music). As I work with math and like to play piano I will tend to be a "complete" human being :-)

Other of his "jokes":

"When Emil Gilels came to study with me in the Moscow State Conservatory, I was once forced to say to him: You are already a grown man, you can eat steak and drink beer but so far you have been fed with a baby's bottle"

"I remember that when Glazunov was about fifty his mother used to tell the washerwoman to be careful with the child's linen"

"To play the piano is easy. I mean the physical process, and not the summit of pianistic art.It is obvious that to play the piano very well is just as difficult as to do anything else very well, for instance to pull teeth or macadam a road".

"I must once more apologize for this excessively long history about myself; that is always somewhat indecent. But what can one do?"

"Carl Czerny, the "dry and methodical genius" who has tortured generations of pianists wih an inexhaustible stream of studies and exercises..."

And many more...

His jokes are almost everywere. Otherwise the book has several useful recommendations and analysis about the art of piano playing and has chapters on "artistic image of a musical composition", on tone, on technique and on teaching activity.

But be advised: Sometimes the book is a bit verbose, repetitive and philosophical. It is not directed only to technical problems.

A classic....
Lets put it this way.... this is not light reading (is the slang word an airplane book?). It is though one of the best books on playing the piano. Neuhaus is concise, to the point and likes to put out interesting anecdotes, some humorous.
This is also pretty advanced so I doubt non musicians could find any utility apart from historical tidbits. Neuhaus taught Richter who taught many others.... and just like we do with other disciplines - we have to pay tribute to the forefather of this lineage/legacy, especially since he helped produce Richter.