Great Pianists On Piano Playing: Study Talks with Foremost Virtuosos

"It is differences that count in art,not similarities. Every individual expression is a form of art; why not, then, make an artist of each finger by cultivating its special aptitudes instead of adapting a system of training deliberately calculated to destroy these individual characteristics in bringing all the fingers to a common level of lifeless machines?” -Harold Bauer An important and valuable series of personal educational conferences with renowned masters of the keyboard, presenting the most modern ideas upon the subjects of technic, interpretation, style and expression.

1. THE ARTIST'S LIFE 2. ARE PIANISTS BORN OR MADE? 3. THE STORY OF A WONDER-CHILD Pepito Arriola 4. THE PIANIST OF TO-MORROW Wilhelm Bachaus 5. ARTISTIC ASPECTS OF PIANO STUDY Harold Bauer 6. APPEARING IN PUBLIC Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler 7. IMPORTANT DETAILS IN PIANO STUDY Ferruccio Busoni 8. DISTINCTIVE PIANO PLAYING Teresa Carre–o 9. ESSENTIALS OF TOUCH Ossip Gabrilowitsch 10. THE REAL SIGNIFICANCE OF TECHNIC Leopold Godowsky 11. ANALYZING MASTERPIECES Katharine Goodson 12. PROGRESS IN PIANO STUDY Josef Hofmann 13. PIANO STUDY IN RUSSIA Josef Lhévinne 14. SEEKING ORIGINALITY Vladimir de Pachmann 15. MODERN PIANISTIC PROBLEMS Max Pauer 16. ESSENTIALS OF ARTISTIC PLAYING S. V. Rachmaninoff 17. SYSTEMATIC MUSICAL TRAINING A. Reisenauer 18. THE TRAINING OF THE VIRTUOSO E. Sauer 19. ECONOMY IN MUSIC STUDY X. Scharwenka 20. LEARNING A NEW PIECE E. Schelling 21. WHAT INTERPRETATION REALLY IS S. Stojowski

(cover photograph courtesy of Ruben Vazquez)

James Francis Cooke (November 14, 1875,Bay City, Michigan – March 3, 1960, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania) spent his life involved with music. He was a pianist, composer, playwright, journalist, author (including novels and of books on musical history and theory), a president of Theodore Presser music publishers from 1925 to 1936, and editor of The Etude music magazine from 1907 to 1950,or 1913 to 1956. He taught piano for more than twenty years in New York, led choral clubs and taught voice. His books included Standard History of Music: A First History for Students of All Ages, 1910, Great Pianists upon Piano-Playing, 1913, Mastering the Scales and Arpeggios, 1913, Musical Playlets, 1917, Music-Masters Old and New, Great Singers on the Art of Singing, Young Folks' Picture History of Music, 1925, Master Study in Music, A Fight in Defense of Music, Musical travelogues; little visits to European musical shrines for the casual traveler, the music lover, the student and the teacher, 1934, Musical plays for young folks: Scenes from the lives of the great composers, 1934, and How to Memorize Music 1948. (Wikipedia)