Kawai Piano Prices: Chopin - A Listener's Guide to the Master of the Piano: Unlocking the Masters Series [Paperback] Review

Amadeus Press has filled a underserved niche in the classical music literature with these marvelous little guides to the great composers and their greatest compositions.They fill the gap between the highly detailed, scholarly volumes of the lives of the great composers ... and the too-superficial tiny guides that offer too little program notes on the music or the composer.It gives you a compelling "play-by-play" description of each composition without venturing into musicology that would lose a beginner.The entire series is extremely well written and make a great guides to new discoveries.It should appeal to beginners as well as classical veterans alike.This Chopin volume is proving to be a valuable guide as I explore in depth Chopin's music and the great performances on disc.

Every major category is covered in satisfying depth to give you solid understanding of what is behind each work - and what in particular is historically and musically significant in them.ALl major works are covered: the lilting Waltzes .. the pensive and sometimes turbulent Nocturnes ... the weighty Sonatas, Scherzos and Ballades ... the delicate miniatures ... the amazing early piano concertos ... the showpieces, Etudes, Preludes and even the few chamber pieces of Chopin are explored to reveal many curious historic details.

This volume on Chopin makes for compelling reading and is one of the only modern volumes of program notes on the piano music of Chopin I could find.The number of works covered is large and satisfying with enough detail to give you a deep appreciation of the significance, musical structures and impact of each work.In a way, it reads much like program notes in a CD, but covering the entire range of Chopin's life and works.Other reviews below outline the range covered.The volume, supplemented by classic volume like Schonberg's "Lives of the Great Composers" should give a high quality education to the music of Chopin.This book includes a Naxos CD containing performances by Idl Bieret which gives a quality intro to Chopin, but some listeners will surely want to explore the great Chopin performances of pianists like Rubinstein, Horowitz, Kissin, Perahia, Argerich and many others.Bottom line: these "Unlocking the Masters Series" are a great investment to deepening one's appreciation that will not go out of style any time soon.5 stars.

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Product Description:
Frederic Chopin died a famous man with his place in the musical pantheon secure. Yet the works that were once most popular tended to be his lightest and least challenging, leading many listeners and critics to view him as a miniaturist and composer for the salon. The bold pieces now revered as his masterpieces-the epic and tragic structures of the ballades, scherzos, polonaises, and sonatas, and the compact but daring preludes and mazurkas-were rarely played and poorly understood. In fact, a larger proportion of Chopin's pieces are now in the active repertory than that of any composer. Chopin - A Listener's Guide to the Master of the Piano takes a detailed tour through the life and oeuvre of the sovereign master of the keyboard. The composer's metabolic adaptation of the melodic structures of Italian opera and the folk music of his native Poland for the resources of the piano are examined in detail, as are the originality and boldness he displayed throughout his tragically short, astonishing career. The book is accompanied by a CD containing 15 complete compositions (and one full movement from his Piano Sonata No. 2) performed by pianist Idil Biret, from her complete survey of the composer's music on the Naxos label.

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