Description: Back cover: A Pianist_s Landscape reveals the interior world of a total musician. Carol Montparker writes with courage, grace, wit, and passion about the mundane as well as the sublime aspects of being a pianist. From the magically inspring song of a thrush to the amusing anxieties of concert-hall disasters - this landscape is filled with riches for the reader_s pleasure.
Inside front cover:
These intensely personal and perceptive essays explore the author_s life as a pianist - practicing, performing, teaching and writing - but they could be the thoughts and reflections of any artist. They recount the challenges, rewards, disappointments, and joys of a career as a musician, but since Carol Montparker is also an astute musical journalist, her noteworthy interviews and conversations with other musicians emphasize the universality of her own perceptions.
Organized into four settings - at home, on the stage, in the studio, in the field - the essays are the fruit of many years_ experience. With humor and warmth, they tell of quiet domestic delights, the frustrations of performing on ppor instruments in cold halls, the satisfactions of sharing one_s understanding of a favorite piece with an eager student, and unforgettable encounters with great pianists of our age, some of them now departed: Rubinstein, Gould, Cherkassky, Arrau, Firkusny, and Horszowski, among others.
Few books have offered so revelatory in insight into the behind-the-scenes work, the thoughts and dreams that are part of the musical process. Ms. Montparker shares all these moments in a graceful prose style that seems akin to the music she understands and loves so well.
