A Pianist's Landscape
Carol Montparker
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, and joys of a career as a musician, but since Carol Montparker is also a perceptive 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 poor 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.

1-57467-039-5, 297 pp, 6 b/w illus., 6 x 9", hardcover, © 1998

Price: $24.95 US

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What people are saying about this book...      Media Reviews (9)      Customer Reviews (4) Media Reviews "The unquenchable and world-straddling nature of [Montparker's] interests, to which this book bears witness, . . . confirms why she is such an inspired interviewer. . . . Her sensitive antennae allow her to pick up all that is most characteristic in the musical culture of her era." — Malcolm Troup, Piano Journal , Winter 1999 "“Having spent so many years interviewing the great an the good of the musical profession-framing questions for others to answer–it must be as much a relief for Carol Montparker as it is for us, her readers, to have her at last dealing herself with these same issues in the depth, eloquence and personal candour they deserve. In fact, one might describe the whole book at an interview conducted this time with herself!”" — Malcolm Troup, Piano Journal , winter 1999 "Her sense of music as a spontaneous adventure and her reverence for the piano as a link to one’s inner life show through in this variegated collection of essays. " — Publishers Weekly "One of the chief delights of this book is that it is so engagingly well-written; it opens things up to the lay reader without the slightest hint of awkwardness or pretension." — Ted Libbey, The Washington Post Book World "Readers will savor the insider’s view. " — Piano & Keyboard "Her explorations of the pianist’s predicament are like variegated preludes in such keys as memorizing, practicing, choice of instrument, performing, teaching, and child-rearing." — Keyboard Companion 1999 "Thoroughly engaging....Her essays will be enjoyed not by musicians only, but by all music lovers who want to be swept away by an honest and warm description of an artist’s life and its trials and rewards. " — Alan Hirsch, Booklist "A book that should bring a smile of recognition to anyone who has studied piano, as well as anyone who, like Montparker, has taught others to play it." — Ted Libbey, The Washington Post Book World "An engaging and highly personal selection of essays by Montparker. " — Cite AB Customer Reviews Wonderful | September 22, 2002 Reviewer: V.C . from Philadelphia, PA If she plays as well as she writes---wow! What a wonderful book. What a gift! Quite nice | February 4, 2003 Reviewer: K. R. from Long Beach, CA I greatly enjoyed reading her insights as a pianist and journalist. Please recommend other piano related books. Thank you. Very helpful for my own teaching | February 4, 2003 Reviewer: J. B. from New Concord, OH Marvelous vocabulary. It covered many facets of piano playing. Very good | January 30, 2003 Reviewer: M. S. from Lincoln City, OR I have just begun reading and already I can see that it is my kind of book.