Susan Tomes Livres

Describes the experience of twenty years of rehearsal, concerts and recording of the author who is an example of a leading musician who writes about the craft of performance.

Highly acclaimed author Susan Tomes takes up various topics of perennial interest: how music awakens and even creates memories, what 'interpretation' really means, what effect daily practice has on the character, whether playing from memory is a burden or a liberation, and why the piano is the right tool for the job.

The author of Beyond the Notes demonstrates how a working musician draws energy from the events of daily life, and sometimes seeks a refuge from them in music.

This is a book to appeal to a wide range of readers - pianists of every level from beginner to professional, piano teachers, musicians of all kinds, and the broader community of music-lovers.

A fascinating history of the piano explored through 100 pieces chosen by one of the UK's most renowned concert pianists

Women are an essential part of the history of the piano--but how many women pianists can you name? Throughout most of the piano's history, women pianists lacked access to formal training and were excluded from male-dominated performance spaces. Even the modern piano's keys were designed without consideration of women's typically smaller hands. Yet despite their music being largely confined to the domestic sphere, women continued to play, perform, and compose on their own terms. Celebrated pianist and author Susan Tomes traces fifty such women across the piano's history. Including now-famous names such as Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn, Tomes also highlights overlooked women: from Hélène de Montgeroult, whose playing saved her life during the French Revolution, to Leopoldine Wittgenstein, influential Viennese salonnière, and Hazel Scott, the first Black performer in the United States to have a nationally syndicated TV show. From Maria Szymanowska to Nina Simone, and including interviews with women performing today, this is a much-needed corrective to our understanding of the piano--and a timely testament to women's musical lives.