![]() | author: Steven Isserlis asin: 0571206166 binding: Paperback list price: $7.96 USD amazon price: $7.96 |
Why did Bach's son call him 'The Old Wig'?What part did Stravinsky's parrot play at dinner parties?How did Mozart keep his pigtails styled?What did Schumann invent to make his fingers stronger?And why did Beethoven throw his stew?This book is a unique introduction for children to the world of classical composers and their music.Famous cellist Steven Isserlis brings six of his favorite composers to life in an irresistible manner, painting hilarious biographical portraits of each of them and describing their music in lively detail. Packed with facts, dates, anecdotes and illustrations, Why Beethoven Threw the Stew is an attractive and accessible read for children (and their parents!).
![]() | asin: B0000064YB binding: Audio CD list price: $8.99 USD amazon price: $11.63 USD |
A wizard of technical control since his prodigy days, Kissin simply uses this as a foundation to probe the depths of such core repertory items as the ones on this collection. It takes a truly subtle musicality and grasp to make the endlessly recorded Moonlight sound fresh, but Kissin has the goods, pulling the carpet from underneath and making you really notice, with his unsentimental, steady tempo, how unsettling Beethoven's harmonic fluctuations are in a first movement of startling inwardness. Kissin allows the middle minuet to blossom within the sonata's larger nightscape, while he pushes the finale's cri de coeur to its heaven-storming edge. He likewise traces the late-19th-century gothic labyrinth of Franck's Prelude, Choral et Fugue with an absorbing blend of delicacy and power. But the real highlight of this disc is the gloriously brilliant intensity Kissin brings to the Brahms Paganini Variations. Listen to how he parades a dizzying, dazzling series of moods--from caressing introspection and bone-crunching, steely chords to the giddy cross-rhythms of Book II, Variation 7--to match Brahms's magnitude of invention. This is pianism of the first order. --Thomas May
![]() | author: Beethoven asin: B000LRYQ0M binding: Digital list price: $2.75 USD amazon price: $2.75 USD |
Downloadable sheet music file