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Piano Notes
Piano Notes
Oct 2, 2024 10:35 PM

Author:Charles Rosen

Piano Notes

In this eloquent, intimate exploration of the delights and demands of the piano, world-renowned concert pianist and music writer Charles Rosen draws on a lifetime's wisdom to consider every aspect of the instrument: from what makes a beautiful sound to suffering from stage fright, from the physical challenges of playing to tales of great musicians, including Vladimir Horowitz's recording tricks, Rachmaninov's hands and why Artur Rubenstein applied hairspray to the keys. Gracefully blending anecdote, history, expertise and memoir, Piano Notes will enchant anyone with a passion for music.

Reviews

Crammed with laugh-out-loud moments

—— Daily Telegraph

A rollicking good read

—— Bruce Dessau , Evening Standard

A thoughtful, understated memoir

—— Joe Moran , Guardian

Witty and enjoyable

—— Robert Elms , BBC Radio London

Compelling

—— Chortle

Fascinating

—— Ray Darcy RTE Radio

A simple, readable confessional … interspersed with Coogan’s trademark caustic asides and loads of telly and performance insight… If you love Coogan, this delivers

—— Observer - Books of 2015 in review

Self-aware, deferential and modest

—— Times Literary Supplement

Scholars of rock and roll still revere him for Awopbopaloobop, a passionate argument for the primacy of the three-minute pop song...A book ostensibly about popular music, but really about youth, innocence and rebellion

—— Observer

The Hollywood Brats are the greatest band I’ve ever seen

—— Keith Moon

Britain’s great lost punk band

—— Q-Magazine

So colourful, so comical, so damn bitchy... hilarious

—— Tony Fletcher , iJamming

Matheson writes with the jagged verve he once sought from his band.

—— Kevin Canfield , Washington Post

Biographical subject and author have found their perfect match.

—— Simon Shaw , Mail on Sunday

One Man Band rumbles along… Welles in his middle years is a more engaging prospect than most artists at a similar point. He has been lucky to have Callow as a biographer, balancing warmth with skepticism, fondness with reproof.

—— Anthony Quinn , Guardian

This richly detailed and revelatory biography presents the most frank and intimate portrait yet of Ray Davies

—— CGA Magazine

Rogan does an excellent job of trying to work out what makes The Kinks’ enigmatic frontman tick whilst charting the tumultuous career of a band whose idiosyncratic but brilliant hits are currently enjoying a renaissance

—— Mail on Sunday

This book is a good, solid, factually based read throughout… I imagine nearing six decades of recording history to be squeezed into one book is a task beyond the scope of a lot of authors, but this has been done rather well by Johnny Rogan… Excellent and complex.

—— Reg Seward , Nudge

An engaging and very accessible history book about our modern artistic achievements that, provocatively, also debunks some of the very icons it praises.

—— Simon Copeland , The Sun
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