John Gillespie: Five Centuries of Keyboard Music

Description

Most listeners can readily distinguish between the works of such keyboard giants as Bach, Beethoven, and Liszt and between various national schools, but when it comes to defining what the differences are, relating the various interconnections, discovering information on the hundreds of other keyboard composers, and actually finding playing editions, the task becomes much greater. To aid the performer, the listener, and the student in all these important aspects, John Gillespie, practicing pianist and harpsichordist and Professor of Music at the University of California, has prepared this, the first work in English to comprehensively survey the development of solo keyboard works. Introductory chapters of Gillespie's literate and authoritative survey cover the backgrounds and development of keyboard instruments and early keyboard music. Later chapters cover the history as it progressed stylistically through the hands of individual composers and various schools from the 16th to the 20th centuries.