A-Z of Pianists

"The A-Z of Pianists . It’s quite a humble thing: just a reference book really, but it’s incredible in its scope. If you are into music, then you’re almost certainly fascinated by the piano, and this book gives the pianophile everything he needs. Piano history is made up of these great figures, but there are also a huge number of incredible second-tier figures, who were brilliant at a single composer or did one good recording or were big figures in their country alone and only recently have their recordings come to light, and this book unearths them. I found so many gems just by flicking through. It comes with four CDs, which give a few choice obscurities from the oldest-ever recordings – I think 1912 – by Ferruccio Busoni and Eugen d’Albert. These extraordinary figures really important to the development of piano technique, figures you thought we didn’t even have on record. Then there’s an A-Z with a simple little biography detailing big events in their lives, prizes they’ve won, appointments they’ve had, a selected recordings bit, and then, depending on who they are, two to three pages on their life and trajectory, and sometimes a cursory attempt to say why they’re considered in high regard, or what’s flawed about them for some people. I think it’s unique: you can’t get this amount of information in Grove or in any other book that I know. There’s nothing this up-to-date."