Piano Roles: Three Hundred Years of Life with the Piano

Piano Roles is a lively and up-to-date history of the piano that examines both its evolution in classical and popular musical cultures around the world, and its every-changing social roles over the past three centuries. Parakilas and his colleagues have struck a canny balance between scholarly rigor and popular appeal, with chapters alternating between more or less straightforward historical surveys and informal essays on such offbeat topics as the piano less, the piano in the movies, and the piano in Japan, and even the evolution of the piano bench. This is a beautiful book that is equally fascinating to read and fun to look at.

The piano turns 300 this year. To celebrate, Parakilas (music, Bates Coll.; Ballads Without Words: Chopin and the Tradition of the Instrumental Ballade) has assembled a group of distinguished contributors and fashioned a lavishly illustrated social history of the piano directed at informed lay readers. Interweaving a chronological treatment of the piano's development with thematic essays, including how the piano is depicted in art, its manufacture and marketing, the role of the piano in motion pictures, the piano lesson, and its history in Japan, the authors share their warm regard and enthusiasm for this instrument central to so many facets of music-making. Exploring the piano's well-traveled avenues and little-known byways, this thoroughly entertaining and insightful book complements earlier titles like The Lives of the Piano (ed. by James R. Gaines; 1981. o.p.), Dieter Hildebrandt's Pianoforte: A Social History of the Piano (LJ 6/1/88), and David Crombie's Piano (LJ 1/96). Highly recommended as an exceptional value for all music collections.
-Barry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH
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