Erard

Erard PDF Author: Robert Adelson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197565336
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 238

Get Book

Book Description
Sébastien Erard's (1752-1831) inventions have had an enormous impact on instruments and musical life and are still at the foundation of piano building today. Drawing on an unusually rich set of archives from both the Erard firm and the Erard family, author Robert Adelson shows how the Erard piano played an important and often leading role in the history of the instrument, beginning in the late eighteenth century and continuing into the final decades of the nineteenth. The Erards were the first piano builders in France to prioritise the more sonorous grand piano, sending gifts of their new model to both Haydn and Beethoven. Erard's famous double-escapement action, which improved the instrument's response while at the same time producing a more powerful tone, revolutionised both piano construction and repertoire. Thanks to these inventions, the Erard firm developed close relationships with the greatest pianist composers of the nineteenth century, including Hummel, Liszt, Moscheles and Mendelssohn. The book also presents new evidence concerning Pierre Erard's homosexuality, which helps us to understand his reluctance to found a family to carry on the Erard tradition, a reluctance that would spell the end of the golden era of the firm and lead to its eventual demise. The book closes with the story of Pierre's widow Camille, who directed the firm from 1855 until 1889. Her influential position in the male-dominated world of instrument building was unique for a woman of her time.

Erard

Erard PDF Author: Robert Adelson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197565336
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 238

Get Book

Book Description
Sébastien Erard's (1752-1831) inventions have had an enormous impact on instruments and musical life and are still at the foundation of piano building today. Drawing on an unusually rich set of archives from both the Erard firm and the Erard family, author Robert Adelson shows how the Erard piano played an important and often leading role in the history of the instrument, beginning in the late eighteenth century and continuing into the final decades of the nineteenth. The Erards were the first piano builders in France to prioritise the more sonorous grand piano, sending gifts of their new model to both Haydn and Beethoven. Erard's famous double-escapement action, which improved the instrument's response while at the same time producing a more powerful tone, revolutionised both piano construction and repertoire. Thanks to these inventions, the Erard firm developed close relationships with the greatest pianist composers of the nineteenth century, including Hummel, Liszt, Moscheles and Mendelssohn. The book also presents new evidence concerning Pierre Erard's homosexuality, which helps us to understand his reluctance to found a family to carry on the Erard tradition, a reluctance that would spell the end of the golden era of the firm and lead to its eventual demise. The book closes with the story of Pierre's widow Camille, who directed the firm from 1855 until 1889. Her influential position in the male-dominated world of instrument building was unique for a woman of her time.

Babel No More

Babel No More PDF Author: Michael Erard
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451628277
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book

Book Description
A “fascinating” (The Economist) dive into the world of linguistics that is “part travelogue, part science lesson, part intellectual investigation…an entertaining, informative survey of some of the most fascinating polyglots of our time” (The New York Times Book Review). In Babel No More, Michael Erard, “a monolingual with benefits,” sets out on a quest to meet language superlearners and make sense of their mental powers. On the way he uncovers the secrets of historical figures like the nineteenth-century Italian cardinal Joseph Mezzofanti, who was said to speak seventy-two languages, as well as those of living language-superlearners such as Alexander Arguelles, a modern-day polyglot who knows dozens of languages and shows Erard the tricks of the trade to give him a dark glimpse into the life of obsessive language acquisition. With his ambitious examination of what language is, where it lives in the brain, and the cultural implications of polyglots’ pursuits, Erard explores the upper limits of our ability to learn and use languages and illuminates the intellectual potential in everyone. How do some people escape the curse of Babel—and what might the gods have demanded of them in return?

The History of the Erard Piano and Harp in Letters and Documents, 1785–1959

The History of the Erard Piano and Harp in Letters and Documents, 1785–1959 PDF Author: Robert Adelson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316407330
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 3084

Get Book

Book Description
Sébastien Erard and the firm that carried his name are seminal in the history of musical instruments. Erard's inventions - especially the double escapement for the piano and the double-action for the harp - have had an enormous impact on instruments and musical life and are still at the foundation of piano and harp building today. The recently discovered archives of the Erard piano and harp building firm are perhaps the largest and most complete record of musical instrument making anywhere, containing never-before-published correspondence from musicians including Mendelssohn, Liszt and Fauré. These volumes present the archive's records and documents in two parts, the first relating to inventions, business, composers and performers and the second to the Erard family correspondence. In both the original French and with English translations, the documents offer fascinating insights into the musical landscape of Europe from the start of Erard's career in 1785 to the closure of the firm in 1959.

Erard's New patent action Grand Pianoforte

Erard's New patent action Grand Pianoforte PDF Author: Pierre Erard
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 24

Get Book

Book Description


Charles Valentin Alkan

Charles Valentin Alkan PDF Author: William Alexander Eddie
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 9781840142600
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Get Book

Book Description
This comprehensive survey takes as its focus a stylistic analysis of the music of the French composer and virtuoso pianist Charles Valentin Alkan (1813-1888). There is also consideration of Alkan the performer, and on issues of performance practice in relation to his music, and on its reception history. Useful appendices provide a guide to archival sources for further research, a list of works and a basic discography.

The Piano Tuner

The Piano Tuner PDF Author: Daniel Mason
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1400077710
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Get Book

Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book A San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, and Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year “A gripping and resonant novel. . . . It immerses the reader in a distant world with startling immediacy and ardor. . . . Riveting.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times In 1886 a shy, middle-aged piano tuner named Edgar Drake receives an unusual commission from the British War Office: to travel to the remote jungles of northeast Burma and there repair a rare piano belonging to an eccentric army surgeon who has proven mysteriously indispensable to the imperial design. From this irresistible beginning, The Piano Tuner launches readers into a world of seductive, vibrantly rendered characters, and enmeshes them in an unbreakable spell of storytelling.

Alphabetical Index of Patentees of Inventions

Alphabetical Index of Patentees of Inventions PDF Author: Great Britain. Patent Office
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Inventors
Languages : en
Pages : 688

Get Book

Book Description


Le Guide Musical

Le Guide Musical PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 652

Get Book

Book Description


Um. . .

Um. . . PDF Author: Michael Erard
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0375425152
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book

Book Description
Essential reading for talkers and listeners of all stripes: An original, entertaining, and surprising book that investigates verbal blunders: what they are, what they say about those who make them, and how and why we've come to judge them. “An enjoyable tour of linguistic mishaps.” —The New York Times Book Review Um... is about how you really speak, and why it's normal for your everyday speech to be filled with errors—about one in every ten words. In this charming, engaging account of language in the wild, linguist and writer Michael Erard also explains why our attention to some blunders rises and falls. Where did the Freudian slip come from? Why do we prize "umlessness" in speaking—and should we? And how do we explain the American presidents who are famous for their verbal stumbles?

The Story of the Harp

The Story of the Harp PDF Author: William Henry Grattan Flood
Publisher: London : Walter Scott Publishing Company
ISBN:
Category : Harp
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Get Book

Book Description