A Pianist's Landscape

Montparker's appealing account of her life as a concert pianist--practicing, performing, teaching--contains insights that will enrich practitioners in all the creative arts. Her sense of music as a spontaneous adventure and her reverence for the piano as a link to one's inner life show through in this variegated collection of essays (many of them expanded from her ""Carillon"" column in Clavier magazine, where she is an editor). She improvises on sundry themes--e.g., parallels between music and painting, composers' letters, the spiritual highs of chamber music, musical tastes as a bond between family members--subjects that serve as a springboard for her deft exploration of the creative impulse and the artist's precarious existence. Her own clarity and enthusiasm is supplemented by relaxed interviews with famous pianists such as Alfred Brendel, Claudio Arrau, Radu Lupu, Rudolf Firkusny, as well as figures like jazz musician Dave Brubeck and baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Fans of Montparker's previous book, Anatomy of a New York Debut Recital, an exposition of her 1976 Carnegie Hall debut, will be amply rewarded by this graceful miscellany. Editor, Eve Goodman. (Sept.)