A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between

Pianist and author Isacoff (Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization) again ventures into music’s conceptual thickets, this time emerging with an encyclopedic and argumentative overview of all things piano: its antecedents, builders, players, popularity, and cultural status. It is not a strictly chronological history, as the main narrative is festooned with inset boxes, artist’s photos, and backstory sidebars on topics ranging from “What’s a Sonata?” to jazz icon Billy Taylor on “Learning from Tatum.” Isacoff’s main concern, it appears, is classifying how matters of style, sound, mood, and technique associated with such classical masters as Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, and others interrelate and perpetuate across genre into modern times. As Isacoff puts it, “Despite the large swath they cut across time and geography, many of these creators fell naturally into a handful of stylistic categories.” Those groups—combustibles, alchemists, rhythmizers, and melodists—shape a piano gestalt through which readers will be impressed (and occasionally rendered numb) by the depth and diversity of Isacoff’s research and references. And, of course, there’s room for argument. To his credit, though searching for the affinities that may make music universal, Isacoff also illuminates elements of what may, in fact, make music timeless. (Nov.)