A Pianist's Landscape
Montparker, senior editor ofClaviermagazine, pianist, teacher, writer, and painter, relates her experiences with music and people in a thoroughly engaging way. She begins with comments on her love of nature, how she works, and how music is a comfort, and with letters and mementos. She continues with her experiences giving recitals and comments on audiences, preparation, and her love for chamber music. Turning next to her love for teaching and to teaching's rewards, she also describes her techniques for drawing the best from her students. Finally, she talks about her many interviews with famous pianists and the difficulties she had with those interviews. Returning home in the last essay, she longs for "the music of thrushes, Bach, Carolina wrens, Beethoven." Her essays will be enjoyed not by musicians only, but by all music lovers who want to be swept away by an honest and warm description of an artist's life and its trials and rewards.Alan Hirsch