Title: The composer-pianists
Description: "The recordings made by Marc-Andre Hamelin in recent years have cast new light on an extraordinary group of composers - Alkan, Busoni, Feinberg, Godowsky, Medtner, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, and Sorabji - whose works heralded a Golden Age of virtuosic writing for the piano.".

"The Eight, as author Robert Rimm has termed these composer-pianists, have much in common, traits shared in our own age with Marc-Andre Hamelin, their foremost interpreter. For all their evident differences of age, nationality, and philosophy, they each created music of unprecedented ingenuity - often complex and of immense scale - that stretched the limits of the piano's capabilities. And all were genuine virtuosos with the technical resources to play these demanding works in public.".

"The volume includes rare photographs and concludes with an extensive bibliography, listings of the complete solo piano works of The Eight, and discographies of their solo piano recordings. In exploring the art of those who knew their instrument both as composers and as pianists, this book serves, in the words of pianist Stephen Hough, "both as a fascinating, exhaustive study of the riches of the past and as a stimulating inspiration for the future.""--BOOK JACKET.
Subjects: Composers, Criticism and interpretation, Biography, Pianists, Music, history and criticism, Composers, biography, Pianists, biography
People: Aleksandr Nikolayevich Scriabin (1872-1915), Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915), Charles Henri Valentin Alkan (1813-1888), Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-1888), Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892-), Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892-1988), Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938), Leopold, 1870-1938 Godowsky, Marc-André Hamelin (1961-), Nicolai Medtner (1844-1951), Nikolay Karlovich Medtner (1880-1951), Samuil Evgenyevich Feinberg (1890-1962), Samuil Evgenʹevich Feĭnberg (1890-1962), Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)