Historic Music Literature

Wieck, Friedrich
Clavier und Gesang, 1853., First edition
Wieck, Friedrich
Piano and Song, 1875., First English translation
Neuhaus, Heinrich
The Art of Piano Playing., 1958., First Russian Edition
Neuhaus, Heinrich
The Art of Piano Playing., 1973., First English translation

Title: Clavier und Gesang: Didaktisches und Polemisches
Author: Friedrich Wieck (1785–1873)
Publication: Leipzig: F. Whistling
Language: German
Date: 1853
Edition: First edition
Friedrich Wieck’s Clavier und Gesang is a significant nineteenth-century treatise on musical education, performance, and artistic judgment. Published in Leipzig in 1853, it sets forth the distinctive pedagogical principles of one of the most influential piano teachers of the Romantic era. Wieck advocates the cultivation of musical understanding, refined tone, sensitive listening, expression, and sound artistic judgment over mere mechanical virtuosity. Of particular historical importance is its connection with the teaching of his daughter Clara Wieck, later Clara Schumann, whose extraordinary career stands among the greatest achievements of nineteenth-century pianism. Combining practical instruction with vigorous criticism of contemporary musical practices, the volume offers a rare and intimate insight into the ideals of Romantic-era piano pedagogy.
Acquisition: Acquired by Misty Jade in 2020.
Current status: In collection.

Title: Piano and Song: How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of Musical Performances
Author: Friedrich Wieck (1785–1873)
Translation: Mary Pickering Nichols
Publication: Boston: Lockwood, Brooks, & Company,
Language: English
Year: 1875
Edition: First English translation
Published in Boston in 1875 by Lockwood, Brooks, & Company, this volume is the first English translation of Wieck’s Clavier und Gesang, bringing his influential ideas on piano and vocal instruction to an English-speaking readership. Translated by Mary Pickering Nichols, it appeared only two years after Wieck’s death and preserves his observations on elementary piano instruction, tone, pedalling, singing, musical talent, performance, and the formation of artistic judgment. Its historical importance lies not only in its content but also in its role in transmitting nineteenth-century German musical pedagogy beyond the German-speaking world. The volume provides an important contemporary record of the teaching philosophy of the man who educated Clara Wieck and Robert Schumann, and offers a fascinating window into the standards of musicianship and performance that shaped the Romantic musical tradition.
Acquisition: Acquired by Misty Jade in 2020.
Current status: In collection.

Title: Об искусстве фортепианной игры: Записки педагога
(The Art of Piano Playing: Notes of a Pedagogue)
Author: Heinrich Neuhaus (1888–1964)
Publication: Moscow: Государственное музыкальное издательство [State Musical Publishing House]
Language: Russian
Year: 1958
Edition: First edition
Heinrich Neuhaus’s The Art of Piano Playing is one of the defining works of twentieth-century piano pedagogy. First published in Moscow in 1958, it presents the mature reflections of Neuhaus, one of the most influential piano teachers of the Soviet and European traditions. Rejecting a purely mechanical approach to technique, Neuhaus places the musical and artistic conception of a work at the centre of piano playing, exploring tone, rhythm, technique, interpretation, the relationship between teacher and pupil, and the development of the performer’s artistic imagination. His teaching profoundly influenced generations of major pianists, including Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels, making this first edition an especially important primary document in the history of modern pianistic thought
Acquisition: Acquired by Misty Jade in 2020 from a Russia-based source.
Current status: In collection.

Title: The Art of Piano Playing
Author: Heinrich Neuhaus (1888–1964)
Translation: K. A. Leibovitch
Publication: London: Barrie & Jenkins Ltd., 24 Highbury Crescent, London, N5 1RX
Language: English
Edition: First English translation; first published in Great Britain in 1973
Year: 1973
Reprint: 1974
First published in Great Britain by Barrie & Jenkins Ltd. in 1973, this volume constitutes the first English translation of Heinrich Neuhaus’s celebrated The Art of Piano Playing, translated from the Russian by K. A. Leibovitch. Appearing fifteen years after the first Russian edition, it introduced Neuhaus’s influential conception of piano playing to an English-speaking musical world. His insistence that technique must serve the artistic image of the music, together with his profound observations on tone, rhythm, pedalling, fingering, freedom of movement, teacher and pupil, and concert performance, established the work as a landmark of twentieth-century piano pedagogy. This first British English edition is therefore of particular historical importance in tracing the international dissemination of Neuhaus’s teaching philosophy and its enduring influence upon modern pianism.
Acquisition: Acquired by Misty Jade in 2020..
Current status: In collection.