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What could be more of a compelling subject for the pianist than the hand? I am in the middle of a very interesting book "The Hand - How its use shapes the brain, language and human culture" written by the American neuroscientist Frank R. Wilson.

This is an ambitious work sprawling across evolutionary biology and the importance of the hand to our success as a species towards new ideas on human creativity and how to nurture it. Special attention for music and music making and the recent, peculiar cultural evolution in the West turning music into something primarily performed by thoroughbred professionals for the consumption of the masses versus music making as something that everyone does as a matter of course.

Highly recommended.

Sample quotes:

"It may well be that the social and cultural inhibitions that prevent the flowering of musical genius are more significant than any individual ability that may seem to promote it."

"When we form something through artistic activity, we are formed and changed in the process, and that spurs the developmental process."

I've just ordered a copy of Bruce Lipton's Biology of Belief. He is a biologist who seems to be saying that all 50 trillion cells in your body are the same as the 50 trillion cells in mine. The only difference is on the OUTSIDE of the cell. Attached to the outside of the cell wall are the individual's identity markers. He concludes that identity is EXTERIOR to the body. Relevance to piano playing? Hmm, you got me there.

Lost Genius-The Curious and Tragic Story of an Extraordinary Musical Prodigy by Kevin Bazzana.
This is a bio of Nyiregyhazi.

Cortot, Alfred. Aspects de Chopin
Opienski, (trans. by Danysz). Lettres de Chopin.

Regards,

Tony Faber: Stradivari's Genius: Five Violins, One Cello, and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection

Nassim Taleb: The Black Swan
Malcolm Gladwell: Blink

Oliver Sacks: Musicophilia. Tales of Music and the Brain.

Just picked up Beethoven's Hair by Russell Martin.

"Ending Aging"
by Aubrey de Grey

If he is at all right, we will have plenty of time for practice

Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson

The World Before, by Karen Traviss

Shadows Linger, by Glen Cook

(yeah, I'm a big sci-fi nerd)

A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, by Anderson, Krathwohl, et al.

Nobrow : The Culture of Marketing, the Marketing of Culture, by John Seabrook

That sounds interesting. Does it read like Stephen Hawking or is it more approachable?

Current list:
Hemingway - To Have and Have Not
Kenneth Drake - The Sonatas of Beethoven as He Played and Taught Them
Franz Cumont - Astrology and Religion Among the Ancient Greeks and Romans

In studying for my comprehensive exams, I rediscovered a lot of material that I originally rolled my eyes at. I'm going back and trying to independently "start over" beginning with the Greeks. It's been very rewarding so far and I only wish that I hadn't been a snobby 18-year-old at the time. Oh wait...

I'm wait-listed at the liberry for Grand Obsession and Lost Genius...also there's a new (2007) Chopin book - it's on reserve. Otherwise, I'm re-working the Battle of Kursk, Operation Citadel...

"John Stainer: A Life in Music" by Jeremy Dibble.

Don't laugh.

Stainer's contributions to Anglican Church music are incalculable in importance. As organist and music director at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, his musicianship was a model for the country, and his church compositions set new standards.

With the reaction against Victorian musical values, Stainer's stock fell precipitously and only a pittance of his many -and fine- hymn tunes remain in New English Hymnal.

Herbert von Karajan: A Life in Music by Richard Osborne.

Craig

The Perks of Being a Wallflower- Stphen Chbosky

Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen [Boring so far]

The Fountainhead- Ayn Rand

Becoming a Writer- Dorthea Brande

Madame Bovary- Gustave Flaubert in orig. french [challenging for me]

The Back Door of History by R. A. Lafferty. Iäm readin ti while rwiting this..,.

I forgot that book should be out now. I'll order a copy.

I'm reading:

- Ian Rankin: Black and Blue.
- Karin Slaughter: Faithless
(I read a lot of mysteries)

- Barbara Tuchman: The First Salute.

Jason :

I'm not laughing. I've always had a "soft spot" in my heart for Stainer's "Crucifixion." If one can make allowances for the composer's Victorian sensibilities, it is a charming work. That is not to damn it with faint praise, but while it is not a great work of music it has an element of naive sincerity about it that appealed to me when I first heard it as a teenager. My musical tastes in music may have changed in the intervening eons, but I still enjoy the work for what it is.

Regards,

Finished rereading (3rd time) Swafford's wonderful Brahms biography a few months back. Am planning to reread Mann's Dr. Faustus as soon as I finish an orchestral piece.
Oh, I'm in the market for a good translation of the Aeneid (no prose translations please). Can anyone recommend me their favorites?

Warning: off topic.
Thanks Bruce, as usual your comments are spot on and elegantly expressed.

That said, I find The Crucifixion a bit dull -I have tried to love it- yet its modest difficulties are sufficient enough that when a parish church (either side of the pond) attempts it, the scenario is enough of an "event" so that a fair turnout may be expected. Good on this...

Myself, I fail to understand why Stainer's settings of the Anglican canticles and hymn tunes are no longer considered de rigueur... they have a life-affirming excitement about them which quite exceeds some of the drivel his contemporaries were writing.

Back to The Crucifixion, it was the moment of quiet before the storm. The next generation produced Elgar's Gerontius, and England finally got the choral composer to take on Handel and Mendelssohn.