Wie ich Klavierspielen lernte

Hanns-Josef Ortheil recounts the often quirky aspects of a pianist's life. From early piano schools, favored composers, initial performances, excitable piano teachers, to great titans on the stages of Salzburg and beyond. Amusing and captivating, he takes the reader up a steep ladder into the pianist's heaven, where since the times of Vladimir Horowitz, both severe specific psychoses and legendary triumphs can be expected. A book not only for piano and music enthusiasts, it knowledgeably and in detail narrates the hidden, demonic sides of manic practicing and playing, as well as the history of virtuosity.