Review
"This book is indispensable reading for anyone interested not only in musical matters but the political and moral-aesthetic values in German and Viennese societies between roughly 1780 and 1830." - Prof. Malcolm Bilson Cornell University "Preethi de Silva's expertise in the linguistic, cultural, and technical aspects of the subject has produced a lucid and idiomatic translation of the texts..." - Christopher Nobbs Royal Academy of Music"
Product Description
Published to commemorate the 200th anniversary, in June 2009, of the founding of the piano firm of Dieudonne and Schiedmayer in Stuttgart, this work provides for the first time translations of two early German-language fortepiano manuals. Also included is a transcription and translation of a related, unpublished workshop notebook of two fortepiano makers. The earlier of the two manuals, by Andreas Streicher, was published in Vienna in 1801; the later one was published in Stuttgart in 1824 by Carl Dieudonne and Johann Lorenz Schiedmayer. The notebook records the workshop activities of Johann David and Johann Lorenz Schiedmayer, members of an unbroken line of keyboard instrument makers who have been active from the mid-eighteenth century and continue to build them at the present time. All of these makers gained international recognition in their own lifetimes and influenced others, leaving an indelible legacy through their writings as well as the pianos they built. This volume provides the reader with information that adds much information to the understanding of the history of the early piano - especially in Germany and Austria - an instrument that now enjoys a growing interest not only among scholars and builders, but also performers of the Classical and early Romantic piano repertoire.
