Perspective

Harold C. Schonberg is the author of "The Great Pianists" from Mozart to the Present. He was previously senior music critic for the "New York Times" and won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1971. He was employed by the Times from 1950 as music critic, advanced to senior music critic in 1960 and was promoted to cultural correspondent in 1980. Schonberg also authored several other titles in music including "The Lives of the Great Composers" and "The Great Conductors" before his death in 2003.

"The Great Pianists" first copyright is dated 1963 and was updated in 1987. Schonberg comments in the Preface that there are "very few studies of pianos and pianists." This well-researched five-hundred page title substantially fulfills that need. The author sifted through letters, notes, memoranda, tales, old recordings, and discussions with old veteran musicians who have heard the pianists play that he wrote about to accomplish that task. He filtered the...