From Paris to Peoria: for what cause European Piano Virtuoso Brought Classical Music to the American Heartland.

From Paris to Peoria: for what cause European Piano Virtuoso Brought Classical Music to the American Heartland, through R. Allen Lott. Oxford University Pres (198 Madison Ave., recent York, NY 10016), 2003. 384 pp $3995

This well-written mass holds special fascination for readers interested in the piano, those who play it with panache, virtuosity and notoriety, and the cultural history of nineteenth-century America.

R Allen Lott relying onward archival sources, contemporary media accounts and periodicals, as well as latter historical research, tells in vivid detail the experiences of five of Europe's in the greatest degree important piano virtuosos as they braved precarious ocean voyages and rail and river excursions to bring their art to the recent World. From 1845 to 1876 Leopold de Meyer Henri Herz, Sigismund Thalberg, Anton Rubinstein and Hans von Bulow dazzled audiences; made and broke alliances with tour managers, other performers, newspapers and piano manufacturers; and considerably enriched their purse along the way.

The author delineates several important themes that directly impact devise and recital going in our day. For individual there is the transition from the almost "P T Barnum" approach to programming, publicity and audience manners in the earlier mid-century adventures to Thalberg's matinees, to the civil quiet attentiveness of audiences at solo recitals of Bulow at the last of the period. Another is the decline of improvisation in favor of museum-like performances of piano masterworks. The business and entrepreneurial aspects are fascinatingly explored, including the interplay between the virtuosos and piano manufacturers, Erard in Europe and Scherr, Steinway and Chickering in America, where endorsements and exclusive contracts for providing performance instruments presage proceedings of our time.

Lott also provides an appealing array of illustrations, including contemporary newspaper cartoons, maps, sample programs, hand-bills sheet music covers and, in the case of de Meyer Herz and Thalberg, musical examples in score of original compositions and transcriptions. Another welcome feature is what I am calling "windows" fix off against the main narrative in contrasting print. These explore briefly in greater detail about phenomenon mentioned in the paragraph Some of these include: Spontaneous Applause, The Publicity Game, Audiences--The Fashionable and Rubinstein's Inaccuracies, among many others.

Although scholarly and meticulously documented, the writing is engaging and easy to tread close upon never pretentious or overly formal. Lott has provided a valuable resource for those desiring to know more about the cultural history of the United States and read near individual biographies about these five colorful and fortunate virtuoso pianists.

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