Dreams of love : playing the romantic pianist /
Ivan Raykoff.
- New York : Oxford University Press, (c)2013.
- 1 online resource.
Includes bibliographies and index.
"Dreams of Love: Playing the Romantic Pianist explores the attractions of the concert pianist from an innovative interdisciplinary perspective, demonstrating how such meanings have evolved over two centuries through technology and the popular media, including literature and cinema. Author Ivan Raykoff uses romantic both as the label for a historical era and musical style, as well as the more colloquial adjective referring to love, desire, and sensual feeling. Through this two-fold interpretive approach, music history and cultural mythology are read alongside one another to reveal the interconnected processes of music's social mediation. The word playing also invites multiple readings: performance or practicing, as pastime or profession, as play-acting and other modes of representation, or reproduction like a player piano. The Romantic pianist signifies more than just music; through established rituals and familiar representations of practicing, performing, and listening, the pianist also plays within a larger system of cultural ideology linking music to aspects of gender, sexuality, personal identity and social relationships, and the politics of the body."
9780199892686
Pianists--19th century. Pianists--20th century. Piano music--History and criticism.--19th century Piano music--History and criticism.--20th century Popular culture--20th century. Music--Social aspects. Music--Psychological aspects.