"The World of the Concert Pianist" - With Signatures of 50+ Pianists including Horowitz, Arrau, Rubinstein!

London: Victor Gollancz Ltd.. 1985. First Edition. A copy of the book with signatures of most of the 35 pianists interviewed in the book as well as many others, as well as some in duplicate. From the collection of English orchestra manager John Charles, who obtained most of the autographs in person. Signatures spread over the pages of the book; if the pianist is interviewed, the signature is placed in the respective chapter.  A few autographs are pasted in, especially from pianists who died soon after the publication of the book, but most are on the book pages themselves. There is one signed postcard photograph of Horowitz, some short notes from different figures, but most are signatures only. In two cases the signatures are xeroxes of pieces held in other areas of the collector's holdings and these are noted in the below list. Numerous annotations by John Charles.  9.25 x 6.25 inches (23.5 x 16 cm).  Dust jacket worn and frayed at edges; one tear to back repaired with plastic tape; else in fine condition. An extraordinary collection.

List of signatures in order of appearance:  Rudolf Buchbinder, Claudio Arrau (pasted in, dated 1949), Piotr Anderszewski, Vladimir Ashkenazy, François-Frederic Guy, Alexander Brailowsky (typed letter signed, dated 1956, pasted in), Emmanuel Ax (with inscription to John Charles), Paul Badura-Skoda (pasted in), David Bar-Illam (pasted in, dated 1977; also in Hebrew; also pasted-in obituary from unidentified newspaper), Boris Berezovsky, Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich, Jorge Bolet (dated 1986), Alfred Brendel, John Browning (pasted in xerox, dated 1964), Aldo Ciccolini, Imogen Cooper, Jean-Philippe Collard, Bella Davidovich, Barry Douglas (pasted in, dated 1997), Clifford Curzon (pasted in), Alicia de Larrocha, Peter Donohoe, Philippe Entremont, Christoph Eschenbach (pasted in), Rudolf Firkušný (pasted in, dated 1960), Glenn Gould (pasted in xerox), Stephen Hough, Louis Lortie, Margaret Fingerhut, Leon Fleisher (pasted in), Walter Gieseking (pasted in), Marc-André Hamelin, Richard Goode, Gary Graffman (pasted in), Vladimir Horowitz (signed photograph, pasted in), Lang Lang, Zoltan Kocsis, Evgeny Kissin (dated 2000), Paul Lewis, Garrick Ohlsson (dated 1986), Wayne Marshall (dated 2003), Murray Perahia, Mikhail Pletnev (dated 2002), John McCabe, Hans Richter-Haaser (pasted in), Steven Osborne, John Ogdon (pasted in), Arthur Rubinstein (pasted in, dated 1972), Andras Schiff (2x, once with inscription to John Charles), Alexandre Slobodyanik, Grigory Sokolov, Andras Schiff (again), Mitsuko Uchida (2x, once pasted in), Rosalyn Tureck (pasted in, dated 1964), Jean Yves Thibaudet, Tamás Vásáry, Andre Watts, Till Fellner, Alexei Volodnin, Arcadi Volodos (dated 2009), Boris Giltburg (dated 2011), Earl Wild (pasted in), Christian Zacharias, Andrew Wilde, Simon Trpčeski, Piers Lane, Freddy Kempf.  A few signatures (e.g. on p. 183) are not identified.  (21722)

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Signed Document/Item

Classical Music

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