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The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: The Hidden World of a Paris Atelier
 
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The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: The Hidden World of a Paris Atelier (Paperback)

by T.E. Carhart (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
RRP: Ł7.99
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The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: The Hidden World of a Paris Atelier + The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier + Piano Notes: The Hidden World of the Pianist
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Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (1 Jun 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099288230
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099288237
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 89,842 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

At first glance, The Piano Shop on the Left Bank is simply an autobiography covering the author's blissful years in Paris. This is actually something much rarer and more original: an extended love letter to the piano. One day, Carhart was walking through the back streets of Paris in the early morning--a place and a time he evokes beautifully, the street sweepers out cleaning the hidden alleys, and
...the smell from la boulangerie du coin. And then he noticed a small truck, unloading a piano ... It turned out to be delivering to the atelier of Monsieur Luc Desforges, a piano repairer of the old school. 'Desforges Pianos: outillage, fournitures.' On the small, red felt-covered shelf in the window are displayed the tools and instruments of piano repair: tightening wrenches, tuning pins, piano wire ... the entire facade has a sleepy, 19th-century charm about it.
One could say the same of Carhart's book. It doesn't move fast, and it doesn't depend on powerful emotions or dramatic reversals for its effect. It is a quiet and loving meditation on the piano, as it features in French life, and in Carhart's. He recalls his early days back in Virginia with equal vividness, when at the age of eight he took lessons from Miss Pemberton, playing a Chopin ballade or a Mozart sonata "in the warm Virginia evening, with the soft murmur of crickets in the surrounding woods". The whole book is suffused with just this softness, slowness and dreamy eloquence. For piano lovers, an absolute must. For others, a book of tremendous charm and pleasure. --Christopher Hart --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


Product Description

Ever since the piano was invented, people have longed to own one. In the nineteenth century, an age without recorded music or television, this craze reached its apex. Pianos were everywhere: they swelled and shrank in the heat of the colonies, they were in every genteel home, in restaurants, on steamships, in the remote bars of the American west. Some of these pianos have become treasured family heirlooms, some have ended up as firewood. Others have led a more intinerant life, washing up in all sorts of strange places. Occasionally, these wandering pianos find their way to a secret, glass-roofed workshop in Paris where they are lovingly restored and sent off again by a French piano repairer with a passion for his job. When Thad Carhart discovered Luc and his hidden cache of pianos in the dusty repair shop on his street in Paris, his life changed. Having been constantly on the move between America and France, he had never owned his own piano. As he explored the Eldorado of second-hand uprights, grands, harpsichords and player pianos in Luc's atelier, talked to him about how they work and their history, and finally found the baby grand of his dreams, he rediscovered his deep love for this most magical of instruments.

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The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: The Hidden World of a Paris Atelier
92% buy the item featured on this page:
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: The Hidden World of a Paris Atelier 3.9 out of 5 stars (17)
Ł4.99
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier
4% buy
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier 4.5 out of 5 stars (2)
Ł7.69
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Customer Reviews

17 Reviews
5 star:
 (5)
4 star:
 (8)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (3)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Largo for non-pianists, Andante for the rest of us, 17 Oct 2001
By A Customer
Non-pianists may dismiss Carhart's paean to the piano as excruciatingly slow, but friends of the instrument, whether listeners or players, will find much to enjoy here. There are patches, such as when the piano is moved into Carhart's apartment, where even professional pianists such as myself are moved to cry, "So what?" But for understanding the beauty of lemonwood or ash instruments and for learning the subtleties which distinguished the French instruments (Gaveau, Pleyel) from the German (Steinway, etc.) and the American (Chickering, Mason & Hamlin), this is an unbeatable source.
Carhart's odyssey of pianism moves at a gentle andante. Ostensibly it charts his growing familiarity with a Paris atelier run by the capable, enigmatic Luc, filled with old pianos. Carhart maintains the pace by toggling between the real characters and "slice of life" anecdotes (all bound by love of pianos), and the many differing aspects of his subject.
Along the way, he takes in the history of the piano, piano workings, tuning, and technology - including everything from spruce woods to metal brackets, strings, frames, etc. We are also treated to descriptions of lessons - and piano teachers - from beginning to masterclass level. Carhart vividly communicates the influence of Madame Gaillard, Miss Pemberton, and Anna on his learning abilities and his technique. The differing approaches in the masterclasses with Peter Feuchtwanger and Gyorgy Sebok are of particular interest.
Pianists will empathise with Carhart's horror of playing in public, but in sharing this book with us he has laid his musicianship, ability and perceptions on the line. It is full of good descriptions and homespun philosophy, atmospheric and didactic. The courtyards and quaint corners of Paris are lovingly rendered. It is above all a work of appreciation. The hero of the book is the piano.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Elegant, charming and artful, 4 Dec 2003
This was an incidental buy for me. One of those books you pick up because you happen across it whilst browsing. I thought it might be one of those journey-reads or a holiday book. The immediate attraction came from having lived in France as well as being an adult who recently returned to playing the piano after buying one.
It works very well on a number of levels. In part, it's a travelogue -- a memoir of Paris and the difficulties for foreigners in one of the world's most breathtaking cities. It's also a guide to trying to set up home in a new country and the challenges presented by that, particularly in France! And then there's the piano itself. Carhart has to undergo an intiation. To actually achieve a meaningful visit to the atelier he needs an introduction, for that he needs a contact with the right connection. With this done, he needs to find his piano. It's almost like adoption or choosing a pet, and here we have the detailed descriptions of models, sounds and mechanisms. And histories of piano houses. Alongside this the backdrop of Paris throws up the characters: Luc at the atelier, his introducer, his piano teacher, his fellow students, his family.
I was ultimately sorry to put the book down. It's written with poise and verve, and is an intimate portrait of an internally expressed desire offest by the larger concerns and mores of the environment in which it is articulated. In a way, it's wonderfully romantic and could serve as the tale of a love affair, with the piano and the City of Light.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Pianissimo All the Way, 9 Sep 2000
By A Customer
T.E. Carhart's first book is an autobiography of his experiences as an expatriated American in Paris. An accomplished pianist, he longs to own an excellent piano -- bought at an affordable price -- for himself, as well as for his young family to practice upon.

He becomes obsessed with the idea when he stumbles upon a strange workshop in a Paris backstreet. Used pianos are rebuilt behind a forbidding door, located behind a studio front.

However, its owners are indifferent to him, when it comes to making a sale. In fact, they appear hostile to the idea. Carhart must obtain references from one of their clients, and spend many hours visiting, before they lend him an ear.

How he gets his wish is the slim story in this book that is as soft, gentle, and tasty as a merinque. This book is a Moonlight Sonata, played by an expert. His writing is simple but beautiful. "The curved side of the cabinet was extravagantly voluptuous, the richness of the wood brightened by the long baroque undulation of the box."

Carhart includes memories of his years as an eight-year-old student in Virginia, where dreamy trees and gentle manners compare favourably with his Parisian experiences.

Perhaps he carries this sense of peace solidly within him, wherever he goes. It would appear so.

In the course of this 242 page memoir, we learn much about the workings, history, and magic of piano. It is a love statement to this wonderful instrument that once graced everyones parlour.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars a passion for pianos
For any pianist this is an enormous pleasure. It tells the autobiographical tale of an American living in Paris who yearns to return to piano playing after many years abscence... Read more
Published 2 months ago by old joanna

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable
This book had been mentioned to me several times on a Music forum, so I egarly awaited it. On arrival I did not put it down. Yes I enjoyed this book tremendousl. Read more
Published 14 months ago by ladyday

5.0 out of 5 stars A most pleasurable read!
I'm a pro pianist and play upwards of 20 hours per week in hotels and restaurants. So maybe you would think the last thing I would want to read about is a bumbling amateur who... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Peter Brown

5.0 out of 5 stars enchanting and inspiring
This is a wonderfully well-crafted, enchanting, and inspiring book. True, it is aimed at pianists of all ages and abilities, although other musicians may find it interesting, and... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Thomas Neal

5.0 out of 5 stars Impossible to over-praise
One of the most memorable and inspiring books I've read. Not inspiring in that hippy-dippy 'think positive and we'll save the World' sort of way. Read more
Published 21 months ago by H. Popeck

4.0 out of 5 stars Enchanting!
In France it is very difficult to gain access to small businesses without a personal introduction and it is just such a small business that the author becomes invloved with. Read more
Published on 19 Oct 2007 by LindyLouMac

5.0 out of 5 stars a wonderful - and unusual - book
It's a while since I read this book and I don't remember all the details -I must read it again - but I do remember that I absolutely loved it. Read more
Published on 12 May 2007 by Mr. Ian A. Macfarlane

5.0 out of 5 stars Tender and sincere
This book made me realise how much I love my own piano, and awakened a deep and emotional respect for all those intimately involved in them. Read more
Published on 2 April 2004 by CAROLINE

4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing, insightful, impressive
I first tried reading this while on holiday, which didn't work as it's no swashbuckling adventure. Rather, it's like a gentle stroll through a tree-lined avenue during autumn... Read more
Published on 18 Feb 2004 by Avid Reader

2.0 out of 5 stars For piano lovers only
A disappointing book thought there would be more about living in Paris. Long descriptions of types of piano, which would only be of interest to people who love the piano.
Published on 12 May 2003

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