The Great Pianists

New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, Inc, 1987. Revised and Updated edition [stated]. First printing [stated]. Trade paperback. Good. Signed by author. Cover has some wear and soiling. Gift note (not from author) taped inside front cover.. Glued binding. [2], 525, [1] p. Illustrations. Index. Harold Charles Schonberg (November 29, 1915 July 26, 2003) was an American music critic and journalist, most notably for The New York Times. He was the first music critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism (1971). He also wrote a number of books on musical subjects, and one on chess. One of Schonberg's most famous criticisms of Bernstein was written after the famous April 6, 1962, performance before which Bernstein announced that he disagreed with pianist Glenn Gould's interpretation of Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 but was going to conduct it anyway because he found it fascinating. Schonberg chided Bernstein in print, suggesting that he should have either refrained from publicizing his disagreement, backed out of the concert, or imposed his own will on Gould, and called Bernstein "the Peter Pan of music". In the chapter on Bernstein in his 1967 book The Great Conductors, Schonberg quotes the remark but neglects to mention that he was the critic who had made it.