Joseph Smith (pianist)

Joseph Robert Smith (July 4, 1948 – March 23, 2015) was an American pianist, author, and lecturer. The son of Robert Paul Smith and Elinor Goulding Smith, Smith was a long-time student of pianist Seymour Bernstein.

Smith gave nearly-annual New York recitals from 1974 to 1991. His 1987 recital at Alice Tully Hall included two unpublished piano works by George Gershwin, "Novelette in Fourths" and "Rubato".

Smith recorded about a dozen LPs and CDs, many of them anthologies of related piano pieces by different composers. Gershwin scholar Edward Jablonski included one of Smith's CDs, "Rhythmic Moments," in a Gershwin discography even though it contained only three Gershwin pieces, because "the collection is valuable in part because of the non-Gershwin activity... even without Gershwin this would be a fetching collection of musical Americana."

Smith was known for bringing public attention to piano works of musical worth that had fallen into obscurity for non-musical reasons. His "Rare Finds" column in Piano Today magazine combined editions of piano pieces with essays about the piece and the composer. David Dubal wrote that "Smith's editions of rare piano musics are exemplary, and his articles in the magazine Piano Today are eagerly read." He published books combining essays and sheet music, in some cases with a bound-in CD of his own performances. He also presented his ideas in recitals, recordings, books, and radio broadcasts. Stuart Isacoff called him "a walking encyclopedia of the piano" and credited him with help in writing A Natural History of the Piano. He also appeared in the documentary film Seymour: An Introduction.

Smith taught "Introduction to Music" for over ten years at the John J. Cali School of Montclair State University, and was on the faculty at Montclair's Stokes Forest Music Camp. He had a special interest in the composers John Field, Percy Grainger, Edvard Grieg, Charles Griffes, Robert Schumann, and Carl Maria von Weber and produced a recording of Griffes: Piano Music

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