Download or read book New Illustrated Lives of Great Composers Mahler written by Edward Seckerson and published by Omnibus Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mahler’s life was a remarkably complex one, his success as a conductor continually overshadowed by his craving for recognition as a composer. Recognition which never came in his lifetime. In this biography, the author reveals how Mahler’s personality, his extraordinary life and his music are inseparable. New light is shed on his strange relationship with Alma Mahler, his wife, and on his turbulent love affairs. In Vienna, where he directed the Opera, Mahler was a prime target for rumour mongers. Nothing he did, whether private or public, escaped the attention of a Vienna avid for details of his personal life. The author portrays vividly the conflict which arose from the demands made on Mahler by his enormously successful career, and his desperate desire to pursue the creation of great music. Illustrated with portraits of the people who made up Mahler’s world and photographs of places associated with him, this book unfolds Mahler’s story with impressive psychological insight.
Download or read book New Illustrated Lives of Great Composers Liszt written by Bryce Morrison and published by Omnibus Press. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguably the greatest of all piano virtuosi, Liszt was one of the few composers of his day who had the technique to perform his own compositions. A child prodigy pianist who could read music before he could recite the alphabet, Franz Liszt is one of the most outrageously gifted and most controversial figures in classical music. Unconventional in both his approach to composing and his personal life, he had a reputation for courting hostility and riding rough-shod over other people's feelings, particularly those of his musical peers. This lavishly illustrated book chronicles Liszt's life and times with the help of many rare photographs and contemporary prints. With numerous quotations from the people who knew him best, extracts from personal letters and diaries, this remarkable book gives an intimate picture of the composer's private life, and also investigates the complex religious and emotional forces which inspired his music.
Download or read book New Illustrated Lives of Great Composers Ludwig van Beethoven written by Simon Ferris and published by Omnibus Press. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New Illustrated Lives of Great Composers: Ludwig van Beethoven brings to life the works, the key performances and the personal story of one of the world’s greatest composers with rich illustrations. One of the most celebrated and influential composers of all time, Ludwig van Beethoven was a child prodigy, who, At 21, moved to Vienna to study with Joseph Haydn. He would subsequently create a monumental body of work including 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 1 violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, the Missa Solemnis and the opera Fidelio. Yet Beethoven was a troubled man, often intolerant of the intrusions of day-to-day life upon his work and a victim of both chronic abdominal pain and encroaching deafness. While his gradual loss of hearing did not affect his ability to compose, it did eventually caused him to abstain from performing and conducting. At his death in 1827 he was already a legendary figure. This illustrated biography is the best way to uncover the tragic life of one the most talented musicians to have ever walked the earth; see the man himself, the places where he lived and the people who swirled around him. This is an essential read for any classical music fan.
Download or read book The Lives of the Great Composers written by Harold C. Schonberg and published by W. W. Norton. This book was released on 1981-01-01 with total page 653 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biographies of the important composers from Monteverdi and Bach to Bartok and Webern are designed to show the history of music.
Download or read book Secret Lives of Great Composers written by Elizabeth Lunday and published by Quirk Books. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover little-known stories from music history—including murder, riots, and heartbreak—in this entertaining tour through the fascinating (and surprising) lives of classical music masters With outrageous anecdotes about everyone from Gioachino Rossini (draft-dodging womanizer) to Johann Sebastian Bach (jailbird) to Richard Wagner (alleged cross-dresser), Secret Lives of Great Composers recounts the seamy, steamy, and gritty history behind the great masters of international music. Here, you’ll learn that Edward Elgar dabbled with explosives; that John Cage was obsessed with fungus; that Berlioz plotted murder; and that Giacomo Puccini stole his church’s organ pipes and sold them as scrap metal so he could buy cigarettes. This is one music history lesson you’ll never forget!
Download or read book The Lives and Times of the Great Composers written by Michael Steen and published by Icon Books Ltd. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 1129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A glorious plum-pudding of a book, to be consulted, with pleasure and profit, over and over again' Sir Jeremy Isaacs Michael Steen's 'Great Composers' was originally published in 2003. A lifetime's work and almost 1000 pages long, it has since become 'the' reference point and key read on the biographical backgrounds to classical music's biggest names. Authoritative and hugely detailed - but nonetheless a joy to read - this new edition will expand its readership further and capitalise on a newfound popular interest in classical music. Steen's book helps you explore the story of Bach, the respectable burgher much of whose vast output was composed amidst petty turf disputes in Lutheran Leipzig; or the ugly, argumentative Beethoven in French-occupied Vienna, obsessed by his laundry; or Mozart, the over-exploited infant prodigy whose untimely death was shrouded in rumour. Read about Verdi, who composed against the background of the Italian Risorgimento; or about the family life of the Wagners; and, Brahms, who rose from the slums of Hamburg to become a devotee of beer and coffee in fin-de-siecle Vienna, a cultural capital bent on destroying Mahler ... and much, much more.
Download or read book Rachmaninoff The Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers written by Matthew Robert Walker and published by Omnibus Press. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this biography, Robert Walker skilfully blends the fascinating story of Rachmaninoff's life with the historical background of his times. The author shows, too, how outside influences- the 1905 and 1917 revolutions, the Great War, the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression- very much affected Rachmaninoff as an artist. As well as the use of contemporary accounts, letters and reminiscences, the author has obtained recollections first-hand from distinguished musicians who knew the composer initmately and worked closely with him. The Book is illustrated throughout with photographs of the time, which are as fascinating as the text.
Download or read book The Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers Ravel written by James Burnett and published by Omnibus Press. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ir has been said that no music amplifies the french ideals of precision and good taste better than the work of Maurice Ravel, yet his background could scarecly have been more cosmopolitan. The son of a Swiss father and a Basque mother, he was born near St. Jean de Luz in 1875; he died in Paris at the age of sixty-two. His primary inspiration, and in consequence the character of his best music, came from art and life. He was exceptionally sensitive to the new current of thought and the aesthetic changes in the Arts following the First World War. Indeed, the music of Ravel is an accuarate reflection of the man himself. This lavishly illustrated book which sets the work and achievements of Ravel in the context of the events of his time, will appeal to the general music lover and also to the serious student.
Download or read book Gustav Mahler written by Donald Mitchell and published by Boydell Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author's second book on the life and work of Gustav Mahler focuses principally on Mahler's first settings of Wunderhorn texts, volumes I and II of the Lieder und Gesaenge; his first song-cycle, the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen; and the later orchestral settings of Wunderhorn poems. The central section of the book explores the extraordinary and often eccentric chronology of the First, Second and Third Symphonies' composition, an often minute exploration which reveals the interpenetration of song and symphony in this period of Mahler's art, emphasizes the significance for these works of imagery drawn from the Wunderhorn anthology, and calls attention to the ambiguous position occupied by much of Mahler's music at this time, suspended as it was between the rival claims - and forms - of symphony and symphonic poem. The final section of the book not only looks at the Fourth Symphony as the final, perhaps most perfect, flowering of Mahler's Wunderhorn symphonies, but also investigates such fascinating topics as the relationship between Mahler and Berlioz, and the influence of Bach on Mahler's later masterpieces. This new edition of the book offers an entirely new preface, in which Mitchell gives a unique account of the influence of politics, nationalism and fascism on the reception and rejection of Mahler's music, after the composer's death until the Mahler Renaissance of the 1950s and 1960s. It also includes extensive corrigenda and amplifying addenda, making it clear that the Wunderhorn influence persisted beyond the end of the period during which the Wunderhorn anthology was a constant source of inspiration. It is completed by an international bibliography which documents chronologically the reception and study of his music both in the past, and the prodigiously different circumstances of the present.
Download or read book Mahler written by Edward Seckerson and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Indispensable Composers written by Anthony Tommasini and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The chief classical music critic of "The New York Times" explores the concept of greatness in relation to composers, considering elements of biography, influence, and shifting attitudes toward a composer's work over time.
Download or read book Vaughan Williams Illustrated Lives Of The Great Composers written by Paul Holmes and published by Omnibus Press. This book was released on 2011-05-16 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This series of biographies presents the great composers against the background of their times. Each draws on personal letters and recollections, engravings, paintings and, when they exist, photographs, to present a complete picture of the composer's life.
Download or read book Lives of the Great Composers 3e written by Harold C Schonberg and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1997-04 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Schonberg brings the reader closer to an identification with the composers he discusses and thus closer to an understanding of their music. The book consequently places more emphasis on biographical details and less upon technical analysis of the music.
Download or read book Classical Music written by Phil G. Goulding and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-03-16 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: MAKE A SOUND INVESTMENT IN CLASSICAL MUSIC Who are the ten most important classical composers? Who in the world was Palestrina? Why did Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" cause a riot? Which five of each important composer's works should you buy? What is a concerto and how does it differ from a sonata? Maybe you don't know the answers to these questions; author Phil Goulding certainly didn't. When Goulding first tried to learn about classical music, he found himself buried in an avalanche of technical terms and complicated jargon--so he decided to write the book he couldn't find. The result is a complete classical music education in one volume. Comprehensive, discriminating, and delightfully irreverent, Classical Music provides such essential information as: * Rankings of the top 50 composers (Bach is #1. Borodin is #50) * A detailed and anecdotal look at each composer's life and work * The five primary works of each composer and specific recommended CDs for each. * Further great works of each composer--if you really like him * Concise explanations of musical terminology, forms, and periods * A guide to the parts and history of the symphony orchestra "This book uses every conceivable gimmick to immerse readers in the richness of classical music: lists, rankings, sidebars devoted to lively anecdotes, and catchy leads." --The Washington Post "One terrific music appreciation book...The information is surprisingly detailed but concisely presented. Goulding's writing style is breezy yet mature....[He] has raised music appreciation from a racket to a service." --The Arizona Daily Star
Download or read book Gustav Mahler written by Bruno Walter and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2014-01-15 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recollections of Mahler written in 1936 by the composer's assistant conductor in Hamburg and at the Vienna Opera, plus Ernst Krenek's biographical sketch of Mahler and a new Introduction.
Download or read book Mahler and Strauss written by Charles Youmans and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-05 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rare case among history's great music contemporaries, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) and Richard Strauss (1864-1949) enjoyed a close friendship until Mahler's death in 1911. Unlike similar musical pairs (Bach and Handel, Haydn and Mozart, Schoenberg and Stravinsky), these two composers may have disagreed on the matters of musical taste and social comportment, but deeply respected one another's artistic talents, freely exchanging advice from the earliest days of professional apprenticeship through the security and aggravations of artistic fame. Using a wealth of documentary material, this book reconstructs the 24-year relationship between Mahler and Strauss through collage—"a meaning that arises from fragments," to borrow Adorno's characterization of Mahler's Sixth Symphony. Fourteen different topics, all of central importance to the life and work of the two composers, provide distinct vantage points from which to view both the professional and personal relationships. Some address musical concerns: Wagnerism, program music, intertextuality, and the craft of conducting. Others treat the connection of music to related disciplines (philosophy, literature), or to matters relevant to artists in general (autobiography, irony). And the most intimate dimensions of life—childhood, marriage, personal character—are the most extensively and colorfully documented, offering an abundance of comparative material. This integrated look at Mahler and Strauss discloses provocative revelations about the two greatest western composers at the turn of the 20th century.
Download or read book The A Z of Classical Composers written by Peter Gammond and published by Quadrillion Publishing. This book was released on 1997 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of 170 biographies which profile the lives and music of some of history's finest classical composers.
