Music-Genres & Styles-Classical

This Companion provides a comprehensive view of Beethoven and his work. The first part of the book presents the composer as a private individual, as a professional, and at the work-place, discussing biographical problems, Beethoven's professional activities when not composing and his methods as...

The Rhapsody in Blue (1924) established Gershwin's reputation as a serious composer and has since become one of the most popular of all American concert works. In this guide the author considers the piece as musical work, historical event and cultural document. He traces...

Divided into three sections, this Companion explores Edward Elgar's early career, his major musical achievements, and the reception, performance and interpretation of his work. Placed in this wider perspective, Elgar emerges as a pivotal figure in the British cultural imagination at a defining historical...

Brahms's First Symphony has been hailed as Beethoven's Tenth. Its controversial status and relationship in the Beethovenian tradition is considered alongside other important issues in the early reception history of this key work in the symphonic repertory. David Brodbeck begins with an account of...

This book is the first comprehensive guide to Holst's orchestral suite The Planets. It considers the music in detail and places the work in its historical context, describing the circumstances of its composition and its meteoric rise to popular acclaim. Starting with Holst's particular...

This is the first individual study of Beethoven's Violin Concerto. It explores the work's background and the influences that combined in its creation, and describes its indifferent initial reception. It considers the numerous textual problems that confront the performer, including discussion of Beethoven's adaptation...

Chopin's E minor and F minor Piano Concertos played a vital role in his career as a composer-pianist. This Handbook reevaluates them so that their many outstanding qualities can be fully appreciated. It describes their genesis, Chopin's own performances and his use of them...

La Mer stands at the center of Debussy's achievement. Described by the composer as "a seascape without figures," it is arguably the greatest and most original French symphony. In this study, La Mer is considered in the context of Debussy's personal and musical development....

After the death of Mahler in 1911 the great Austro-German symphonic line was carried on mainly in England, America, Scandinavia and Russia. The Fifth Symphony of Carl Nielsen, a Danish composer, was composed in 1921. David Fanning discusses its place within the symphonic tradition...

Sibelius's Fifth is one of the great late-Romantic symphonies. In this searching account, based on a wealth of new information, James Hepokoski takes a fresh look at the work and its composer. His findings have implications beyond Sibelius himself into the entire repertory of...

Described by Aaron Copland as "among the finest creations of the modern repertoire," Berg's Violin Concerto has become a twentieth-century classic. In this authoritative and highly readable guide the reader is introduced not only to the concerto itself but to all that surrounded and...

Berlioz's "dramatic symphony" Rom駮 et Juliette is regarded by many as his finest work; it is certainly among the most original. This book summarizes the complex genesis of the work before examining the music closely and always with a view to understanding its dramatic...

Donald Burrows brings many new insights to this fascinating account of one of the favorite works of the concert hall. He traces the course of Messiah from Handel's initial musical response to the libretto, through the oratorio's turbulent first years to its eventual popularity...

Sibelius Studies presents a new portrait of this popular and prolific composer. Sibelius's symphonies often have been mentioned in the same breath with Beethoven's; indeed, in the twentieth century, they have enjoyed a commensurate popularity. The book contextualizes Sibelius' symphonies and tone poems in...

This study is a comprehensive assessment of J. S. Bach's use of articulation marks (i.e. slurs and dots) in the large body of primary sources. Dr Butt analyses the role of such markings within the compositional process, how they relate to the norms of...

Bach's spectacular Goldberg Variations represent a high point in the repertory of keyboard music, particularly for the harpsichord. This book takes a detailed look at how these variations originated, especially in relation to all Bach's Clavier bung volumes and late keyboard works, what their...

This guide to the orchestra and orchestral life combines orchestral repertory history with critical thought. It includes topics such as the art of orchestration, scorereading, conducting, international orchestras, recording, and becoming an orchestral musician, educator or informed listener.Author: Colin LawsonISBN-10: 0521001323ISBN-13: 9780521001328Publisher: Cambridge University...

Stravinsky in the Americas explores the "pre-Craft" period of Igor Stravinsky's life, from when he first landed on American shores in 1925 to the end of World War II in 1945. Through a rich archival trove of ephemera, correspondence, photographs, and other documents, eminent...

The Castrato is a nuanced exploration of why innumerable boys were castrated for singing between the mid-sixteenth and late-nineteenth centuries. It shows that the entire foundation of Western classical singing, culminating in bel canto, was birthed from an unlikely and historically unique set of...

Nostalgia for the Future is the first collection in English of the writings and interviews of Luigi Nono (1924-1990). One of the most prominent figures in the development of new music after World War II, he is renowned for both his compositions and his...

What, exactly, is knowledge of music? And what does it tell us about humanistic knowledge in general? The Thought of Music grapples directly with these fundamental questions--questions especially compelling at a time when humanistic knowledge is enmeshed in debates about its character and future....

This new collection views Russian music through the Greek triad of "the Good, the True, and the Beautiful" to investigate how the idea of "nation" embeds itself in the public discourse about music and other arts with results at times invigorating, at times corrupting....

For the three forces competing for political authority in France during World War II, music became the site of a cultural battle that reflected the war itself. German occupying authorities promoted German music at the expense of French, while the Vichy administration pursued projects...

In May 1968, France teetered on the brink of revolution as a series of student protests spiraled into the largest general strike the country has ever known. In the forty years since, May '68 has come to occupy a singular place in the modern...

The Danger of Music gathers some two decades of Richard Taruskin's writing on the arts and politics, ranging in approach from occasional pieces for major newspapers such as the New York Times to full-scale critical essays for leading intellectual journals. Hard-hitting, provocative, and incisive,...

Is The Marriage of Figaro just about Figaro? Is Don Giovanni's story the only one--or even the most interesting one--in the opera that bears his name? For generations of critics, historians, and directors, it's Mozart's men who have mattered most. Too often, the female...

Distinguished ethnomusicologist Philip V. Bohlman compiles Johann Gottfried Herder's writings on music and nationalism, from his early volumes of Volkslieder through sacred song to the essays on aesthetics late in his life, shaping them as the book on music that Herder would have written...

This compelling investigation of the later music of Franz Schubert explores the rich terrain of Schubert's impromptus and last piano sonatas. Drawing on the relationships between these pieces and Schubert's Winterreise song cycle, his earlier "Der Wanderer," the closely related "Unfinished" Symphony, and his...

This magnificent survey of the most popular period in music history is an extended essay embracing music, aesthetics, social history, and politics, by one of the keenest minds writing on music in the world today.Dahlhaus organizes his book around "watershed" years--for example, 1830, the...

There had long been a need for a modern English translation of Wagner's Ring--a version that would be reliable and readable yet at the same time be a true reflection of the literary quality of the German libretto. First published in 1993, this acclaimed...

Beginning pianists of all ages can have the pleasure and satisfaction of playing one of classical music's best-known compositions with this edition of George Frideric Handel's Messiah. Based on the Book of Psalms from the King James Bible, the 1741 oratorio was originally an...

Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi dominated the opera world for most of the nineteenth century, and his works remain a mainstay of theaters around the world. From Rigoletto's sprightly "La donna é mobile" to the rousing "Anvil Chorus" of Il Trovatore, the composer's music is...

This is the last of nearly 100 operettas created by French composer Jacques Offenbach, a native of Germany whose works were most prominent in the latter half of the nineteenth century. His three-act drama Les Contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann), which includes a...

This single-volume edition of hard-to-find arrangements of famous classical pieces offers terrific value to intermediate and advanced pianists. Designed to offer musicians a chance to play familiar masterworks, the selections encompass transcriptions by famous pianists, some of whom are remembered today solely for these...

Suitable for beginning pianists of all ages, this volume features 26 simplified versions of longer pieces by the great Johannes Brahms arranged in order of increasing difficulty. Selections include the famous Lullaby as well as the theme from Academic Festival Overture and Hungarian Dance...

Mozart's friendship with Anton Stadler, the clarinetist in Vienna's Royal-Imperial Court Orchestra, led to the composition of his beloved Quintet in A Major. The four-movement piece is arranged for clarinet, two violins, viola, and cello. Brahms's Clarinet Quintet in B minor, also in four...

Mendelssohn's Lieder Ohne Worte, or "Songs without Words," is among the most loved, most played collections in the Romantic piano repertoire. Reproduced from the authoritative Breitkopf & H舐tel edition, this volume contains all of these popular compositions -- more than 40 pieces, including such...

Unique and comprehensive, this collection features a tremendous variety of slow movements for keyboard players, consisting of 60 pieces that span three centuries. Pianists will discover the music of many moods, from dreamlike nocturnes and lullabies to moving elegies and romantic slow dances, all...

This outstanding anthology for keyboard players unites some of the finest works of Italy's major 17th- and 18th-century composers. Written for the harpsichord and clavichord, these 49 pieces by seventeen composers comprise sonatas, toccatas, fugues, and other works for keyboardists at early-intermediate to advanced...

A solid grounding in musical techniques of the 17th and 18th centuries is essential to a complete understanding of Baroque music. As scholar Denis Stevens says in his introduction to this work, Full enjoyment will come only when the soloist learns the gentle art...

A solid grounding in musical techniques of the 17th and 18th centuries is essential to a complete understanding of Baroque music. Arnold's legendary work is a comprehensive survey of the topic, covering every issue of significance to today's performers. The text is fully amplified...

Dating from the composer's prolific period of 1903-04 and following Mahler's marriage to Alma Schindler by just a year, the draft of this remarkable work -- subtitled "Tragic" -- is represented by numerous recordings. The symphony incorporates "portraits" of Alma in the first movement...

With the premiere in 1908 of Rapsodie Espagnole, Ravel's first entirely orchestral composition, the French composer achieved renown as a highly original and imaginative composer. In 1911, he recast the Mother Goose Suite, his extremely successful music for piano four-hands, as an orchestral work....

A masterpiece of the choral literature, Mozart's Requiem, his last work, was commissioned in the summer of 1791 but left incomplete at the time of the composer's death in December of the same year. His colleague Franz S ssmayer finished the work, based on...

One of the last great composers in the Austro-Germanic tradition, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) created nine symphonies (the now-legendary Symphony No. 10 was left unfinished) that explored far-reaching, innovative, and visionary approaches to melody, tonal organization, and formal structure. Outstanding among these is the work...

This authoritative edition continues Dover's series of great piano concertos with orchestral reduction for second piano -- the universal standard, for students and professionals alike, for learning and rehearsing all concertos. Together for the first time are two of the most performed and recorded...

One of the last works of German composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), the oratorio Elijah was first performed at England's Birmingham Festival in August 1846. Elated by the audience's response, Mendelssohn wrote jubilantly to his brother: "Not less than four choruses and four airs were...

Welcomed throughout Europe in the seventeenth century as a virtuoso organist and harpsichordist, Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-67) composed brilliantly for both instruments, his works a rich and appealing amalgam of Italian, French, and German keyboard styles. Especially through his organ music, this prolific German...

This monumental study of Johann Sebastian Bach ranks among the great classics of musicology. Since its first publication in 1873-80, it has remained the basic work on Bach and the foundation of later research and study. The three-part treatment describes in chronological sequence practically...

This monumental study of Johann Sebastian Bach ranks among the great classics of musicology. Since its first publication in 1873-80, it has remained the basic work on Bach and the foundation of later research and study. The three-part treatment describes in chronological sequence practically...