The Lives of the Great Composers (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780393038576)

In this new edition, Harold Schonberg offers music lovers a series of fascinating biographical chapters. Music, the author contends, is a continually evolving art, and all geniuses, unique as they are, were influenced by their predecessors. Schonberg discusses the lives and works of the foremost figures in classical music, among them Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, the Schumanns, Copland, and Stravinsky, weaving a fabric rich in detail and anecdote. He also includes the creators of light music, such as Gilbert and Sullivan and the Strausses.

Schonberg has extended the volume's coverage to provide informative and clearly written descriptions of the later serialists such as Stockhausen and Carter, the iconoclastic John Cage, the individualistic Messiaen, minimalist composers, the new tonalists, and women composers of all eras, including Mendelssohn Hensel, Chaminade, Smyth, Beach, and Zwilich. Scattered throughout are many changes and additions reflecting musicological findings of the past fifteen years.

Author: Harold C. Schonberg
ISBN-10: 0393038572
ISBN-13: 9780393038576
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 04/17/1997
Pages: 656
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 2.33lbs
Size: 9.62h x 6.38w x 1.74d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 04/15/1997 pg. 84