Lives of the Great Composers
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An updated and expanded edition of this perennial favorite, tracing the line of composers from Monteverdi to the tonalists of the 1990s. Library Journal This third edition of a work that has become a standard resource since its publication in 1981 includes brief but significant changes. A new chapter brings the work up to date, covering later serialists such as Stockhausen and Carter, minimalists Philip Glass and John Adams, and Alfred Schnittke and Peter Maxwell Davies. Schonberg discusses the recent phenomenal success of recordings of Gregorian chant and the search for styles of composition that combine originality and complexity with audience appeal. Women composers Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Amy Beach, Cecile Chaminade, Ethel Smyth, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich are now included. Though each has been given only one paragraph, it is valuable to see them placed in the context of their contemporaries and their predecessors. Schonberg writes for the lay reader. His intention is to humanize the composers and the writing, always highly readable, emphasizes biographical information rather than musical analysis. Recommended for all public and academic libraries.Kate McCaffrey, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.
Preface131Pioneer of Opera: Claudio Monteverdi212Transfiguration of the Baroque: Johann Sebastian Bach363Composer and Impresario: George Frideric Handel554Reformer of Opera: Christoph Willibald Gluck715Classicism par excellence: Joseph Haydn816Prodigy from Salzburg: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart957Revolutionary from Bonn: Ludwig van Beethoven1118Poet of Music: Franz Schubert1249Freedom and a New Language: Weber and the Early Romantics13810Romantic Exuberance and Classic Restraint: Hector Berlioz15211Florestan and Eusebius: Robert Schumann16912Apotheosis of the Piano: Frederic Chopin18313Virtuoso, Charlatan - and Prophet: Franz Liszt19714Bourgeois Genius: Felix Mendelssohn21115Voice, Voice, and More Voice: Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini22216Spectacle, Spectacle, and More Spectacle: Meyerbeer, Cherubini, Auber23617Colossus of Italy: Giuseppe Verdi24918Colossus of Germany: Richard Wagner26819Keeper of the Flame: Johannes Brahms28920Master of the Lied: Hugo Wolf30321Waltz, Can-Can, and Satire: Strauss, Offenbach, Sullivan31022Faust and French Opera: From Gounod to Saint-Saens32923Russian Nationalism and the Mighty Five: From Glinka to Rimsky-Korsakov34524Surcharged Emotionalism: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky36625From Bohemia to Spain: European Nationalists37826Chromaticism and Sensibilite: From Franck to Faure40027Only for the Theater: Giacomo Puccini41328Romanticism's Long Coda: Richard Strauss42329Religion, Mysticism, and Retrospection: Bruckner, Mahler, Reger43730Symbolism and Impressionism: Claude Debussy45231Gallic Elegance and the New Breed: Maurice Ravel and Les Six46632The Chameleon: Igor Stravinsky47933The English Renaissance: Elgar, Delius, Vaughan Williams49234Mysticism and Melancholy: Scriabin and Rachmaninoff51035Under the Soviets: Prokofiev and Shostakovich52536German Neoclassicism: Busoni, Weill, Hindemith53837Rise of an American Tradition: From Gottschalk to Copland54838The Uncompromising Hungarian: Bela Bartok56739The Second Viennese School: Schoenberg, Berg, Webern57840The International Serial Movement: From Varese to Messiaen59541The New Eclecticism: From Carter to the Minimalists610General Bibliography621Index637
