The
LIVES OF
the
GREAT
COMPOSERS Hardback book with Dust Jacket by Harold C. Schonberg Over 650 pages Copyright © 1981, 1970 by Harold C. Schonberg " In this revised version of his highly successful book, Harold Schonberg has traced the consecutive line of composers from Claudio Monteverdi to Arnold Schoenberg through a series of fascinating biographical chapters.
Music, the author contends, is a continually evolving art, and there have been no geniuses, however, great, who have not been influenced by their predecessors.
The great composers are presented as human beings who lived and related to the real world around them. " " Mr. 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. " " All the important figures in "serious" music - Bach, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Handel, Verdi, Beethoven, Mahler, Wagner, and many others - are included, their lives woven into a fabric rich in detail and anecdote.
There are also chapters on the nationalist schools and the so-called light music of the Viennese Strausses, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Offenbach, and others. " " For this newly created edition, Schonberg has added a new opening chapter on the great Italian composer, Claudio Monteverdi, whose music has reentered the repertory significantly in the last decade.
Similarly, he has extended the book's coverage beyond the second Viennese school with an informative and clearly written description of musical developments since World War II.
Scattered throughout the book are many changes and additions reflecting the wide range of musicological findings since the 1960s.
An updated bibliography has been prepared and additional illustrations provided. " " What has not been changed in the least is the character of the book, which remains an object of delight to all music lovers, engrossing from beginning to end, and a joy to pick up and read anywhere. " " " These are not biographies in a vacuum, but they are biographies - personal, anecdotal, supportive, respectful, and elegantly written in untired prose. "
- Kirkus Reviews " Contents includes: " Preface 1 Pioneer of Opera
Claudio Monteverdi 2 Transfiguration of the Baroque
Johann Sebastian Bach 3 Composer and Impresario
George Frideric Handel 4 Reformer of Opera
Christoph Willibald Gluck 5 Classicism par excellence
Franz Joseph Haydn 6 Prodigy from Salzburg
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 7 Revolutionary from Bonn
Ludwig van Beethoven 8 Poet of Music
Franz Peter Schubert 9 Freedom and a New Language
Weber and the Early Romantics 10 Romantic Exuberance and Classic Restraint
Hector Berlioz 11 Florestan and Eusebius
Robert Schumann 12 Apotheosis of the Piano
Frederic Chopin 13 Virtuoso, Charlatan - and Prophet
Franz Liszt 14 Bourgeois Genius
Felix Mendelssohn 15 Voice, Voice, and More Voice
Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini 16 Spectacle, Spectacle, and More Spectacle
Meyerbeer, Cherubini, Auber 17 Colossus of Italy
Giussepi Verdi 18 Colossus of Germany
Richard Wagner 19 Keeper of the Flame
Johannes Brahms 20 Master of the Lied
Hugo Wolf 21 Waltz, Can-Can, Satire
Strauss, Offenbach, Sullivan 22 Faust and French Opera
From Gounod to Saint-Saens 23 Russian Nationalism and the Mighty Five
From Glinka to Rimsky-Korsakov 24 Surcharged Emotionalism
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky 25 From Bohemia to Spain
European Nationalists 26 Chromaticism and Sensibilite
From Franck to Faure 27 Only for the Theater
Giacomo Puccini 28 Romanticism's Long Coda
Richard Strauss 29 Religion, Mysticism, and Retrospection
Bruckner, Mahler, Reger 30 Symbolism and Impressionism
Claude-Achille Debussy 31 Gallic Elegance and the New breed
Maurice Ravel and Les Six 32 The Chameleon
Igor Stravinsky 33 The English Renaissance
Elgar, Delius, Vaughan Williams 34 Mysticism and Melancholy
Scriabin and Rachmaninoff 35 Under the Soviets
Prokofiev and Shostakovich 36 German Neoclassicism
Busoni, Weill, Hindemith 37 Rise of an American Tradition
From Gottschalk to Copland 38 The Uncompromising Hungarian
Bela Bartok 39 The Second Viennese School
Schoenberg, Berg, Webern 40 Post 1945: The International Serial Movement General Bibliography Index " The book is in very good condition with only minor wear.
The dust jacket has minor wear along the edges and the corner is clipped off the inside flap.
No torn or ripped pages.
No markings or writing. | 
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