The Italian violinist and composer Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755-1824) is considered today to have been one of the most significant forces in the history of violin playing. In 1792 he met Margaret and William Chinnery, a wealthy English couple with strong connections in the world of arts and letters. From that point onwards Viotti's life became inextricably bound up with theirs; he moved into their home and became a second father to their children, forming a remarkably successful menage A trois. Henceforth, all Viotti's career decisions were taken with this family's welfare in mind. The Chinnery Family Papers feature over 100 Viotti letters and other documents. Drawing extensively on these papers, this book investigates the new light that they cast on Viotti's life and career, as well as the context in which he lived and worked. Fresh insights are given into the reception of Viotti's concertos in London and the solo performances he gave while in England, together with new information on his role as a music teacher in the Chinnery household, and his relationship with Mme de StaA"l and the Philharmonic Society.

Johann Peter Salomon, the celebrated violinist and impresario, made his debut in England in March 1781. History has credited Salomon with bringing Haydn to London, yet as Ian Woodfield reveals in this monograph, Salomon's introduction of the composer to the London musical scene owed as much to luck as to skilful planning. Haydn's engagement in London proved to be a much-needed uplift to Salomon's career which, as Woodfield illustrates, had been on the wane for a number of years. In addition to its reassessment of Salomon's uneven career in London during the 1780s, this book throws light on the general relationship between public and private spheres of professional music-making at the time, and on the relationship between the social and professional attributes required of musicians if they were to be successful. Nowhere are these tensions better illustrated than in the letters and journals of the Burney family, especially those of Susan Burney, which are drawn on in the book to provide a vivid picture of the fiercely competitive musical world of eighteenth-century London.

Practical suggestions, and documentary evidence, for performers wishing to understand the gestures and nuances embedded in eighteenth-century musical notation. There are, of course, no commas, periods, or question marks in music of the Baroque and Classic eras. Nonetheless, the concept of "punctuating" music into longer and shorter units of expression was richly explored by many of the era's leading composers, theorists, and performers. The Art of Musical Phrasing in the Eighteenth Century gathers and discusses, for the first time, an extensive collection of quotations and musical illustrations relevant tophrase articulation and written and unwritten rests. Among the notable authors cited and discussed are Muffat, Telemann, C. P. E. Bach, Mattheson, Marpurg, Tartini, and Mozart's father Leopold (author of the most important eighteenth-century treatise on string playing). On a larger scale, The Art of Musical Phrasing demonstrates the role of punctuation within the history of rhetoric during the Age of Enlightenment. From this, the performer of todaycan gain a greater appreciation for both the strengths and shortcomings of the analogy that writers of the day drew between punctuation in written language and in music. Modern performers, argues Vial, have the challenge andresponsibility of understanding and conveying the nuances, inflections, and rhythmic gestures deeply embedded in eighteenth-century musical notation. The Art of Musical Phrasing, the fruit of Vial's rich experience as a cellist performing on both period and modern instruments, lays out long-needed practical suggestions for achieving this goal. Stephanie D. Vial performs and records widely as a cellist and has taught at the University ofNorth Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University.

Mozart's piano concertos stand alongside his operas and symphonies as his most frequently performed and best loved music. They have attracted the attention of generations of musicologists who have explored their manifold meanings from a variety of viewpoints. In this study, John Irving brings together the various strands of scholarship surrounding Mozart's concertos including analytical approaches, aspects of performance practice and issues of compositional genesis based on investigation of manuscript and early printed editions. Treating the concertos collectively as a repertoire, rather than as individual works, the first section of the book tackles broad thematic issues such as the role of the piano concerto in Mozart's quasi-freelance life in late eighteenth-century Vienna, the origin of his concertos in earlier traditions of concerto writing; eighteenth-century theoretical frameworks for the understanding of movement forms, subsequent historical shifts in the perception of the concerto's form, listening strategies and performance practices. This is followed by a 'documentary register' which proceeds through all 23 original works, drawing together information on the source materials. Accounts of the concertos' compositional genesis, early performance history and reception are also included here, drawing extensively on the Mozart family correspondence and other contemporary reports. Drawing together and synthesizing this wealth of material, Irving provides an invaluable reference source for those already familiar with this repertoire.

The second half of the eighteenth century witnessed a flourishing of the string quartet, often represented as a smooth and logical progression from first violin-dominated homophony to a more equal conversation between the four voices. Yet this progression was neither as smooth nor as linear as previously thought, as Mara Parker illustrates in her examination of the string quartet during this period. Looking at a wide variety of string quartets by composers such as Pleyel, Distler and Filtz, in addition to Haydn and Mozart, the book proposes a new way of describing the relationships between the four instruments in different works. Broadly speaking, these relationships follow one of four patterns: the 'lecture', the 'polite conversation', the 'debate', and the 'conversation'. In focusing on these musical discourses, it becomes apparent that each work is the product of its composer's stylistic choices, location, intended performers and intended audience. Instead of evolving in a strict and universal sequence, the string quartet in the latter half of the eighteenth century was a complex genre with composers mixing and matching musical discourses as circumstances and their own creative impulses required.

A decade after the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars had given way to an era of retrenchment and repression, 1824 became a watershed year. The premiere of the Ninth Symphony, the death of Lord Byron - who had been aiding the Greeks in their struggle for independence, Delacroix's painting of the Turkish massacre of Greeks at Chios and Pushkin's anti-tyrannical play Boris Godunov all signalled that the desire for freedom was not dead. And all of these works and events were part of the flowering of the High Romantic period. In The Ninth, eminent music historian and biographer Harvey Sachs employs memoir, anecdote and his vast knowledge of history to explain how the premiere of Beethoven's staggering last symphony was emblematic of its time - a work of art unlike any other - and a magisterial, humanistic statement that remains a challenge down to our own day and for future generations.

A Conductor's Guide to the Choral-Orchestral Works of the Classical Period, Part I: Haydn and Mozart is the fourth volume in Jonathan Green's innovative study of the vast body of choral-orchestral repertoire. A treasure-trove for conductors of choir and orchestras, in this volume all of the masses, oratorios, cantatas, litanies, vespers, and minor sacred works of Haydn and Mozart are carefully examined. For each work, the author has compiled the text source, duration, date of composition, date and place of premiere, location of manuscript materials, commercially available editions, a selected discography, a bibliography, and a brief history of the work. Most importantly, the performance concerns for the choir, orchestra, and soloists of each work are evaluated and described. This will prove to be an invaluable programming aid for conductors and a touchstone for anyone embarking on research into this music.

A fully updated edition of the leading reference work on musical key characteristics during the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods. This is a revised second edition of Dr. Steblin's important work on key characteristics, first published in 1983 by UMI Research Press and re-issued by the University of Rochester Press in 1996. The revision has been limited to athorough correction and update of the material in the first edition, so as to not disrupt the content and organization, for which the book has been praised as a significant and noteworthy reference for both scholars and research students alike. The book discusses the extra-musical meanings associated with various musical keys by ancient Greek and medieval-renaissance theorists and in particular composers and writers on music in the Baroque, Classical,and early Romantic periods. Chapters focus on Mattheson's extensive key descriptions from 1713, the Rameau-Rousseau and Marpurg-Kirnberger controversies regarding unequal versus equal temperaments, and C.F.D. Schubart's influential list based on the sharp-flat [bright-dark] principle of key-distinctions. Rita Katherine Steblin is a world-renowned music scholar, living and working in Vienna.

This collection of essays addresses a very broad range of E. T. A. Hoffmann's most significant works, examining them through the lens of "transgression." Transgression bears relevance to Hoffmann's life and professions in three ways. First, his official career path was that of jurisprudence; he was active as a lawyer, a judge and eventually as one of the most important magistrates in Berlin. Second, his personal life was marked by numerous conflicts with political and social authorities. Seemingly no matter where he went, he experienced much chaos, grief and impoverishment in leading his always precarious existence. Third, his works explore characters and concepts beyond the boundaries of what was considered aesthetically acceptable. "Normal" bourgeois existence was often juxtaposed to the lives of criminals, sinners, and other deviants, both within the spaces of the known world as well as in supernatural realms. He, perhaps more than any other author of the German Romantic movement, regularly portrayed the dark side of existence in his works, including unconscious psychological phenomena, nightmares, somnambulism, vampirism, mesmerism, Doppelganger, and other forms of transgressive behavior. It is the intention of this volume to provide a new look at Hoffmann's very diverse body of work from numerous perspectives, stimulating interest in Hoffmann in English language audiences.

This book contains sixteen essays on Venetian music in its last great period, stretching from the second half of the 17th century to the fall of the Republic in 1797. Two essays deal with musical institutions (academies and conservatories), nine with the life and works of Antonio Vivaldi, and five with contemporaries of Vivaldi active in Venice (Albinoni, Marcello, Vinaccesi). A substantial supplementary chapter updates, and where necessary revises, the facts and arguments of the original essays, which collectively date from the years 1973-1995. All the essays are written in English, but many originally appeared in Italian journals and conference proceedings that are hard for English-speaking readers to obtain. The volume is carefully indexed, enabling the reader easily to make connections between the essays.

Remarkable new study...Its central submission, that we have hitherto disregarded or misinterpreted the most profound intuitions of a unique composer, certainly carries conviction. And even after one reading there are already musical passages that this Schubert enthusiast finds himself hearing in quite a new way. Bayan Northcott, BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE A sensitive and richly allusive commentary... likely to change the way we listen to certain works. Brian Newbould The old stereotypes of Schubert as Bohemian artist and unselfconscious creator have been replaced over the past half-century with a picture of a difficult man in difficult times. The author aims to redress the balance, concentrating firstly on works where Schubert's beliefs are clearly expressed (masses, other religious music, songs amounting to Geistliche Lieder). This also prompts an examination of instrumental masterpieces (Unfinished and Great C Major Symphonies, and the Wanderer Fantasy), which show that Schubert's religious side encompasses awe and terror as well as wonder. Schubert's 'complete voice' is thus clearly heard, rather than the sombre one currently emphasised in both literature and concert. LEO BLACK is a former BBC chief producer for music.

This book challenges the assumption that Franz Schubert (1797-1828), best known for the lyricism of his songs, symphonies and chamber music, lacked comparable talent for drama. It is commonly assumed that Franz Schubert (1797-1828), best known for the lyricism of his songs, symphonies, and chamber music, lacked comparable talent for drama. Challenging this view, Drama in the Music of Franz Schubert provides a timely re-evaluation of Schubert's operatic works, while demonstrating previously unsuspected locations of dramatic innovation in his vocal and instrumental music. The volume draws on a range of critical approaches and techniques, including semiotics, topic theory, literary criticism, narratology, and Schenkerian analysis, to situate Schubertian drama within its musical and cultural-historical context. In so doing, the study broadens the boundaries of what might be considered 'dramatic' within the composer's music and offers new perspectives for its analysis and interpretation. Drama in the Music of Franz Schubert will be of interest to musicologists, music theorists, composers, and performers, as well as scholars working in cultural studies, theatre, and aesthetics. JOE DAVIES is College Lecturer in Music at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. JAMES WILLIAM SOBASKIE is Associate Professor of Music at Mississippi State University. Contributors: Brian Black, Lorraine Byrne Bodley, Joe Davies, Xavier Hascher, Marjorie Hirsch, Anne Hyland, Christine Martin, Clive McClelland, James William Sobaskie, Lauri Suurpaa, Laura Tunbridge, Susan Wollenberg, Susan Youens

A History of the Symphony: The Grand Genre identifies the underlying cultural factors that have shaped the symphony over the past three hundred years, presenting a unified view of the entire history of the genre. The text goes beyond discussions of individual composers and the stylistic evolution of the genre to address what constitutes a symphony within each historical period, describing how such works fit into the lives of composers and audiences of the time, recognizing that they do not exist in a vacuum but rather as the products of numerous external forces spurring their creation. In three parts, the text proceeds chronologically, drawing connections between musical examples across regions and eras: The Classical Symphony The Romantic Symphony The Symphony in the Modern Era Within this broad chronology-from the earliest Italian symphonies of the 18th century to the most experimental works of the 20th century-discussion of the development of the genre often breaks down along national lines that outline divergent but parallel paths of stylistic growth. In consideration of what is and is not a symphony, musical developments in other genres are presented as they relate to the symphony, genres such as the serenade, the tone poem, and the concert overture. Suitable for a one-semester course as well as a full-year syllabus, and with illustrative musical examples throughout, A History of the Symphony places composers and works in sociological and musical contexts while confronting the fundamental question: What is a symphony?

Both a beguiling portrait of the artist and an idiosyncratic self-portrait of the author, "Mysterious Mozart" is Philippe Sollers's alternately oblique and searingly direct interpretation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's oeuvre and lasting mystique, audaciously reformulated for the postmodern age.

With a mix of slang, abstractions, quotations, first- and third-person narratives, and blunt opinion, French writer and critic Philippe Sollers taps into Mozart's playful correspondence and the lesser-known pieces of his enormous repertoire to analyze the popularity and public perceptions of his music. Detailing Mozart's drive to continue producing masterpieces even when saddled with debt and riddled with illness and anxiety, Sollers powerfully and meticulously analyzes Mozart's seven last great operas using a psychoanalytical approach to the characters' relationships.

As Sollers explores themes of constancy, prodigy, freedom, and religion, he offers up bits of his own history, revealing his affinity for the creative geniuses of the eighteenth century and a yearning to bring that era's utopian freedom to life in contemporary times. What emerges is an inimitable portrait of a man and a musician whose greatest gift is a quirky companionability, a warm and mysterious appeal that distinguishes Mozart from other great composers and is brilliantly echoed by Sollers's artful tangle of narrative.

A History of the Symphony: The Grand Genre identifies the underlying cultural factors that have shaped the symphony over the past three hundred years, presenting a unified view of the entire history of the genre. The text goes beyond discussions of individual composers and the stylistic evolution of the genre to address what constitutes a symphony within each historical period, describing how such works fit into the lives of composers and audiences of the time, recognizing that they do not exist in a vacuum but rather as the products of numerous external forces spurring their creation. In three parts, the text proceeds chronologically, drawing connections between musical examples across regions and eras: The Classical Symphony The Romantic Symphony The Symphony in the Modern Era Within this broad chronology-from the earliest Italian symphonies of the 18th century to the most experimental works of the 20th century-discussion of the development of the genre often breaks down along national lines that outline divergent but parallel paths of stylistic growth. In consideration of what is and is not a symphony, musical developments in other genres are presented as they relate to the symphony, genres such as the serenade, the tone poem, and the concert overture. Suitable for a one-semester course as well as a full-year syllabus, and with illustrative musical examples throughout, A History of the Symphony places composers and works in sociological and musical contexts while confronting the fundamental question: What is a symphony?

The theoretical and musical background to the relationship between the piano and orchestra in Mozart's concertos. The interactive relationship between the piano and the orchestra in Mozart's concertos is an issue central to the appreciation of these great works, but one that has not yet received serious attention, a gap which this new study seeks to remedy by exploring the historical implications and hermeneutic potential of dramatic dialogue. The author shows that invocations of dramatic dialogue are deeply ingrained in late-eighteenth-century writings on instrumental music, and he develops this theme into an original and highly positive view of solo/orchestra relations in Mozart's concertos. He analyses behavioural patterns in the concertos and links them to theoretical discussion oflate-eighteenth-century drama and to analogous relational development in Mozart's operas Idomeneo, Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. Mozart's piano concertos emerge afresh from this new approach as an extraordinary medium of Enlightenment, as significant in their way as the greatest late-eighteenth-century operatic and theatrical works. SIMON P. KEEFE is James Rossiter Hoyle Chair of Music, University of Sheffield.

First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Recordings of classical music abound, so how do you know which one to choose? Which ones will stand the test of time and best showcase the composer's vision; who are the conductors, orchestras and soloists that shine? This handy reference guide from Classic FM looks at the 100 most popular pieces of classical music, and explains which particular recording to choose for each and why, to help any budding or committed enthusiast to build their collection.

When it comes to buying classical music, it can be hard to know where to start. Packed full of essential information, this pocket-sized handbook reviews the most important record labels and recommends 100 recordings, providing a useful starting point for beginners and a wealth of options for more experienced listeners.

Classic FM's Handy Guides are a fun and informative set of introductions to standout subjects within classical music, each of which can be read and digested in one sitting: a perfect collectible series whether you re new to the world of classical music or an aficionado.

This book discusses the myriad ways in which Beethoven begins his works and the structural, rhetorical, and emotional implications of these beginnings for listeners. Examining the opening moments of nearly 200 compositions, it offers a new method of analysis of Beethoven's music. At the same time, it sets Beethoven's work in context through a close study of beginnings in the compositions of the Classical Era.

"We do not understand music--it understands us." This aphorism by Theodor W. Adorno expresses the quandary and the fascination many listeners have felt in approaching Beethoven's late quartets. No group of compositions occupies a more central position in chamber music, yet the meaning of these works continues to stimulate debate. William Kinderman's The String Quartets of Beethoven stands as the most detailed and comprehensive exploration of the subject. It collects new work by leading international scholars who draw on a variety of historical sources and analytical approaches to offer fresh insights into the aesthetics of the quartets, probing expressive and structural features that have hitherto received little attention. This volume also includes an appendix with updated information on the chronology and sources of the quartets and a detailed bibliography.

The conversations the 63-year-old Rossini had with Ferdinand Hiller in Trouville in Normandy in September 1855, and the finely drafted impression of Rossini himself with which Hiller prefaces the conversations, will be of exceptional interest to all music lovers. No other single source offers so vivid a sense of Rossini the man and the musician, not to mention the many composers, performers, and people of influence he knew and met. This is the first complete publication of the conversations in English.

Empress Marie Therese, second wife of Emperor Franz II, devoted much of her life to music. She played piano and sang, compiled a large music library and supported professional musicians and composers. This comprehensive survey of the Empress as musician and patron is based upon John Rice's discovery and analysis of extensive unpublished material from her private collection. In this work Rice introduces readers to the musical and cultural worlds of the Viennese court at the end of the eighteenth century.

From acclaimed composer and biographer Jan Swafford comes the definitive biography of one of the most lauded musical geniuses in history, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. From his earliest years it was apparent that the singular imagination of Wolfgang Mozart was tirelessly at work. He hated to be bored and hated to be idle, and he responded to these threats with a repertoire of antidotes mental and physical, going at every part of his life with tremendous gusto. His circle of friends and patrons was wide, encompassing anyone who appealed to his boundless appetites for music and all things pleasurable and fun. As a man, Mozart was an inexplicable force of nature who could rise from a luminous improvisation at the keyboard to meow like a cat and leap over the furniture. He was forever drumming on things, tapping his feet, seeming both present and apart. But he also might grasp your hand and gaze at you with a profound, searching and melancholy look in his blue eyes. It was as if Mozart lived onstage and off simultaneously, a character in life's tragicomedy but also outside of it, watching, studying, gathering material for the fabric of his art. Like Swafford's biographies Beethoven, Johannes Brahms and Charles Ives, Mozart is both wide-ranging and intimate in its exploration of a genius in his life and his setting: a man who rose from a particular time and place, whose art would enrich the world for centuries to come, who would immeasurably shape the future of classical music, who from his age to ours has stood as the definition of a prodigy. As Swafford reveals, to understand the evolution of music it is vital to understand this singular genius as a man and an artist.

Jan Swafford's biographies of composers Charles Ives and Johannes Brahms have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathing human being who composed some of the world's most iconic music. Swafford mines sources never before used in English-language biographies to reanimate the revolutionary ferment of Enlightenment-era Bonn, where Beethoven grew up and imbibed the ideas that would shape all of his future work. Swafford then tracks his subject to Vienna, capital of European music, where Beethoven built his career in the face of critical incomprehension, crippling ill health, romantic rejection, and 'fate's hammer', his ever-encroaching deafness. At the time of his death he was so widely celebrated that over ten thousand people attended his funeral. This book is a biography of Beethoven the man and musician, not the myth, and throughout, Swafford - himself a composer - offers insightful readings of Beethoven's key works. More than a decade in the making, this will be the standard Beethoven biography for years to come.

How did revolutionary America appear to European audiences through their opera glasses? The operas studied in this volume are populated by gun-toting and slave-holding Quakers, handsome Native Americans, female middle-class political leaders, rebellious British soldiers and generous businessmen. Most of them display an unprecedented configuration of social and gender roles, which led leading composers of the time, including Mozart, Haydn, Anfossi, Piccinni and Paisiello, to introduce far-reaching innovations in the musical and dramatic fabric of Italian opera. Polzonetti presents a fresh perspective on the European cultural reception of American social and political identity. Through detailed but accessible analysis of music examples, including previously unpublished musical sources, the book documents and explains important transformations of opera at the time of Mozart's masterpieces, and its long-term consequences up to Puccini. Shedding new light on familiar and less-familiar operatic works, the study represents groundbreaking research in music, cultural and political history.