A high-ranking official in the Imperial War Office in Vienna, Raphael Georg Kiesewetter (1773-1850) is better known for his musicological activities. An accomplished amateur musician, he studied with Albrechtsberger, hosted private concerts of early music, and was closely involved in the affairs of Vienna's Society of the Friends of Music. His important collection of scores is now in the Austrian National Library. He also wrote a number of books and articles, including a pioneering study of Arabic music which was the first to use original sources, owing to the assistance of orientalist Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall. Originally published in German in 1834 and reissued here in its 1848 English translation, the present work is considered Kiesewetter's most significant and remains accessible to the general reader. Based on an evolutionary approach influenced by the Enlightenment, the book presents seventeen epochs which are named after their most characteristic composers.

Actor and baritone Eduard Devrient (1801-77) first met Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47) in 1822, and they remained close friends thereafter. During his lifetime, Mendelssohn achieved celebrity status as a composer, virtuoso pianist and conductor, and it was Devrient who secured in 1829 the famous performance in Berlin, under Mendelssohn's direction, of the St Matthew Passion, which began the Bach revival. First published in German in 1869, this work is reissued here in the English translation of the same year by Natalia Macfarren (1827-1913), singer and wife of the composer Sir George Macfarren. Her work as a translator included the first English versions of Wagner's Lohengrin and Verdi's Rigoletto. Although Devrient does not always exactly reproduce the correspondence, particularly where Mendelssohn is critical of others, the letters and commentary here serve to illuminate the development of a great composer.

The composer, virtuoso pianist and conductor Felix Mendelssohn (1809 47) was lionised by the music-loving public during his lifetime, and his music is still greatly admired today. A versatile child prodigy, he wrote music for A Midsummer Night's Dream while he was still a teenager. Masterpieces such as the octet for strings, the 'Italian' symphony, the violin concerto and his great oratorio Elijah followed. His extraordinary ability was such that he was made an honorary member of the Philharmonic Society in 1829 at the age of only twenty during the first of his ten visits to Britain. A great advocate of Johann Sebastian Bach, Mendelssohn did much to reawaken interest in his music. This eminently readable short biography by the composer William Smith Rockstro (1823 95) was first published in 1884 as part of Francis Hueffer's 'Great Musicians' series. A list of Mendelssohn's works is included as an appendix.

Sebastian Hensel (1830-98), nephew of the composer, virtuoso pianist and conductor Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47), originally intended this work to be 'not only of the family but for the family', drawing on their letters and diaries. Persuaded by friends to publish his narrative in 1879, Hensel in particular provides a first-hand insight into the lives of his uncle, lionized by the music-loving public of his day, and Felix's beloved sister Fanny (1805-47), herself a talented composer and pianist. Translated from the German revised second edition by Felix's close friend, diplomat Carl Klingemann (1798-1862), this 1881 two-volume collection made available for the first time in English a great deal of valuable source material. Covering the period 1729-1835, Volume 1 charts the family's history from the birth of philosopher Moses Mendelssohn to the death of his son, banker Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who was the father of Felix.

Sebastian Hensel (1830-98), nephew of the composer, virtuoso pianist and conductor Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47), originally intended this work to be 'not only of the family but for the family', drawing on their letters and diaries. Persuaded by friends to publish his narrative in 1879, Hensel in particular provides a first-hand insight into the lives of his uncle, lionized by the music-loving public of his day, and Felix's beloved sister Fanny (1805-47), herself a talented composer and pianist. Translated from the German revised second edition by Felix's close friend, diplomat Carl Klingemann (1798-1862), this 1881 two-volume collection made available for the first time in English a great deal of valuable source material. Covering the period 1836-47, Volume 2 focuses on the final decade of Fanny and Felix's lives, and includes a delightful description by George Grove of Felix's personal appearance.

Clara Schumann (1819-1896), child prodigy, celebrated concert pianist, composer, and friend of Brahms, was also the wife of composer Robert Schumann. Her father Friedrich Wieck's implacable opposition to their marriage, the sublime music she inspired in Schumann and his tragic death at a cruelly young age underlie one of music's great romances. The German literary historian Berthold Litzmann (1857-1926) first published his biography in three volumes between 1902 and 1908, based on the diaries and letters of Robert and Clara Schumann. Appearing in 1913, this two-volume English translation by Grace Hadow (1875-1940) is an abridged version of the German fourth edition, offering a lucid portrait of a central figure in nineteenth-century European musical life. A preface is provided by the translator's elder brother, William Henry Hadow (1859-1937), the music historian. Volume 1 covers the years 1819 to 1850.

Clara Schumann (1819-1896), child prodigy, celebrated concert pianist, composer, and friend of Brahms, was also the wife of composer Robert Schumann. Her father Friedrich Wieck's implacable opposition to their marriage, the sublime music she inspired in Schumann and his tragic death at a cruelly young age underlie one of music's great romances. The German literary historian Berthold Litzmann (1857-1926) first published his biography in three volumes between 1902 and 1908, based on the diaries and letters of Robert and Clara Schumann. Appearing in 1913, this two-volume English translation by Grace Hadow (1875-1940) is an abridged version of the German fourth edition, offering a lucid portrait of a central figure in nineteenth-century European musical life. A preface is provided by the translator's elder brother, William Henry Hadow (1859-1937), the music historian. Volume 2 covers the years 1850 to 1896.

This authoritative biography of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a landmark in its meticulous research and use of source material. For the American author Alexander Wheelock Thayer (1817-97), it represented a lifelong labour of love, yet it remained unfinished at his death. His friend Hermann Deiters (1833-1907) edited and translated Thayer's work into German, publishing three volumes which covered Beethoven's life to 1816. Since Deiters also died before the biography could be completed, musicologist Hugo Riemann (1849-1919) was called upon to conclude the work. The final German volumes appeared in 1907 and 1908. It was the American critic Henry Edward Krehbiel (1854-1923) who prepared the present work, the first and considerably revised English version, published in three volumes in 1921. Volume 1 covers Beethoven's career through to 1802, the year of the Heiligenstadt Testament.

This authoritative biography of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a landmark in its meticulous research and use of source material. For the American author Alexander Wheelock Thayer (1817-97), it represented a lifelong labour of love, yet it remained unfinished at his death. His friend Hermann Deiters (1833-1907) edited and translated Thayer's work into German, publishing three volumes which covered Beethoven's life to 1816. Since Deiters also died before the biography could be completed, musicologist Hugo Riemann (1849-1919) was called upon to conclude the work. The final German volumes appeared in 1907 and 1908. It was the American critic Henry Edward Krehbiel (1854-1923) who prepared the present work, the first and considerably revised English version, published in three volumes in 1921. Volume 2 covers the period 1803-18, including the custody wrangles over Beethoven's nephew.

This authoritative biography of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a landmark in its meticulous research and use of source material. For the American author Alexander Wheelock Thayer (1817-97), it represented a lifelong labour of love, yet it remained unfinished at his death. His friend Hermann Deiters (1833-1907) edited and translated Thayer's work into German, publishing three volumes which covered Beethoven's life to 1816. Since Deiters also died before the biography could be completed, musicologist Hugo Riemann (1849-1919) was called upon to conclude the work. The final German volumes appeared in 1907 and 1908. It was the American critic Henry Edward Krehbiel (1854-1923) who prepared the present work, the first and considerably revised English version, published in three volumes in 1921. Volume 3 covers Beethoven's final years, his ninth symphony and late quartets.

Marie-Henri Beyle (1783 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal, is remembered today for such novels as Le Rouge et le Noir. In his lifetime, he wrote in a variety of literary genres and under a multitude of names. Louis-Alexandre-Cesar Bombet was his choice of pseudonym for these early works, originally published in French in 1814. His lives of Haydn and Mozart were substantially derived from works by Giuseppe Carpani and Theophile Winckler respectively. Despite this audacious plagiarism, Stendhal's passion for music is evident, especially for Mozart, whose Clemenza di Tito he had enjoyed in Konigsberg during the winter of 1812 whilst serving in Napoleon's army. Of especial interest to the modern reader are Stendhal's frequent digressions expressing his forthright opinions on the issues and figures of his day. This reissue is of Robert Brewin's English translation of 1817, with additional notes by the composer William Gardiner.

Marie-Henri Beyle (1783 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal, is remembered today for such novels as Le Rouge et le Noir. Over the course of his life, he wrote in a variety of literary genres and under a multitude of names, or anonymously. Reissued here is the 1824 English translation of his Vie de Rossini of the same year, which was accused of being partly plagiarised from Giuseppe Carpani's Le Rossiniane, following similar claims regarding his biographies of Haydn and Mozart (which are also reissued together in translation in this series). Best known for William Tell and The Barber of Seville, Gioachino Rossini (1792 1868) was by far the most popular opera composer of his day, adored by his public. Colourful, vigorous and forthright, Stendhal's brilliant though somewhat unreliable biography offers an opinionated contemporary critique of 'Signor Crescendo'.

The American music critic and lecturer William James Henderson (1855 1937) wrote for The New York Times and The New York Sun, provided the libretto for Walter Damrosch's opera Cyrano (1913) and authored fiction, poetry, sea stories and a textbook on navigation. He also taught at the New York College of Music and the Institute of Musical Art. Taking up the cause of Wagner with considerable understanding, he published this substantial work in 1902, barely twenty years after the composer's death. It is an illuminating account of Wagner's life and artistic aims, complemented by an insightful analysis of each of his music dramas from Rienzi to Parsifal. Its purpose, states Henderson, 'is to supply Wagner lovers with a single work which shall meet all their needs'. With Ernest Newman's Study of Wagner (1899), also reissued in this series, it reflects the composer's contemporary popularity.

Francis Edward Bache (1833 58) and his younger brother Walter (1842 88) were active during a rich period of musical life in Britain. The Philharmonic Society and Crystal Palace concerts in London, the Halle Orchestra in Manchester, and the Birmingham and Three Choirs festivals were all well established, while celebrated composer/conductors from Berlioz to Wagner and virtuosi including violinist Joseph Joachim and pianist Anton Rubinstein were in great demand. Edward, a pupil of Sterndale Bennett, was a promising organist and composer whose potential was tragically ended by his early death from tuberculosis. Walter, a pupil of Liszt from 1862 to 1865, became a dedicated promoter of the pianist/composer's music to the British concert-going public through annual concerts that he financed. First published in 1901, this affectionate account of the brothers' lives by their sister Constance (1846 1903) includes many letters as well as lists of Edward's compositions and Liszt's orchestral works performed at Walter's concerts.

The premiere of Otello, Giuseppe Verdi's only new opera for over a decade, was a much-anticipated event in Milan in February 1887, and musical talents from all over Europe had vied for the chance to be part of it. An American author and former opera singer, Blanche Roosevelt (1853 98) took an assignment as a special correspondent in Milan during the weeks surrounding the opera's premiere at La Scala. She was well connected in the artistic community and personally acquainted with Verdi himself, and her dispatches paint an informed and vivid picture of the city and its musical and literary scene in the late 1880s. Published in 1887, along with a short biography of Verdi, anecdotes, illustrations, and reminiscences of conversations with the composer, these writings will appeal to both music scholars and opera lovers.

This new gathering of the world's greatest classical themes follows Bergerac's highly successful "My First Book of Classical Music." Here are ever-popular themes from the symphonies, concertos, and operas of such masters as Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Mozart, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, and many others. For children and beginners of any age. Dover Original.

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.

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.

Music was central to everyday life and expression in late Georgian Britain, and this interdisciplinary study looks at its impact on Romantic literature. Focusing on the public fascination with virtuoso performance, Gillen D'Arcy Wood documents a struggle between sober 'literary' virtue and luxurious, effeminate virtuosity that staged deep anxieties over class, cosmopolitanism, machine technology, and the professionalization of culture. A remarkable synthesis of cultural history and literary criticism, this book opens new perspectives on key Romantic authors - including Burney, Wordsworth, Austen and Byron - and their relationship to definitive debates in late Georgian culture.

Historians of French politics, art, philosophy and literature have long known the tensions and fascinations of Louis XV's reign, the 1750s in particular. David Charlton's study comprehensively re-examines this period, from Rameau to Gluck and elucidates the long-term issues surrounding opera. Taking Rousseau's Le Devin du Village as one narrative centrepiece, Charlton investigates this opera's origins and influences in the 1740s and goes on to use past and present research to create a new structural model that explains the elements of reform in Gluck's tragedies for Paris. Charlton's book opens many new perspectives on the musical practices and politics of the period, including the Querelle des Bouffons. It gives the first detailed account of intermezzi and opere buffe performed by Eustachio Bambini's troupe at the Paris Opera from August 1752 to February 1754 and discusses Rameau's comedies Platee and Les Paladins and their origins.

Presenting a fresh picture of the life and work of Joseph Haydn, this biography captures all the complexities and contradictions of the composer's long career. In his lifetime Haydn achieved a degree of fame that easily surpassed that of Mozart and Beethoven. Later his historical significance was more restricted, regarded exclusively as the composer who first recognised the potential of the symphony and the quartet. However, Haydn had also composed operas, oratorios and church music with similar enthusiasm and self-regard. Too easily buttonholed as a Viennese composer, he interacted consistently with the musical life of Vienna only during the earliest and latest periods of his life; London was at least as important in fashioning the composer's fame and legacy. To counter the genial view of the composer, this biography probes the darker side of Haydn's personality, his commercial opportunism and double dealing, his penny-pinching and his troubled marriage.

Written by ten leading scholars, this 2008 volume assembles studies of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century music under the broad rubric of communication. That such an impulse motivates musical composition and performance in this period of European musical history is often acknowledged but seldom examined in depth. The book explores a broad set of issues, ranging from the exigencies of the market for books and music in the eighteenth century through to the deployment of dance topoi in musical composition. A number of close readings of individual works by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven draw on a sophisticated body of historically-appropriate technical resources to illuminate theories of form, metre, bass lines and dance topoi. Students and scholars of music history, theory and analysis will find in this volume a set of challenging, state-of-the-art essays that will stimulate debate about musical meaning and engender further study.

This book was first published in 2009. This fascinating study of ethnic theatrical representation provides original perspectives on the cultural milieu, compositional strategies and operatic legacy of Joseph Haydn. The portrayal of Jews changed markedly during the composer's lifetime. Before the Enlightenment, when Jews were treated as a people apart, physical infirmities and other markers of 'difference' were frequently caricatured on the comedic stage. However, when society began to debate the 'Jewish Question' - understood in the later eighteenth century as how best to integrate Jews into society as productive citizens - theatrical representations became more sympathetic. As Caryl Clark describes, Haydn had many opportunities to observe Jews in his working environments in Vienna and Eisenstadt, and incorporated Jewish stereotypes in two early works. An understanding of Haydn's evolving approach to ethnic representation on the stage provides deeper insight into the composer's iconic wit and humanity, and to the development of opera as a cultural art form across the centuries.

Mozart's Sonatas for Pianoforte are published as part of ABRSM's 'Signature' Series - a series of authoritative performing editions of standard keyboard works, prepared from original sources by leading scholars. Includes informative introductions and performance notes.

Beethoven's Complete Pianoforte Sonatas is published as part of ABRSM's 'Signature' Series - a series of authoritative performing editions of standard keyboard works, prepared from original sources by leading scholars. Includes informative introductions and performance notes. Also available in cloth binding and in separate editions.