Mozart's comic operas are among the masterworks of Western civilization, and yet the musical environment in which Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte wrote these now-popular operas has received little critical attention. In this richly detailed book, Mary Hunter offers a sweeping, synthetic view of opera buffa in the lively theatrical world of late-eighteenth-century Vienna. Opera buffa (Italian-language comic opera) persistently entertained audiences at a time when Joseph was striving for a German national theater. Hunter attributes opera buffa's success to its ability to provide "sheer" pleasure and hence explores how the genre functioned as entertainment. She argues that opera buffa, like mainstream film today, projects a social world both recognizable and distinct from reality. It raises important issues while containing them in the "merely entertaining" frame of the occasion, as well as presenting them as a series of easily identifiable dramatic and musical conventions.

Exploring nearly eighty comic operas, Hunter shows how the arias and ensembles convey a multifaceted picture of the repertory's social values and habits. In a concluding chapter, she discusses "Cos" fan tutte" as a work profoundly concerned with the conventions of its repertory and with the larger idea of convention itself and reveals the ways Mozart and da Ponte pointedly converse with their immediate contemporaries.

The premier of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna on May 7, 1824, was the most significant artistic event of the year--and the work remains one of the most precedent-shattering and influential compositions in the history of music. Described in vibrant detail by eminent musicologist Harvey Sachs, this symbol of freedom and joy was so unorthodox that it amazed and confused listeners at its unveiling--yet it became a standard for subsequent generations of creative artists, and its composer came to embody the Romantic cult of genius. In this unconventional, provocative book, Beethoven's masterwork becomes a prism through which we may view the politics, aesthetics, and overall climate of the era. Part biography, part history, part memoir, "The Ninth" brilliantly explores the intricacies of Beethoven's last symphony--how it brought forth the power of the individual while celebrating the collective spirit of humanity.

Focusing on music written in the period 1800 1850, Thinking about Harmony traces the responses of observant musicians to the music that was being created in their midst by composers including Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin. It tells the story of how a separate branch of musical activity - music analysis - evolved out of the desire to make sense of the music, essential both to its enlightened performance and to its appreciation. The book integrates two distinct areas of musical inquiry - the history of music theory and music analysis - and the various notions that shape harmonic theory are put to the test through practical application, creating a unique and intriguing synthesis. Aided by an extensive compilation of carefully selected and clearly annotated music examples, readers can explore a panoramic projection of the era's analytical responses to harmony, thereby developing a more intimate rapport with the period.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is one of the great icons of Western music. An amazing prodigy who toured the capitals of Europe as a child, astonishing royalty and professional musicians with his precocious skills, in his adulthood he wrote some of the finest music in the European tradition. Julian Rushton offers a concise and up-to-date biography of this musical genius, combining a well-researched life of the composer with an introduction to the works-symphonic, chamber, sacred, and theatrical-of one of the few who have composed undisputed masterpieces in every genre of his time. Rushton presents a vivid portrait, ranging from Mozart the Wunderkind-travelling with his family from Salzburg to Vienna, Paris, London, Rome, and Milan-to the mature composer of perennially fascinating operas such as "The Marriage of Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "The Magic Flute." During the past half-century, scholars have thoroughly explored Mozart's life and music, offering new interpretations based on their historical context, and providing a factual basis for confirming or more often debunking, fanciful accounts of the man and his work. Rushton takes full advantage of these biographical and musical studies as well as the definitive New Mozart Edition to provide an accurate account of Mozart's life and, equally important, an insightful look at the music itself, complete with illustrative musical examples. An engaging biography for general readers that will also be an informative resource for scholars, this new addition to the prestigious Master Musicians series puts forward an authoritative interpretation of one of the defining figures of European culture. "Crisp, learned." -Alex Ross, The New Yorker "The finest short biography of Mozart that I know-incisive, insightful, and elegantly written. If I had to recommend one book that explained the man and his music, this would be it." -Cliff Eisen, Department of Music, King's College London "Always sensitive, judicious, and stimulating. It is too short-not too short for Mozart but for Rushton, who has certainly much more to say that would be of interest." -Charles Rosen, The New York Review of Books "A valuable addition to the ever-growing literature on Mozart." -Library Journal

"All practising musicians with an interest in the baroque owe it tothemselves to be exposed to the ideas contained in this book." --Continuo

"This is a book from an excellent musician in theearly field who turns out also to be a most persistent scholar... " -- EarlyMusic

..". the book offers a vast quantity of data from awide range of sources.... George Houle is to be congratulated for his honestpresentation of the entire spectrum." -- Music EducatorsJournal

The treatment of meter in performance has evolveddramatically since 1600. Here is a practical guide for the performer, with manyquotations from early manuals and treatises, and abundant examples.

Mozart's enduring popularity, among music lovers as a composer and among music historians as a subject for continued study, lies at the heart of The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia. This reference book functions both as a starting point for information on specific works, people, places and concepts as well as a summation of current thinking about Mozart. The extended articles on genres reflect the latest in scholarship and new ways of thinking about the works while the articles on people and places provide historical framework, as well as interpretation. It also includes a series of thematic articles that cast a wide net over the eighteenth century and Mozart's relationship to it: these include Austria, Germany, aesthetics, travel, Enlightenment, Mozart as a reader and contemporaneous medicine, among others. The worklist provides the most up-to-date account in English of the authenticity and chronology of Mozart's compositions.

Each entry in this New Grove series of composers and their operas is based on articles in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, that feature information on the lives of individual composers, their works, their librettists and interpreters, and the places where they performed. These unique books compile the meticulously researched articles into organized narratives, designed to make finding information as easy as possible without sacrificing readability. Each volume is completely up-to-date, and includes a suggested listening guide and an eight-page glossy insert containing relevant illustrations. Each volume is a must-own for lovers of opera and classical music.
Giuseppe Verdi is the most famous Italian composer of opera. While he was sometimes criticized for writing music considered too "simple," his works have endured, and are still performed throughout the world today. This concise volume is a handy guide to the Verdi's life and operas, revising the original New Grove articles and adding a new introduction, a new section on modern Verdi productions, and an updated bibliography.

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has held musical audiences captive for close to two centuries. Few other musical works hold such a prominent place in the collective imagination; each generation rediscovers the work for itself and makes it its own. Honing in on the significance of the symphony in contemporary culture, this book establishes a dialog between Beethoven's world and ours, marked by the earthshattering events of 1789 and of 1989. In particular, this book outlines what is special about the Ninth in millennial culture. In the present day, music is encoded not only as score but also as digital technology. We encounter Beethoven 9 flashmobs, digitally reconstructed concert halls, globally synchonized performances, and other time-bending procedures. The digital artwork 9 Beet Stretch even presents the Ninth at glacial speed over twenty-four hours, challenges our understanding of the symphony, and encourages us to confront the temporal dimension of Beethoven's music. In the digital age, the Ninth emerges as a musical work that is recomposed and reshaped-and that is robust enough to live up to such treatment-continually adapting to a changing world with changing media.

This Companion provides an accessible and up-to-date introduction to the musical work and cultural world of Joseph Haydn. Readers will gain an understanding of the changing social, cultural, and political spheres in which Haydn studied, worked, and nurtured his creative talent. Distinguished contributors provide chapters on Haydn and his contemporaries, his working environments in Eisenstadt and Eszterhaza, his aesthetics, and address humour and exoticism in Haydn's oeuvre. Chapters on the reception of his music explore keyboard performance practices, Haydn's posthumous reputation, and recorded performances and images of his symphonies. The book also surveys the major genres in which Haydn wrote, including symphonies, string quartets, keyboard sonatas and trios, sacred music, miscellaneous vocal genres, and operas composed for Eszterhaza and London.

The Orchestral Revolution explores the changing listening culture of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Delving into Enlightenment philosophy, the nature of instruments, compositional practices and reception history, this book describes the birth of a new form of attention to sonority and uncovers the intimate relationship between the development of modern musical aesthetics and the emergence of orchestration. By focusing upon Joseph Haydn's innovative strategies of orchestration and tracing their reception and influence, Emily Dolan shows that the consolidation of the modern orchestra radically altered how people listened to and thought about the expressive capacity of instruments. The orchestra transformed from a mere gathering of instruments into an ideal community full of diverse, nuanced and expressive characters. In addressing this key moment in the history of music, Dolan demonstrates the importance of the materiality of sound in the formation of the modern musical artwork.

This guide to Mozart's two most popular piano concertos--the D minor, K. 466, and the C major, K. 467 (the so-called "Elvira Madigan")--presents the historical background of the works, placing them within the context of Mozart's compositional and performance activities at a time when his reputation as both composer and pianist was at its peak. The special nature of the concerto, as both a form and genre, is explored through a selective survey of some of the approaches that various critics have taken in discussing Mozart's concertos. The concluding chapter discusses a wide range of issues of interest to modern performers.

Beethoven's Third Symphony, originally entitled "Bonaparte", now bears the title "Eroica" ("Heroic"). Napoleon promised an Enlightened Europe but ultimately Beethoven was disillusioned by him. This handbook treats the politics, aesthetics, reception, and musical meaning of this decisive work, which, because of its unique design, powerfully expanded the potential of symphonic expression. Beethoven's ideals, derived largely from the writings of Friedrich Schiller and clearly perceived already by the composer's contemporaries, are readily apparent in the music.

Haydn's Symphonies Nos. 82-7 are seminal works in Haydn's output and mark a new level of compositional attainment, launching the important cycle of mature Haydn symphonies written for an international audience. This book considers both stylistic aspects of the symphonies and their broader cultural context, in particular the important phenomenon of Haydn's international success in the 1780s, the reception of Haydn's symphonies by Parisian audiences, and the aesthetic basis for their extraordinary appeal at the end of the eighteenth century.

Mozart was not only an extraordinary musical genius but a man who lived through the great change from the old society to the modern one in which we still live. He was one of the "new men" of the age--his music gives voice to anxieties and consolations that are still ours. This biography sets Mozart's life within the history of an age plunging into revolution and European war. Avoiding guesswork, it probes his crucial relationships with his father, his wife and his employer. It studies--in depth though in nontechnical language--characteristic examples of his music and asks what they can tell us about their author and ourselves.

This is the first individual study of Beethoven's Violin Concerto. It explores the work's background and the influences that combined in its creation, and describes its indifferent initial reception. It considers the numerous textual problems that confront the performer, including discussion of Beethoven's adaptation for piano and orchestra. Following a detailed synopsis of the work itself, a final section reviews the wide variety of cadenzas that have been written to complement the concerto throughout its performance history.

A leading cultural theorist and musicologist opens up new possibilities for understanding mainstream Western art music--the "classical" music composed between the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries that is, for many, losing both its prestige and its appeal. When this music is regarded esoterically, removed from real-world interests, it increasingly sounds more evasive than transcendent. Now Lawrence Kramer shows how classical music can take on new meaning and new life when approached from postmodernist standpoints. Kramer draws out the musical implications of contemporary efforts to understand reason, language, and subjectivity in relation to concrete human activities rather than to universal principles. Extending the rethinking of musical expression begun in his earlier Music as Cultural Practice, he regards music not only as an object that invites aesthetic reception but also as an activity that vitally shapes the personal, social, and cultural identities of its listeners. In language accessible to nonspecialists but informative to specialists, Kramer provides an original account of the postmodernist ethos, explains its relationship to music, and explores that relationship in a series of case studies ranging from Haydn and Mendelssohn to Ives and Ravel.

The universally acclaimed and award-winning Oxford History of Western Music is a magisterial five-volume survey of the traditions of Western music by one of the most prominent and provocative musicologists of our time, Richard Taruskin.
Now this renowned work is available in paperback--both as a set and (for the first time) individually. This volume examines the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, examining the music of such classical giants as Vivaldi, Handel, Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. Taking a critical perspective, Taruskin sets the details of music, the chronological sweep of figures, works, and musical ideas, within the larger context of world affairs and cultural history. He combines an emphasis on structure and form with a discussion of relevant theoretical concepts in each age, to illustrate how the music itself works, and how contemporaries heard and understood it. He also describes how the context of each stylistic period--key cultural, historical, social, economic, and scientific events--influenced and directed compositional choices.
Attractively illustrated and laced with brilliant observations, memorable musical analysis, and a panoramic sense of the interactions between history, culture, politics, art, literature, religion, and music, this volume is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand classical music.

This pathbreaking work reveals the pivotal role of music--musical works and musical culture--in debates about society, self, and culture that forged European modernity through the "long nineteenth century." Michael Steinberg argues that, from the late 1700s to the early 1900s, music not only reflected but also embodied modern subjectivity as it increasingly engaged and criticized old regimes of power, belief, and representation. His purview ranges from Mozart to Mahler, and from the sacred to the secular, including opera as well as symphonic and solo instrumental music.

Defining subjectivity as the experience rather than the position of the "I," Steinberg argues that music's embodiment of subjectivity involved its apparent capacity to "listen" to itself, its past, its desires. Nineteenth-century music, in particular music from a north German Protestant sphere, inspired introspection in a way that the music and art of previous periods, notably the Catholic baroque with its emphasis on the visual, did not.

The book analyzes musical subjectivity initially from Mozart through Mendelssohn, then seeks it, in its central chapter, in those aspects of Wagner that contradict his own ideological imperialism, before finally uncovering its survival in the post-Wagnerian recovery from musical and other ideologies.

Engagingly written yet theoretically sophisticated, "Listening to Reason" represents a startlingly original corrective to cultural history's long-standing inhibition to engage with music while presenting a powerful alternative vision of the modern.