|
Books > Music > Western music, periods & styles > Classical music (c 1750 to c 1830)
Although best known as the sister of Felix Mendelssohn, Fanny
Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-47) was a virtuoso pianist and a composer
of considerable merit in her own right. Her oeuvre of more than 400
compositions remained largely unknown for more than a century after
her untimely death, and her newly rediscovered reputation as a
composer rests chiefly with her piano music. This volume is the
first American publication of her important early works. Reproduced
directly from rare first editions, its contents include "Vier
Lieder fur das Pianoforte, "Op. 2, Op. 6, and Op. 8, in addition to
two selections from S"ix Melodies pour le Piano," Op. 4 and Op. 5.
Introduction.
A new look at the life, times, and music of Polish composer and
piano virtuoso Fryderyk Chopin Fryderyk Chopin (1810-49), although
the most beloved of piano composers, remains a contradictory
figure, an artist of virtually universal appeal who preferred the
company of only a few sympathetic friends and listeners. Chopin and
His World reexamines Chopin and his music in light of the cultural
narratives formed during his lifetime. These include the
romanticism of the ailing spirit, tragically singing its death-song
as life ebbs; the Polish expatriate, helpless witness to the
martyrdom of his beloved homeland, exiled among friendly but
uncomprehending strangers; the sorcerer-bard of dream, memory, and
Gothic terror; and the pianist's pianist, shunning the appreciative
crowds yet composing and improvising idealized operas, scenes,
dances, and narratives in the shadow of virtuoso-idol Franz Liszt.
The international Chopin scholars gathered here demonstrate the
ways in which Chopin responded to and was understood to exemplify
these narratives, as an artist of his own time and one who
transcended it. This collection also offers recently rediscovered
artistic representations of his hands (with analysis), and--for the
first time in English--an extended tribute to Chopin published in
Poland upon his death and contemporary Polish writings
contextualizing Chopin's compositional strategies. The contributors
are Jonathan D. Bellman, Leon Botstein, Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger,
Halina Goldberg, Jeffrey Kallberg, David Kasunic, Anatole Leikin,
Eric McKee, James Parakilas, John Rink, and Sandra P. Rosenblum.
Contemporary documents by Karol Kurpi?ski, Adam Mickiewicz, and
Jozef Sikorski are included.
‘Love cannot express the idea of music, while music may give an idea of love.’ Romantic composer Hector Berlioz
Berlioz should know. He didn’t just hear the symphony when he fell in love with an Irish actress back in 1827, he wrote it.
What was love like for the people who could really feel that song coming on? Symphony of Seduction tells of the romantic misadventures, tragedies and occasional triumphs of some of classical music’s great composers, and traces the music that emerged as a result.
For the eccentric Erik Satie, love came just once – and even then, not for long. Robert Schumann had to take his future father-in-law to court to win the right to marry. Hector Berlioz planned to murder a two-timing fiancée while dressed in drag, and Richard Wagner turned the temptation of adultery into a stage work that changed the course of music while rupturing his own marriage. Debussy’s love triangle, Brahms’ love for the wife of his insane mentor – all find expression in works we now consider to be some of the summits of creative achievement.
Christopher Lawrence takes what we know about these love-crazed geniuses and adds a garnish of imagined pillow talk to recreate stories that are ultimately stranger than fiction – and come with a great soundtrack.
In Rethinking Schubert, today's leading Schubertians offer fresh
perspectives on the composer's importance and our perennial
fascination with him. Subjecting recurring issues in historical,
biographical and analytical research to renewed scrutiny, the
twenty-two chapters yield new insights into Schubert, his music,
his influence and his legacy, and broaden the interpretative
context for the music of his final years. With close attention to
matters of style, harmonic and formal analysis, and text setting,
the essays gathered here explore a significant portion of the
composer's extensive output across a range of genres. The most
readily explicable aspect of Schubert's appeal is undoubtedly our
continuing engagement with the songs. Schubert will always be the
first port of call for scholars interested in the relationship
between music and the poetic text, and several essays in Rethinking
Schubert offer welcome new inquiries into this subject. Yet perhaps
the most striking feature of modern scholarship is the new depth of
thought that attaches to the instrumental works. This music's
highly protracted dissemination has combined with a habitual
critical hostility to produce a reception history that is hardly
congenial to musical analysis. Empowered by the new momentum behind
theories of nineteenth-century harmony and form and
recently-published source materials, the sophisticated approaches
to the instrumental music in Rethinking Schubert show decisively
that it is no longer acceptable to posit Schubert's instrumental
forms as flawed lyric alternatives to Beethoven. What this volume
provides, then, is not only a fresh portrait of one of the most
loved composers of the nineteenth century but also a conspectus of
current Schubertian research. Whether perusing unknown repertoire
or refreshing canonical works, Rethinking Schubert reveals the
extraordinary methodological variety that is now available to
research, painting a portrait of Schubert that is vibrant, plural,
trans-national, and complex.
Over the past 30 years, musicologists have produced a remarkable
new body of research literature focusing on the lives and careers
of women composers in their socio-historical contexts. But detailed
analysis and discussion of the works created by these composers are
still extremely rare. This is particularly true in the domain of
music theory, where scholarly work continues to focus almost
exclusively on male composers. Moreover, while the number of
performances, broadcasts, and recordings of music by women has
unquestionably grown, these works remain significantly
underrepresented in comparison to music by male composers.
Addressing these deficits is not simply a matter of rectifying a
scholarly gender imbalance: the lack of knowledge surrounding the
music of female composers means that scholars, performers, and the
general public remain unfamiliar with a large body of exciting
repertoire. Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Concert
Music, 1960-2000 is the first to appear in a groundbreaking
four-volume series devoted to compositions by women across Western
art music history. Each chapter opens with a brief biographical
sketch of the composer before presenting an in-depth
critical-analytic exploration of a single representative
composition, linking analytical observations with questions of
meaning and sociohistorical context. Chapters are grouped
thematically by analytical approach into three sections, each of
which places the analytical methods used in the essays that follow
into the context of late twentieth-century ideas and trends.
Featuring rich analyses and critical discussions, many by leading
music theorists in the field, this collection brings to the fore
repertoire from a range of important composers, thereby enabling
further exploration by scholars, teachers, performers, and
listeners.
|
|