In the years approaching the centenary of Mahler's death, this book provides both summation of, and starting point for, an assessment and reassessment of the composer's output and creative activity. Authored by a collection of leading specialists in Mahler scholarship, its opening chapters place the composer in socio-political and cultural contexts, and discuss his work in light of developments in the aesthetics of musical meaning. Part II examines from a variety of analytical, interpretative and critical standpoints the complete range of his output, from early student works and unfinished fragments to the sketches and performing versions of the Tenth Symphony. Part III evaluates Mahler's role as interpreter of his own and other composers' works during his lifelong career as operatic and orchestral conductor. Part IV addresses Mahler's fluctuating reception history from scholarly, journalistic, creative, public and commercial perspectives, with special attention being paid to his compositional legacy.

Combining musical insight with the most recent research, William Kinderman's Beethoven is both a richly drawn portrait of the man and a guide to his music. Kinderman traces the composer's intellectual and musical development from the early works written in Bonn to the Ninth Symphony and the late quartets, looking at compositions from different and original perspectives that show Beethoven's art as a union of sensuous and rational, of expression and structure. In analyses of individual pieces, Kinderman shows that the deepening of Beethoven's musical thought was a continuous process over decades of his life. In this new updated edition, Kinderman gives more attention to the composer's early chamber music, his songs, his opera Fidelio, and to a number of often-neglected works of the composer's later years and fascinating projects left incomplete. A revised view emerges from this of Beethoven's aesthetics and the musical meaning of his works. Rather than the conventional image of a heroic and tormented figure, Kinderman provides a more complex, more fully rounded account of the composer. Although Beethoven's deafness and his other personal crises are addressed, together with this ever-increasing commitment to his art, so too are the lighter aspects of his personality: his humor, his love of puns, his great delight in juxtaposing the exalted and the commonplace.

Schumann's Late Style is the first study in English devoted to Robert Schumann's little-known music from the 1850s. The reason most often given for these works having been considered lesser achievements than the earlier song and piano cycles is that Schumann's mental illness had a detrimental effect on his compositions. However, this study demonstrates that there were several other, still more complex, reasons why the music from the 1850s sounded different. Schumann had started to compose 'in a new manner', depending more on preliminary sketches; he also began to write for larger forces (orchestra and chorus), which required a more 'public' style of music, as is also apparent in his works on nationalist themes, and in his more commercial pieces for children. This book thus attempts to disentangle assumptions about Schumann's late style from biographical interpretations, and to consider it in broader artistic, social and cultural contexts.

This second anthology of Russian writing on Russian music begins in 1880 (where the first volume concluded) and ends in 1917. It brings the thoughts of leading Russian music critics to an English-speaking readership as they react to the Russian music that is new to them, during a period when all aspects of musical life were developing rapidly. Music criticism had become more sure-footed, if no less opinionated. These reviews demonstrate greater awareness both of music history and of contemporary music abroad. The period covers the late careers of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov as well as late works by Borodin and Balakirev, and the emergence of Mussorgsky's compositions. Works by the intervening generation, including Arensky, Glazunov and Lyadov, are also reviewed and the book concludes with coverage of works by the Moscow School, including Medtner, Rachmaninoff and Skryabin and the early compositions of Stravinsky and Prokoviev.

A characteristic feature of Wagnerian and post-Wagnerian opera is the tendency to link scenes with numerous and often surprisingly lengthy orchestral interludes, frequently performed with the curtain closed. Often taken for granted or treated as a filler by audiences and critics, these interludes can take on very prominent roles, representing dream sequences, journeys and sexual encounters, and in some cases becoming a highlight of the opera. Christopher Morris investigates the implications of these important but strangely overlooked passages. Combining close readings of individual musical texts with an investigation of the critical discourse surrounding the operas, Morris shows how the interludes shed light not only on the representational and narrative capacities of the orchestra, but also on the supposed 'absolute' realm of instrumental music, a concept to which many critics appealed when they associated the interludes with 'purely musical' and 'symphonic' qualities.

This book is about three sets of etudes by Liszt: the Etude en douze exercices (1826), its reworking as Douzes grandes etudes (1837), and their reworking as Douzes etudes d'execution transcendante (1851). At the same time it is a book about nineteenth-century instrumental music in general, in that the three works invite the exploration of features characteristic of the early Romantic era in music. These include: a composer-performer culture, the concept of virtuosity, the significance of recomposition, music and the poetic, and the consolidation of a musical work-concept. A central concern is to illuminate the relationship between the work-concept and a performance- and genre-orientated musical culture. At the same time the book reflects on how we might make judgements of the 'Transcendentals', of the Symphonic Poem Mazeppa (based on the fourth etude), and of Liszt's music in general.

Berlioz's Orchestration Treatise is a classic textbook which has been used as a guide to orchestration and as a source book for the understanding both of Berlioz's music and of orchestral practice in the nineteenth century. This was the first English translation of Berlioz's complete text since 1856, and it is accompanied throughout by Hugh Macdonald's extensive and authoritative commentary on the instruments of Berlioz's time and on his own orchestral practice, as revealed in his scores. It also includes extracts from Berlioz's writings on instruments in his Memoirs and in his many articles for the Parisian press. The Treatise has been highly valued both for its technical information about instruments but also for its poetic and visionary approach to the art of instrumentation. Berlioz was not only one of the great orchestrators of the nineteenth century, he was also the author with the clearest understanding of the art.

Tchaikovsky not only composed, he also wrote about music. This substantial anthology of Russian writing on Russian music features the most influential critics of music in nineteenth-century Russia. They wrote on the first two generations of Russian composers from Glinka to Musorgsky, Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. The volume reveals through contemporary Russian eyes how the foundations of the hugely popular Russian classical repertory were laid, providing a vivid picture of the musical life of the opera house and the concert hall from which this repertory sprang. Featuring most extensively the critical writing of Odoyevsky, Serov, Cui and Laroche, the volume contains the first authoritative review of key works, such as Musorgsky's Boris Godunov, Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet and Rimsky-Korsakov's First Symphony.

This book is the first major publication devoted to the music of Janacek, now widely regarded as one of the most important composers of the early twentieth century. The essays, all by leading scholars, deal with a broad range of subjects relating to opera, symphonic poem, instrumental music, cultural context and reception. Some topics, such as the sources of Janacek's musical expressivity, questions of narrative, Janacek as musical analyst and Janacek as realist, are considered seriously for the first time, whilst other more conventional topics, such as 'speech melody' and Janacek's ethnographic activities, are reappraised. A transcription of Janacek's analytical study of 'Jeux de vagues' from Debussy's La mer is published for the first time, and this document is considered in the light of Janacek's theory of music as a whole and of the reception of La mer.

Wolf has been regarded as a composer who followed the style and aesthetics of Wagnerian music drama without question, while writing in a genre often seen as less challenging than the symphony or opera. This 1999 book re-examines the evidence concerning Wolf's responses to Wagner and Wagnerism and suggests ways in which he voiced his criticism through song, and his one completed opera Der Corregidor. This opens up insights into the kind of impact Wagner had on those following in his wake, and into the complexity and subtlety of the late nineteenth-century Lied. From this perspective, Wolf emerges as a persuasive and articulate figure of wide musical and artistic significance.

Schubert's Late Lieder is a study of selected songs for voice and piano composed by Schubert between 1822 and his death on 19 November 1828. Circa late 1822, Schubert was diagnosed with syphilis, and many of the songs discussed in this book were written under the seal of impending death. It is possible to locate in these songs a 'late song style', full of elegiac references to Schubert's other death-haunted works and marked by distinctive variation techniques. The songs on poems by Schubert's Austrian contemporaries are less well known than they should be, and yet the backdrop to these works is often fascinating. In this book, Susan Youens introduces the poets Matthaus von Collin, Johann Ladislaus Pyrker, Carl Gottfried Ritter von Leitner, Johann Anton Friedrich Reil, Franz von Schlechta, and Johann Gabriel Seidl and discusses Schubert's songs to their poetry, revealing much about the poet and about Austrian history and culture.

Brahms once complained that singers never performed his songs in the groups in which he had published them, which he likened to 'song bouquets'. Over a century later, many singers and musicologists continue to ignore Brahms's wishes and focus on the individual songs rather than the bouquet groups. This is the first detailed study of the implications of Brahms's comments. Following an examination of contemporary aesthetic and generic frameworks, the book traces Brahms's Lieder from their conception, to the arrangement into bouquets, to performance and reception, and examines the sometimes contradictory roles played by poet, composer, performer and recipient in creating coherence in song collections. An investigation of the graphic cycles of Max Klinger reveals a startling visual analogue of Brahms's conception of the song bouquet, and a final examination of the evidence of Brahms's aesthetic outlook reveals that his intentions may have been cyclic in more than one sense.

This second volume of Brahms studies contains twelve contributions by leading international authorities on various music. Like the preceding volume of the same title (edited by Robert Pascall), Michael Musgrave's volume aims to provide original scholarly material on different facets of a major composer still inadequately discussed in book form and employs more precise methods of analysis and more critical approaches to materials then generally available in writings on Brahms in English. Half of the volume takes the music itself as focus, though from very different vantage points. There are two studies of a single opus (the two String Quartets Op. 51 Nos, 1 and 2), discussions of the Fourth Symphony and the motet 'Warum', and a view of Brahms's harmony. The underlying historical theme emerges more openly in an account of Brahms's interest in German Renaissance music. The remaining essays give details of the state of Brahms's unpublished compositions and arrangements at his death and the problematic disposal of his possessions (including musical ones), explore his own attitude to his historical position, and outline the reception of his music in Germany and, to begin with, in England.

Julian Budden, one of the world's foremost scholars of Italian opera and author of a monumental three-volume study of Verdi's works, now offers music lovers a major new biography of one of the giants of Italian opera, Giacomo Puccini.
Blending astute musical analysis with a colorful account of Puccini's life, here is an illuminating look at some of the most popular operas in the repertoire, including Manon Lescaut, La Boheme, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot. Budden provides an illuminating look at the process of putting an opera together, the cut-and-slash of nineteenth-century Italian opera--the struggle to find the right performers for the debut of La Boheme, Puccini's anxiety about completing Turandot (he in fact died of cancer before he did so), his animosity toward his rival Leoncavallo (whom he called Leonasino or "lion-ass"). Budden provides an informative analysis of the operas themselves, examining the music act by act. He highlights, among other things, the influence of Wagner on Puccini--alone among his Italian contemporaries, Puccini followed Wagner's example in bringing the motif into the forefront of his narrative, sometimes voicing the singer's unexpressed thoughts, sometimes sending out a signal to the audience of which the character is unaware. And Budden also paints an intriguing portrait of Puccini the man--talented but modest, a man who had friends from every walk of life: shopkeepers, priests, wealthy landowners, fellow artists. Affable, well mannered, gifted with a broad sense of fun, he rarely failed to charm all who met him.
A new volume in the esteemed Master Musicians series, Puccini offers a masterful portrait of this beloved Italian composer.

Once tainted by association with Hitler and Nazism, Richard Wagner's work has experienced an international cultural renaissance in the last 25 years. His magnum opus, ""Der Ring des Nibelungen"", which took him over 20 years to finish, is a complex tale with themes of greed, corruption and loss, spun out in more than 16 hours of powerfully moving opera. This book, with provocative essays for both the uninitiated and the seasoned fan, examines Wagner's Ring cycle from a wide array of modern perspectives. Divided into six parts, this anthology first offers a foundation for the ""Ring"", with a chronology and an introduction, along with a look at Wagner as an enterprising marketer. Part Two explores different interpretations of the ""Ring"", with reference to politics, romanticism and international inspirations. Part Three studies the complex relationship between Wagner's ""Ring"" and Germany, with a summary of the opera's influence on German culture and a discussion of its Munich premiere. Part Four offers a production history, including studies of the ""Ring's"" effects in America and its influence on world literature. Part Five provides a technical examination of language in the ""Ring"", as well as an interview with the famous Wagnerian soprano Jane Eaglen. The book concludes with an essay on the trouble with Wagnerian opera and an overview of the recorded ""Ring"" on disc, video and print.

Hundreds of the letters that Gustav Mahler addressed to his parents and siblings survive, yet they have remained virtually unknown. Now, for the first time Mahler scholar Stephen McClatchie presents over 500 of these letters in a clear, lively translation in The Mahler Family Letters. Drawn primarily from the Mahler-Rose Collection at the University of Western Ontario, the volume presents a complete, well-rounded view of the family's correspondence.
Spanning the mid 1880s through 1910, the letters record the excitement of a young man with a bourgeoning career as a conductor and provide a glimpse into his day-to-day activities rehearsing and conducting operas and concerts in Budapeast and Hamburg, and composing his first symphonies and songs. On the private side, they document his parents' illnesses and deaths and the struggles of his siblings Alois, Justine, Otto, and Emma. The letters also give Mahler's insightful impressions of contemporaries such as Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss, and Hans von Bulow, as well as his personal feelings about significant events, such as his first big success--the completion of Carl Maria von Weber's Die drei Pintos in 1889. In the fall of 1894, the character of the letters changes when Justine and Emma come to live with Mahler in Hamburg and then Vienna, removing the need to communicate by letter about quotidian matters. At this point, the letters relay noteworthy events such as Mahler's campaign to be named Director of the Vienna Court Opera, his conducting tours throughout Europe, and his courtship of Alma Schindler.
The Mahler Family Letters provides a vital, nuanced source of information about Mahler's life, his personality, and hisrelationships. McClatchie has generously annotated each letter, contextualizing and clarifying contemporary historical references and Mahler family acquaintances, and created an indispensable resource for all Mahlerists, 19th-century musicologists, and historians of 19th-century Germany and Austria.

Enrique Granados (1867-1916) is one of the most compelling figures of the late-Romantic period in music. During his return voyage to Spain after the premiere of his opera Goyescas at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 1916, a German submarine torpedoed the ship on which he and his wife were sailing, and they perished in the waters of the English Channel. His death was mourned on both sides of the Atlantic as a stunning loss to the music world, for he had died at the pinnacle of his career, and his late works held the promise of greater things to come.
Granados was among the leading pianists of his time, and his eloquence at the keyboard inspired critics to dub him the "poet of the piano." In Enrique Granados: Poet of the Piano, Walter Aaron Clark offers the first substantive study in English of this virtuoso pianist, composer, and music pedagogue. While providing detailed analyses of his major works for voice, piano, and the stage, Clark argues that Granados's art represented a unifying presence on the cultural landscape of Spain during a period of imperial decline, political unrest, and economic transformation. Drawing on newly discovered documents, Clark explores the cultural spheres in which Granados moved, particularly of Castile and Catalonia. Granados's best-known music was inspired by the art of Francisco Goya, especially the Goyescas suite for solo piano that became the basis for the opera. These pieces evoked the colorful and dramatic world that Goya inhabited and depicted in his art. Granados's fascination with Goya's Madrid set him apart from fellow nationalists Albeniz and Falla, who drew their principal inspiration from Andalusia. Though he was resolutely apolitical, Granados's attraction to Castile antagonized some Catalan nationalists, who resented Castilian domination. Yet Granados also made important contributions to Catalan musical theater and was a prominent figure in the modernist movement in Barcelona.
Clark also explores the personal pressures that shaped Granados's music. His passionate affair with a wealthy socialite created domestic tensions, but it was also a source of inspiration for Goyescas. Persistent financial difficulties forced him to devote time to teaching at the expense of composition, though as a result Granados made considerable contributions to piano pedagogy and music education in Barcelona through the music academy he founded there.
While Granados's tragic and early demise casts a pall over his life story, Clark ultimately reveals an artist of remarkable versatility and individuality and sheds new light on his enduring significance.

This is the first book-length study of the rich operatic repertory written and performed in France during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Steven Huebner gives an accessible and colorful account of such operatic favorites as Manon and Werther by Massenet, Louise by Charpentier, and lesser-known gems such as Chabrier's Le Roi malgr lui and Chausson's Le Roi Arthus.

"This book is a substantial and timely contribution to Brahms studies. Its strategy is to focus on a single critical work, the C-Minor Piano Quartet, analyzing and interpreting it in great detail, but also using it as a stepping-stone to connect it to other central Brahms works in order to reach a new understanding of the composer s technical language and expressive intent. It is an original and worthy contribution on the music of a major composer." Patrick McCreless

Expressive Forms in Brahms s Instrumental Music integrates a wide variety of analytical methods into a broader study of theoretical approaches, using a single work by Brahms as a case study. On the basis of his findings, Smith considers how Brahms s approach in this piano quartet informs analyses of similar works by Brahms as well as by Beethoven and Mozart.

Musical Meaning and Interpretation Robert S. Hatten, editor"

Georges Barrere (1876-1944) holds a preeminent place in the history of American flute playing. Best known for two of the landmark works that were written for him--the Poem of Charles Tomlinson Griffes and Density 21.5 by Edgard Varese--he was the most prominent early exemplar of the Paris Conservatoire tradition in the United States and set a new standard for American woodwind performance.
Barrere's story is a musical tale of two cities, and this book uses his life as a window onto musical life in Belle Epoque Paris and twentieth-century New York. Recurrent themes are the interactions of composers and performers; the promotion of new music; the management, personnel, and repertoire of symphony orchestras; the economic and social status of the orchestral and solo musician, including the increasing power of musicians' unions; the role of patronage, particularly women patrons; and the growth of chamber music as a professional performance medium.
A student of Paul Taffanel at the Paris Conservatoire, by age eighteen Barrere premiered the landmark Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. He went on to become solo flutist of the Concerts Colonne and to found the Societe Moderne d'Instruments a Vent, a pioneering woodwind ensemble that premiered 61 works for 40 composers in its first ten years. Invited by Walter Damrosch to become principal flute of the New York Symphony in 1905, he founded the woodwind department at the Institute of Musical Art (later Juilliard). His many ensembles toured the United States, building new audiences for chamber music and promoting French repertoire as well as new American music. Toff narrates Barrere's relationships with the finest musicians and artists ofhis day, among them Isadora Duncan, Yvette Guilbert, Andre Caplet, Paul Hindemith, Albert Roussel, Wallingford Riegger, and Henry Brant. The appendices of the book, which list his 170 premieres and the 50 works dedicated to Barrere, are a resource for a new generation of performers.
Based on extensive archival research and oral histories in both France and the United States, this is the first biography of Barrere. It is being published in conjunction with the centennial of his arrival in the United States in May 1905.

The French flute player and conductor Paul Taffanel (1844-1908) was an extraordinary virtuoso and a major figure in fin de siecle Parisian musical life. Based on a treasure trove of private documents of Taffanel's previously unpublished letters and papers, Taffanel: Genius of the Flute recounts the rich story of his multi-faceted career as a player, conductor, composer, teacher, and leader of musical organizations.
As a player, Taffanel had a rare vision of the flute as a serious, expressive instrument and is credited with re-establishing it in the mainstream of music. He was also an inspiring teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, to whom many modern flutists can trace their roots. In 1879, Taffanel founded the Societe de musique de chambre pour instruments a vent (Society of Chamber Music for Wind Instruments), reviving the wind ensemble music of Mozart and Beethoven, and breaking the dominance of piano and strings in recital and chamber music. From 1890, he served as chief conductor at the Paris Opera and the Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire (Paris Conservatory Orchestra)--the first time a flutist, rather than a string player, had been appointed to such key positions.
Edward Blakeman expertly places these and many other elements of Taffanel's story in the rich political and cultural backdrop of the time, evoking Conservatoire intrigues, the Societe des concerts, and Taffanel's relationships with various musicians and major composers. Blakeman details the circumstances surrounding landmark commissions, performances, and repertoire, and weaves the details from Taffanel's correspondence with first-person interviews and flute lore. What emerges is a portrait of an all-around musician who was also a modest and genial man."

"No one knows more about Franz Liszt than Alan Walker." Malcolm Bowie, Times Literary SupplementIn a series of lively essays that tell us much not only about the phenomenon that was Franz Liszt but also about the musical and cultural life of nineteenth-century Europe, Alan Walker muses on aspects of Liszt's life and work that he was unable to explore in his acclaimed three-volume biography of the great composer and pianist. Topics include Liszt's contributions to the Lied, the lifelong impact of his encounter with Beethoven, his influence on students who became famous in their own right, his accomplishments in transcribing and editing the works of other composers, and his innovative piano technique. One chapter is devoted to the Sonata in B Minor, perhaps Liszt's single most celebrated composition.Walker draws heavily on Liszt's astonishingly large personal correspondence with other composers, critics, pianists, and prominent public figures. All the essays reveal Walker's broad and deep knowledge of Liszt and Romantic music generally and, in some cases, his impatience with contemporary performance practice."

The French flute player and conductor Paul Taffanel (1844-1908) was an extraordinary virtuoso and a major figure in fin-de-siecle Parisian musical life. Based on a treasure trove of private documents of Taffanel's previously unpublished letters and papers, Taffanel: Genius of the Flute
recounts the rich story of his multi-faceted career as a player, conductor, composer, teacher, and leader of musical organizations.
As a player, Taffanel had a rare vision of the flute as a serious, expressive instrument and his name sits at the center of the extraordinary lineage of flutists. At a crucial moment in the flute's history -- after it had been completely remodeled by Theobald Boehm -- Taffanel had far-ranging
influence, creating the modern French school of playing which has since been widely adopted throughout the world, and re-establishing the instrument in the mainstream of music. Taffanel was also an inspiring teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, to whom many modern flutists can trace their roots.
Taffanel also pioneered a renaissance in playing and composing chamber music for wind instruments. He founded the Societe de musique de chambre pour instruments a vent (Society of Chamber Music for Wind Instruments) in 1879, reviving the wind ensemble music of Mozart and Beethoven, and stimulating
the composition of many new works, among them Gounod's Petite symphonie. The ensemble broke the dominance of piano and strings in recital and chamber music and fostered many of the canonic works in that repertoire.
Although foremost a flutist and teacher, Taffanel was also an important opera and orchestra conductor, virtually without rival in Paris. From 1890, he served as chiefconductor at the Paris Opera and the Society des concerts du Conservatoire (Paris Conservatory Orchestra) - the first time a flutist,
rather then a string player, had been appointed to such key positions. At the Opera he was charged with all new productions and gave notable French premieres of various Wagner operas and Verdi's Otello. At the Societe des concerts he championed contemporary French composers, particularly his great
friend Saint-Saens, and gave the world premiere of Verdi's Sacred Pieces.
Beyond his work as a performer, teacher and conductor, Taffanel was a fluent composer for the flute and wind quintet, a formidable administrator of several musical organizations, and was a major personality in Parisian musical life. Blakeman expertly places Taffanel's story in the rich political and
cultural backdrop of the time, evoking Conservatoire intrigues, the Societe des concerts, and Taffanel's relationships with various musicians and major composers. Blakeman details the circumstances surrounding landmark commissions, performances, and repertoire, and weaves the details from Taffanel's
correspondence with first-person interviews and flute lore. What emerges is a portrait of an all-round musician who was also a modest and genial man.

This resource is an interesting look at how European culture, particularly European music, related to the social and cultural experiences of the residents of ninteenth-century Rio de Janeiro. The focus is on how Cariocas (residents of Rio de Janeiro) responded to and often imitated different musical styles imported from Europe. After introducing the local musical setting and showing how musical life in imperial Rio de Janeiro reflected Parisian models, the author discusses the importation of operatic repertory, the use of German classical music as the basis of an elite social class, the role of European music in Brazilian theater, and finally, the emergence of a "national" music. Overall, this study reveals European music as a powerful force in the internal processes of political, cultural, social, and ethnic negotiations during the 19th century government of Emperor Pedro II. Musicologists, Latin American historians, and anyone with an interest in urban studies will find much of interest in this book.

This multidisciplinary collection addresses Chopin s life and oeuvre in various cultural contexts of his era. Fourteen original essays by internationally-known scholars suggest new connections between his compositions and the intellectual, literary, artistic, and musical environs of Warsaw and Paris. Individual essays consider representations of Chopin in the visual arts; reception in the United States and in Poland; analytical aspects of the mazurkas and waltzes; and political, literary, and gender aspects of Chopin s music and legacy. Several senior scholars represent the fields of American, Western European, and Polish history; Slavic literature; musicology; music theory; and art history."