The first-ever full-length biography in English of Engelbert
Humperdinck, composer of the opera Hansel und Gretel, examining the
rest of his substantial output in a historical framework which sets
him in the rich musical life of Wilhelmine Germany. Engelbert
Humperdinck's opera Hansel und Gretel is one of the best-known in
the repertoire, its melodies as familiar as folk-tunes - and yet no
full-length biography of Humperdinck (1854-1921) has ever been
published in English: although highly regarded a century ago, he
has since been overshadowed by the continued success of his own
fairy-tale creation. His other works remain essentially unknown,
but they include five additional operas, ten furtherstage works
(including music for four Shakespeare plays), pieces for orchestra
and for chorus, and many songs. This book sets a pioneering
examination of Humperdinck's entire output in a biographical
framework, with detailed, illustrated descriptions accompanied by
quotations from Humperdinck's contemporaries. Humperdinck was a
quintessential composer of the Germany of the Kaisers: his
maturation coincided with the establishment of the German
Empire,and his training with teachers who remembered Beethoven and
Schubert culminated in an apprenticeship with Richard Wagner. His
talents won him entry to the Bayreuth inner circle and to the home
of Johannes Brahms, and earned him areception with Kaiser Wilhelm
II and an evening in Theodore Roosevelt's White House. His friends
included Richard Strauss, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler, Giacomo Puccini
and Isadora Duncan. Kurt Weill, Leo Blech, and Hans Pfitzner were
among his hundreds of students. Humperdinck was a prolific writer,
too, and the detailed and candid letters and diary entries quoted
here provide an inside view of musical life in Wilhelmine Germany,
with its extraordinary number of theatres, orchestras, choral
societies, music publishers, journals and conservatoires, their
principal personalities generously illustrated in the pages of this
book. William Melton, born in Philadelphia in 1954, did hisgraduate
studies in music history at the University of California Los
Angeles and spent his career in the horn section of the Sinfonie
Orchester Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). In addition, he is a
contributor to The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia (2013) and the
author of The Wagner Tuba: A History (edition ebenos, Aachen,
2008). Further projects have included biographical essays on
lesser-known Romantics like Friedrich Klose, Henri Kling, Felix
Draeseke, and Friedrich Gernsheim, and he has researched and edited
the scores of the 'Forgotten Romantics' series for the publisher
edition ebenos.
General
Imprint: |
Toccata Press
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
June 2020 |
Authors: |
William Melton
|
Dimensions: |
240 x 160 x 33mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover - Cloth over boards
|
Pages: |
450 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-907689-92-8 |
Categories: |
Books >
Arts & Architecture >
Music >
General
Books >
Music >
General
|
LSN: |
0-907689-92-2 |
Barcode: |
9780907689928 |
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