An engaging window into a century of musical life, as seen in the history of the Pro Arte String Quartet, first organized in 1912 and still performing today. First organized in Brussels in 1912 by precocious young Belgian musicians, the Pro Arte String Quartet has survived two world wars and is still performing more than a century later -- a durability unique in the annals of such ensembles. Its membership has included such extraordinary musicians as founding first violinist Alphonse Onnou and his successor, Rudolf Kolisch. The Pro Arte was the first string quartet to be affiliated with an American university,a significant and much-imitated status, and the group continues to function in residence at the University of Wisconsin. This book traces the Pro Arte Quartet's history from its beginnings to the present, highlighted byportraits of the diverse, fascinating, and colorful personalities, musicians and others, who have been a part of that history. The phases of its repertoires are analyzed, and the legacy of its recordings, many of pioneering significance, is reviewed. As a whole, the volume offers a panoramic window into a century of musical life. John W. Barker is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Wagner and Venice (2008) and Wagner and Venice Fictionalized: Variations on a Theme (2012), both available from the University of Rochester Press.

Explores Wagner's lengthy stays in Venice, his death there, and the meaning of his works -- and his death -- for that great city and its mystique. Richard Wagner had a longstanding love affair with the city of Venice. His sudden death there in 1883 also initiated a process through which Wagner and his reputation were integrated into Venice's own cumulative cultural image. In Wagner and Venice, John Barker examines the connections between the great composer and the great city. The author traces patterns of Wagner's visits to Venice during his lifetime, considers what the city came to meanto Wagner, and investigates the details surrounding his death. Barker also examines how Venice viewed Wagner, by analyzing the landmark presentation of Wagner's Ring cycle two months after the composer's death, and by consideringVenice's subsequent extensive Wagner celebrations and commemorations. Throughout the volume, biographical detail from new and previously unavailable sources provides readers with a fresh interpretation of this seminal figure.Those already familiar with Wagner's life will find new information about, and insights into, the man and his career, while simultaneously discovering a neglected corner of Italian and Venetian cultural history. John W. Barker is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in Medieval (including Venetian) History. He is also a passionate music lover and record collector, and an active music critic and journalist.

The first account of how Wagner's last years and his death in Venice have been mythologized in novels and other works of the creative imagination. The vast literature about Richard Wagner and his works includes a surprising number of fictional works, including novels, plays, satires, and an opera. Many of these deal with his last years and his death in Venice in 1883 -- andeven a fabricated eleventh-hour romance. These fictional treatments -- many presented here in English for the first time -- reveal a striking evolution in the way that Wagner's character and reputation have been viewed over more than a century. They offer insights into changing contexts in Western intellectual and cultural history. And they make clear how much Wagner's associations with Venice have become part of the accumulated mythology of "thefloating city." John Barker's Wagner and Venice Fictionalized: Variations on a Theme will be of interest to all lovers of opera, Venice, and European culture generally. John W. Barker is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in medieval (including Venetian) history. He is also a passionate music lover and record collector, and an active music critic and journalist.