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**WINNER of Presto Books' Best Composer Biography** NINE WORKS OF
BEETHOVEN, NINE WINDOWS INTO THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF A MUSICAL
GENIUS. 'We are doubly blessed that Beethoven should have led such
an extraordinary life. Laura has combined the two - the genius of
his music and the richness of his experiences - to shine a
revealing light on our greatest composer' John Humphrys
_________________________ Ludwig van Beethoven: to some, simply the
greatest ever composer of Western classical music. Yet his life
remains shrouded in myths. In Beethoven, Oxford professor Laura
Tunbridge cuts through the noise. With each chapter focusing on a
period of his life, piece of music and revealing theme - from
family to friends, from heroism to liberty - she provides a rich
insight into the man and the music. Revealing a wealth of
never-before-seen material, this tour de force is a compelling,
accessible portrayal of one of the world's most creative minds and
it will transform how you listen for ever.
_________________________ 'Tunbridge has come up with the seemingly
impossible: a new way of approaching Beethoven's life and music . .
. profoundly original and hugely readable' John Suchet, author
Beethoven: The Man Revealed 'This well researched and accessible
book is a must read for all who seek to know more about the flesh
and blood tangible Beethoven.' John Clubbe, author of Beethoven:
The Relentless Revolutionary 'This book is really wonderful! ...
However many books on Beethoven you own, find the space for one
more. This one' Stephen Hough, pianist, composer, writer 'In a year
when everyone's looking for a new take on Beethoven, Laura
Tunbridge has found nine. Fresh and engaging' Norman Lebrecht,
author of Genius and Anxiety 'Remarkable . . . she captures the
essence of his genius and character. I'll always want to keep it in
easy reach' Julia Boyd, author of Travellers in the third Reich
A singer in an evening dress, a grand piano. A modest-sized
audience, mostly well-dressed and silver-haired, equipped with
translation booklets. A program consisting entirely of songs by one
or two composers. This is the way of the Lieder recital these days.
While it might seem that this style of performance is a
long-standing tradition, German Song Onstage demonstrates that it
is not. For much of the 19th century, the songs of Beethoven,
Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms were heard in the home, salon, and,
no less significantly, on the concert platform alongside orchestral
and choral works. A dedicated program was rare, a dedicated
audience even more so. The Lied was a genre with both more private
and more public associations than is commonly recalled. The
contributors to this volume explore a broad range of venues,
singers, and audiences in distinct places and time
periods-including the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia,
and Germany-from the mid-19th century through the early 20th
century. These historical case studies are set alongside
reflections from a selection of today's leading musicians, offering
insights on current Lied practices that will inform future
generations of performers, scholars, and connoisseurs. Together
these case studies unsettle narrow and elitist assumptions about
what it meant and still means to present German song onstage by
providing a transnational picture of historical Lieder performance,
and opening up discussions about the relationship between history
and performance today.
In New York and London during World War I, the performance of
lieder--German art songs--was roundly prohibited, representing as
they did the music and language of the enemy. But as German
musicians returned to the transatlantic circuit in the 1920s, so
too did the songs of Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolf, and Richard
Strauss. Lieder were encountered in a variety of venues and
media--at luxury hotels and on ocean liners, in vaudeville
productions and at Carnegie Hall, and on gramophone recordings,
radio broadcasts, and films. Laura Tunbridge explores the renewed
vitality of this refugee musical form between the world wars,
offering a fresh perspective on a period that was pervaded by
anxieties of displacement. Through richly varied case studies,
Singing in the Age of Anxiety traces how lieder were circulated,
presented, and consumed in metropolitan contexts, shedding new
light on how music facilitated unlikely crossings of nationalist
and internationalist ideologies during the interwar period.
This book challenges the assumption that Franz Schubert
(1797-1828), best known for the lyricism of his songs, symphonies
and chamber music, lacked comparable talent for drama. It is
commonly assumed that Franz Schubert (1797-1828), best known for
the lyricism of his songs, symphonies, and chamber music, lacked
comparable talent for drama. Challenging this view, Drama in the
Music of Franz Schubert provides a timely re-evaluation of
Schubert's operatic works, while demonstrating previously
unsuspected locations of dramatic innovation in his vocal and
instrumental music. The volume draws on a range of critical
approaches and techniques, including semiotics, topic theory,
literary criticism, narratology, and Schenkerian analysis, to
situate Schubertian drama within its musical and
cultural-historical context. In so doing, the study broadens the
boundaries of what might be considered 'dramatic' within the
composer's music and offers new perspectives for its analysis and
interpretation. Drama in the Music of Franz Schubert will be of
interest to musicologists, music theorists, composers, and
performers, as well as scholars working in cultural studies,
theatre, and aesthetics. JOE DAVIES is College Lecturer in Music at
Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. JAMES WILLIAM SOBASKIE is
Associate Professor of Music at Mississippi State University.
Contributors: Brian Black, Lorraine Byrne Bodley, Joe Davies,
Xavier Hascher, Marjorie Hirsch, Anne Hyland, Christine Martin,
Clive McClelland, James William Sobaskie, Lauri Suurpaa, Laura
Tunbridge, Susan Wollenberg, Susan Youens
A singer in an evening dress, a grand piano. A modest-sized
audience, mostly well-dressed and silver-haired, equipped with
translation booklets. A program consisting entirely of songs by one
or two composers. This is the way of the Lieder recital these days.
While it might seem that this style of performance is a
long-standing tradition, German Song Onstage demonstrates that it
is not. For much of the 19th century, the songs of Beethoven,
Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms were heard in the home, salon, and,
no less significantly, on the concert platform alongside orchestral
and choral works. A dedicated program was rare, a dedicated
audience even more so. The Lied was a genre with both more private
and more public associations than is commonly recalled. The
contributors to this volume explore a broad range of venues,
singers, and audiences in distinct places and time
periods-including the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia,
and Germany-from the mid-19th century through the early 20th
century. These historical case studies are set alongside
reflections from a selection of today's leading musicians, offering
insights on current Lied practices that will inform future
generations of performers, scholars, and connoisseurs. Together
these case studies unsettle narrow and elitist assumptions about
what it meant and still means to present German song onstage by
providing a transnational picture of historical Lieder performance,
and opening up discussions about the relationship between history
and performance today.
Schumann's Late Style is devoted to the study of 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.
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.
A provocative re-examination of a major romantic composer,
Rethinking Schumann provides fresh approaches to Schumann's oeuvre
and its reception from the perspectives of literature, visual arts,
cultural history, performance studies, dance, and film.
Traditionally, research has focused on biographical links between
the composer and his music, encouraging the assumption that
Schumann was solitary, divorced from reality, and frequently
associated with "untimeliness." These eighteen new essays argue
from a multitude of perspectives that Schumann was in fact very
much a man of his time, informed not only by music but also the
culture and society around him. The book further reveals that the
composer's reputation has been shaped significantly by, for
example, changes in attitudes towards German romanticism and its
history, and recent developments in musical scholarship and
performance. Rethinking Schumann takes into account cultural and
social-institutional frameworks, engages with ongoing and new
issues of reception and historiography, and offers fresh
music-analytical insights. As a whole, the essays assemble a
portrait of the artist that reflects the different ways in which
Schumann has been understood and misunderstood over the past two
hundred years. The volume is, in short, a timely reassessment of
this ultimately non-untimely figure's legacy.
While the essays consider some of Schumann's most famous music
(Dichterliebe, Kinderszenen and the Piano Quintet), they also
provide crucial adjustment to judgments against the composer's
later works by explaining their musical features not as the result
of diminishing creative capacity but as reflections of the
political and social situations of mid-nineteenth-century German
culture and technological developments. Schumann is revealed to
have been a musician engaged by and responsive to his surroundings,
whose reputation was formed to a great extent by popular culture,
both in his own lifetime as he responded to particular poets and
painters, and later, as his life and works were responded to by
subsequent generations.
The song cycle was one of the most important musical genres of the
nineteenth century. Famous examples by Schubert, Schumann and
Mahler have received a great deal of attention. Yet many other
cycles - by equally famous composers, from the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries - have not. The Song Cycle introduces key
concepts and a broad repertoire by tracing a history of the genre
from Beethoven through to the present day. It explores how song
cycles reflect the world around them and how national traditions
and social relationships are represented in composers' choice of
texts and musical styles. Tunbridge investigates how other types of
music have influenced the scope of the song cycle, from operas and
symphonies to popular song. A lively and engaging guide to this
important topic, the book outlines how performance practices, from
concert customs to new recording technologies, have changed the way
we listen.
The song cycle was one of the most important musical genres of the
nineteenth century. Famous examples by Schubert, Schumann and
Mahler have received a great deal of attention. Yet many other
cycles - by equally famous composers, from the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries - have not. The Song Cycle introduces key
concepts and a broad repertoire by tracing a history of the genre
from Beethoven through to the present day. It explores how song
cycles reflect the world around them and how national traditions
and social relationships are represented in composers' choice of
texts and musical styles. Tunbridge investigates how other types of
music have influenced the scope of the song cycle, from operas and
symphonies to popular song. A lively and engaging guide to this
important topic, the book outlines how performance practices, from
concert customs to new recording technologies, have changed the way
we listen.
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