Classical category: 3244 books

Scholars have long recognized Carl Maria von Weber as the father of the German Romantic and Nationalist music. The success of his opera Der Freischütz almost single handedly brought German operatic style onto the world stage, competing with and challenging established operatic traditions in France...

Joseph Haydn is one of the greatest and most innovative of all composers, yet in some ways he is still curiously misunderstood. This engaging new Pocket Guide assesses what Haydn's music means to us today, and challenges some of the myths that have grown up around the composer. With suggestions for further...

Haydn was among the first great composers whose fame in his own lifetime endured after his death. While he is loved for a handful of popular, tuneful symphonies and the oratorio The Creation, the broader scope of Haydns musical achievements and his fascinating life have been overshadowed by the prodigious...

An intimate, moving, dramatic story about the musicians in a great orchestra who make music come alive in performance and recording. The musicians here are members of the fabled Boston Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Seiji Ozawa, during a season highlighted by Mahler’s Second Symphony, The Resurrection.

During the 1930s Arturo Toscanini conducted many concerts broadcast by the BBC from London's Queen's Hall, where he also made some unsurpassed recordings. Drawing on newly researched material in British and American archives, Christopher Dyment reveals how the most renowned and influential conductor...

A memoir of the London Symphony Orchestra on tour in the U.S. and beyond, focusing on their historical first visit to America in 1912 when they were due to sail on the Titanic, and their most recent travels Gareth Davies, principal flautist at the London Symphont Orchestra (LSO), tells the...

The Orchestra: A Very Short Introduction considers the structure, roots, and day-to-day functioning of the modern philharmonic society. Far from an anachronistic organization that cannot long survive, it is shown to be powerful political and social force, occupying critical positions in cultural diplomacy, national identity, and civic pride.

First published in 1906. 32 illustrations. Chapters cover: St. Cecilia, Palestrina, Lulli, Stradivarius, Tartini, Bach, Handel, Bluck, Mozart, Linley, Haydn, Web, Beethoven, Schubert, Rouget de Lisle, Paganini, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Meyerbeer, Wagner, and Liszt.

The first full biography of one of the greatest figures of eighteenth-century Europe, known in his time as the "Black Mozart" Virtually forgotten until now, his life is the stuff of legend. Born in 1739 in Guadeloupe to a slave mother and a French noble father, he became the finest...

Since time immemorial, the response of the living to death has been to commemorate the life of the departed through ceremonies and rituals. For nearly two millennia, the Christian quest for eternal peace has been expressed in a poetic-musical structure known as the requiem. Traditional requiem texts,...

This book is a collection of articles on Hindustani Music, put together expressly to introduce readers and music lovers to the magic of Hindustani music and the cultural context in which it is made. It contains description and analysis of vocal and instrumental styles, biographical sketches of great...

Richard Wagner remains, almost 130 years after his death, the most controversial composer in the history of music. Creator of huge and hugely ambitious operas, which have an immense immediate impact, as well as providing food for endless thought and discussion, Wagner has had an influence on many...

Over three decades Paul Griffiths's survey has remained the definitive study of music since the Second World War; this fully revised and updated edition re-establishes Modern Music and After as the preeminent introduction to the music of our time. The disruptions of the war and the struggles of the...