Classical Opera category: 1804 books

Mendelssohn and the Organ is the first comprehensive historical-critical study in any language to examine the role of the organ in Mendelssohn's personal and professional career. It examines his entire oeuvre for the instrument, including the Berlin-Krakow manuscripts, and presents for the first time Mendelssohn's complete correspondence with his English publisher, Charles Coventry.

Why 1853? For many leading composers this year brought far-reaching changes to their lives: Brahms emerged from obscurity to celebrity, Schumann ceased to be an active composer, and both Berlioz and Wagner became active again after long silences. By limiting the perspective to a single year yet extending...

Before the nineteenth century, instrumental music was considered inferior to vocal music. Kant described wordless music as "more pleasure than culture," and Rousseau dismissed it for its inability to convey concepts. But by the early 1800s, a dramatic shift was under way. Purely instrumental...

Edited by Konraad Wolff Translated by Paul Rosenfeld With twenty black-and-white illustrations Schumann’s literary gifts and interests almost equaled his musical ones.  From boyhood on he was drawn to literary expression, and his writings on music belong to the best among the romantic literature...

Ir has been said that no music amplifies the french ideals of precision and good taste better than the work of Maurice Ravel, yet his background could scarecly have been more cosmopolitan. The son of a Swiss father and a Basque mother, he was born near St. Jean de Luz in 1875; he died in Paris at...

The Time by the Sea is about Ronald Blythe's life in Aldeburgh during the 1950s. He had originally come to the Suffolk coast as an aspiring young writer, but found himself drawn into Benjamin Britten's circle and began working for the Aldeburgh Festival. Although befriended by Imogen Holst and by...

If you can read musical notes, you can sing any song or play any piece. But musical notes have not always been here. Long ago, songs were memorized. If songs were forgotten, they were lost forever. Thanks to one man, Guido d’Arezzo, music now can last forever.

To the economist and ballet enthusiast John Maynard Keynes he was potentially the most brilliant man he'd ever met; to Dame Ninette de Valois he was the greatest ballet conductor and advisor this country has ever had; to the composer Denis ApIvor he was the greatest, most lovable, and most entertaining...

To the economist and ballet enthusiast John Maynard Keynes he was potentially the most brilliant man he'd ever met; to Dame Ninette de Valois he was the greatest ballet conductor and advisor this country has ever had; to the composer Denis ApIvor he was the greatest, most lovable, and most entertaining...

The music critic Felix Aprahamian (1914-2005) was a remarkable self-made man whose enormous influence in musical circles was deeply founded in his practical experience of promoting music in London, notably British and French composers. Early on he became interested in the organ and was soon corresponding...

Drawing on many archival findings, this book considers the emerging function and status of orchestral conductors in Britain, and the nature of the opportunities available to them, from the late Victorian era until the outbreak of World War I. It does so by examining and comparing the profiles and...

Beginning pianists of all ages will cherish this excellent compilation of piano classics. Many of the greatest composers — J. S. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt — are represented by several pieces each, some newly adapted for the piano. Popular works include the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Claire de Lune, and Pictures at an Exhibition.

This exclusive folio presents 20 of Ludovico Einaudi’s most popular piano works in special arrangements matched to the grade criteria of the major examination boards. Designed as a progressive course for beginner players, Einaudi’s pieces have been adapted to make them accessible to students,...

This exclusive folio presents 20 of Ludovico Einaudi’s most popular piano works in special arrangements matched to the grade criteria of the major examination boards. Designed as a progressive course for intermediate players, Einaudi’s pieces have been adapted to make them accessible to students,...