When Igor Stravinsky's ballet Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) premiered during the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, its avant-garde music and jarring choreography scandalized audiences. Today it is considered one of the most influential musical works of the twentieth century. In this volume, the ballet finally receives the full critical attention it deserves, as distinguished music and dance scholars discuss the meaning of the work and its far-reaching inf...

A new look at one of the most important composers of the twentith centuryStravinsky and His World brings together an international roster of scholars to explore fresh perspectives on the life and music of Igor Stravinsky. Situating Stravinsky in new intellectual and musical contexts, the essays in this volume shed valuable light on one of the most important composers of the twentieth century.Contributors examine Stravinsky's interaction with Spanis...

This "monumental" portrait of the man, his music, and the world in which he lived is "a truly remarkable biography" ( The Christian Science Monitor).Jan Swafford's biographies of Charles Ives and Johannes Brahms have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven, more than a decade in the making, peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathi...

'A glorious plum-pudding of a book, to be consulted, with pleasure and profit, over and over again' Sir Jeremy IsaacsMichael Steen's 'Great Composers' was originally published in 2003. A lifetime's work and almost 1000 pages long, it has since become 'the' reference point and key read on the biographical backgrounds to classical music's biggest names.Authoritative and hugely detailed - but nonetheless a joy to read - this new edition will expand its readershi...

A TIME Magazine Top 10 Nonfiction Book of 2012A New Yorker Best Book of the YearLos Angeles Magazine's #1 Music Book of the YearA unique and revelatory book of music history that examines in great depth what is perhaps the best-known and most-popular symphony ever written and its four-note opening, which has fascinated musicians, historians, and philosophers for the last two hundred years.Music critic Matthew Guerrie...

' Sometimes I liken the creative act to that of being a good gardener. The musical material itself, the harmonies, rhythms, the timbres and tempi, are seeds you have planted. Composing, bringing forth the final formal arrangement of these elements, is often a business of watching them grow, knowing when to nourish and water them and when to prune and weed.'A book unlike anything ever written by a composer, part memoir and part description of the creative process, Halle...

J. S. Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin have been central to the violin repertoire since the mid-eighteenth century. This engaging volume is the first comprehensive exploration of the place of these works within Bach's music: it focuses on their structural and stylistic features as they have been perceived since their creation. Joel Lester, a highly regarded scholar, teacher, violinist, and administrator, combines an analytical study, a full historical guide, and an insightful in...

18 November, 1741. George Frideric Handel, one of the world's greatest composers, arrives in Dublin – the second city of the Empire – to prepare his masterpiece, Messiah, for its maiden performance the following spring …In Hallelujah, Jonathan Bardon, one of Ireland's leading historians, explores the remarkable circumstances surrounding the first performance of Handel's now iconic oratorio in Dublin, providing a panoramic view of a city in flux – at once struggling to contain the chaos unl...

Aspects of beauty in the music of MozartIt is a common article of faith that Mozart composed the most beautiful music we can know. But few of us ask why. Why does the beautiful in Mozart stand apart, as though untouched by human hands? At the same time, why does it inspire intimacy rather than distant admiration, love rather than awe? And how does Mozart's music create and sustain its buoyant and ever-renewable effects? In Mozart's Grace, Scott Burnham pro...

The Faber Pocket Guide to Handel offers a detailed but accessible exploration of George Frederick Handel, his composition, and his legacy. A larger-than-life figure in his time, Handel's reputation has been less than steady since his death in 1759. Was he (in the words of Berlioz) just 'a great barrel of pork and beer', or (as Handel himself claimed) truly 'the master of us all'? Now, more than 250 years after his death, there is more interest in Handel than ever before, with his ...

'Idiosyncratic, humorous, enlightening and written by one of the finest conductors alive ... This is the book to buy if you are going to see Wagner or listen to him at home' LITERARY REVIEWOver a distinguished career conducting some of the world's finest orchestras, Christian Thielemann has earned a reputation as the leading modern interpreter of Richard Wagner. MY LIFE WITH WAGNER chronicles his ardent personal and professional e...

Bach & God explores the religious character of Bach's vocal and instrumental music in seven interrelated essays. Noted musicologist Michael Marissen offers wide-ranging interpretive insights from careful biblical and theological scrutiny of the librettos. Yet he also shows how Bach's pitches, rhythms, and tone colors can make contributions to a work's plausible meanings that go beyond setting texts in an aesthetically satisfying manner. In some of Bach's vocal repertory, the music...