These three essential volumes on classical music theory and history explore the lives and contributions of some of music's greatest minds.In Legend of a Musical City: The Story of Vienna, renowned Austrian music critic Max Graf shares his recollections of life with Anton Bruckner, Gustav Mahler, Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, and other immortals of the music world. Bringing to life several iconic composers as well as the city of Vienn...

A personal history of the world capital of classical music, written by the renowned Viennese musicologist and author of Composer and Critic.Max Graf shares his recollections of life with Anton Bruckner, Gustav Mahler, Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, and other immortals of the music world. The influential musicologist, critic, and composer enjoyed intimate friendships with these men, who made musical history in his home city of Vienna.Br...

A fascinating book for any fan of classical music and the composers that have created some of the most marvelous symphonies, but how did certain people create these quantum leaps in music single handedly? With this classic text discover how people thought the mind of a musical genius worked.

Legend of a Musical City, first published in 1945, is a story of Vienna, musical center of the world.The Nestor of Austrian music critics relates in a fascinating manner his own recollections of life with Bruckner, Brahms, Richard Strauss, and other immortals in the music world. Author, Max Graf, who enjoyed intimate friendships with many of the musical stars of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, here gives a delightful as well as highly educational story of the development of ...

A preeminent composer, music scholar, and biographer presents an engaging and accessible introduction to classical musicFor many of us, classical music is something serious -- something we study in school, something played by cultivated musicians at fancy gatherings. In Language of the Spirit, renowned music scholar Jan Swafford argues that we have it all wrong: classical music has something for everyone and is accessible to all. Ranging from Gregorian cha...

A newbie's comprehensive guide to the joys of classical music, including introductions to forty of its greatest composers.Musical tastes may change, but the great classical composers maintain a devoted fan base—for centuries. For anyone who's interested in classical music but finds it a bit intimidating or confusing, passionate fan and former music-industry executive Ian Christians has developed a unique approach to the genre, designed to make it as easy as possibl...

Renowned for his literary style as well as his musical scholarship, Nicolas Slonimsky wrote many program notes and articles for newspapers and other periodicals, in addition to his well-known books. These shorter writings, edited by Slonimsky’s daughter, Electra Yourke, are collected for the first time in this excellent introduction to the classical repertoire, from Bach to Shostakovich. Arranged chronologically by composer, the chapters begin with biographical sketches and go on to descri...

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...

From the acclaimed composer and biographer Jan Swafford comes the definitive biography of one of the most lauded musical geniuses in history, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.At the earliest ages it was apparent that Wolfgang Mozart’s singular imagination was at work in every direction. He hated to be bored and hated to be idle, and through his life he responded to these threats with a repertoire of antidotes mental and physical. Whether in his rabidly obscene mode or not, Mozart was always...

Alfred Brendel, one of the greatest pianists of our time, is renowned for his masterly interpretations of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt, and has been credited with rescuing from oblivion the piano music of Schubert's last years. Far from having merely one string to his bow, however, Brendel is also one of the world's most remarkable writers on music - possessed of the rare ability to bring the clarity and originality of expression that characterised his performances to the p...

Some pieces of music survive. Most fall into oblivion. What gives the ten masterpieces selected for this book their exceptional vitality?In this penetrating volume, Harvey Sachs, acclaimed biographer and historian of classical music, takes readers into the hearts of ten extraordinary works of classical music in ten different genres, showing both the curious novice and the seasoned listener how to recognize, appreciate, and engage with these masterpieces on a histor...

Franz Schubert was born on January 31 1797 and lived in Vienna, the cultural hub of Europe at a time of continuous political and intellectual upheaval. Schubert himself, however, preferred a secluded existence in drawing-rooms and coffee houses with his literary and artistic friends. He did not have the advantages of an academic background or of rich patronage and consequently he was never well off and suffered great neglect in his lifetime. His health deteriorated and he died before his 3...