Composers Books - Page 12

Puccini Without Excuses: A Refreshing Reassessment of the World's Most Popular Composer

William Berger

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Puccini is the most beloved composer of opera in the world: one quarter of all opera performances in the U.S. are of his operas, his music pervades movie soundtracks, and his plots have infiltrated our popular culture. But, although Puccini’s art still captivates audiences and the popularity of such works as Tosca, La Boh?me, and Madama Butterfly has never waned, he has long been a victim of critical snobbery and cultural marginalization.
In this witty and informative guide for beginners and fans alike, William Berger sets the record straight, reclaiming Puccini as a serious artist. Combining his trademark irreverent humor with passionate enthusiasm, Berger strikes just the right balance of introductory information and thought-provoking analysis. He includes a biography, discussions of each opera, a glossary, fun facts and anecdotes, and above all keen insight into Puccini’s enduring power. For anyone who loves Puccini and for anyone who just wonders what all the fuss is about, Puccini Without Excuses is funny, challenging, and always a pleasure to read.

INCLUDES:
_ Why Puccini’s art and its message of hope is crucial to our world today
_ How Anglo audiences often miss the mythic significance of his operas
_ The use of his music as shorthand in films, from A Room with a View to Fatal Attraction
_ A scene-by scene analysis of each opera
_ A guide to the wealth of available recordings, books, and videos

The Beethoven Quartets

Joseph Kerman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Not for someone who has not had formal training in music 5 out of 5 stars.
40 of 49 people found this review helpful.

I am unqualified to write a review of this highly acclaimed book, because I am neither a musicologist nor a student of music.

If you have training in music, please ignore this review. I give it 5 stars merely because it is highly acclaimed.

I'm writing this mostly because it is not mentioned here on Amazon, or elsewhere, what the book consists of, and whether "casual listeners" can read it. The answer is "no".

I purchased this book because I love the late quartets intensely, and I was looking for something that would be a pleasure to read, and something that might deepen my understanding of the quartets (especially the late quartets).

I found that I could not comprehend more than a few sentences in the entire book. Almost nothing is said about the non-musicological aspects of the quartets; nothing that evokes wonder or inerest - for the casual listener, of course. Although I would not use the word "casual" to describe myself as a listener - I've been listening to the quartets for more than a decade now, and find something new every time - it remains that without formal training, this book is entirely incomprehensible. It is a series of technical analyses, and might as well have been written in Japanese as far as I am concerned.

If you're like me - someone who loves the quartets but does not have a formal grounding in music - this book is not for you. Read Sullivan's "Beethoven" if you haven't read it already.

Rachmaninoff: Life, Works, Recordings

Max Harrison

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Rachmaninoff Revisited 5 out of 5 stars.
18 of 18 people found this review helpful.

Harrison's book is brilliant. Since my first exposure to Rachmaninoff's music, I have been a collector of recordings of his music, the scores, and the composer's own recordings. Having read just about everything written about the composer, including the biographies written by Bertensson and Leyda, Bazhanov, Haylock, Lyle, Martyn et al, I came away from Harrison's book with a fresh image of the composer. It was one of those books that one reads looking forward to each page and almost dreading that the book, as did the composer's life, would end too soon.

Harrison clearly knows the music and all of the recordings. While he obviously places great value in the music, he is not unconditional in his appreciation. He provides a highly informed contemporary critical perspective and places the music within the context of the composer's life. It is the sort of writing that can be appreciated by an informed musician and musicologist, while also being understood and valued by the informed listener.

As I read the book I found myself returning to the Rachmaninoff operas, works which I had not really valued as much until reading Harrison's discussions.

I came away from my reading with a renewed appreciation for the music and recordings of this man who gave us all so much with his creative expression.

Editorial Review:

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) is now widely regarded as one of the greatest 20th-century composers and pianists. In this illuminating and accessible biography, Max Harrison covers the span of Rachmaninoff's life, taking in his career as composer, pianist and conductor, offering full analyses of his scores and a uniquely detailed treatment of his 1919-1942 recordings. A fascinating account of the man, his life and work, this book sheds much new light on its subject and the ways that Rachmaninoff was viewed during his own time and beyond.

The World of Villa-Lobos in Pictures and Documents

Lisa Margaret Peppercorn

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Georges Bizet: Carmen (Cambridge Opera Handbooks)

Susan McClary

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Race, Gender, and Class are not far from 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 8 people found this review helpful.

many audiences when viewing Carmen in various art forms(movies, TV,plays,opera) and in various settings. In order to understand what Bizet's Carmen was all about, we need to read and understand France's history toward its southern neighbors and the metropoles as well as its superiority and contempt the country have toward them, which continues today.

Carmen has been called many things by many people. She's been called animalistic, loose woman, tramp, predator as well as worse things that I wouldn't say, read, or print.

As for gender, French society in the 19th century experienced an upheaval in which women fought equal rights for themselves. That threatened middle class French men, who are already threatened by the demands of the working and lower classes who only wanted to better themselves and to participate in French political and social life just like their upper class counterparts.

Also, the influx of immigrants to France also upset many of its inhabitants, then and now.

Carmen exemplifies all the social disorders French society wants to control through repressive laws and customs during the course of the nineteenth century.

When the opera first premiered in 1875, it was denounced as immoral and superficial, not fit for women and families attending the opera. However, as decaded gone by, many people are attracted to the play and some artists were influenced by it. John Singer Sargent was one such person. His Spanish and flamenco paintings were partially influenced by the plain. "Carmela Bertagna", "El Jaleo", and "The Spanish Dance" are such examples.

Also, Carmen exudes strong sensuality, which was a no-no in French bourgeois society, which tried to assert itself by being the arbiter of morality. Case in point: The outrage over Manet's painting of a courtesan in 1865. Carmen elicit the same outrage in 1875 because of her strong sensuality and assertiveness. Even today, the double standard is still in operation, punishing women for being agressive, while praising the same in men.

Editorial Review:

Bizet's Carmen is probably the best known opera of the standard repertoire, yet its very familiarity often prevents us from approaching it with the seriousness it deserves. This Handbook explores the opera in a number of contexts, bringing to the surface the controversies over gender, race, class and musical propriety. After a study of Mérimée's story Carmen by Peter Robinson, Susan McClary examines the social tensions in nineteenth-century France that inform both that story and the opera, and traces the opera through its genesis and reception. The Handbook concludes with discussions of four films based on the opera. The volume contains a bibliography, music examples, and a synopsis and will be of interest to students, scholars, and operagoers.

Beethoven: Impressions by His Contemporaries

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Interesting but ultimately not very revealing 3 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

This nice little book presents us with a collection of writings on Beethoven by Beethoven's contemporaries. Among these one finds prominent musicians such as C.M.v. Weber, Gioacchino Rossini and even the very young Franz Liszt, great performers, close friends (e.g. Ferdinand Ries) and short-term visitors. Some of the encounters are well documented, whether some are somewhat controversial - such as the encounters with Bettina Brentano-von Arnim (as described in her letters to Goethe). Some of the material in this book is directly taken from Thayer's, and some of it from other sources. The documents shed light on the "visible" aspects of Beethoven the man, the composer and the performer. The writing, of course, is very subjective, however there's enough material through which one can construct a (very partial) view of Beethoven's personality. What one can not find in this book is a window to the mind of the creative genius that Beethoven was. Yes, some evidence is given as to the practical aspects of his writing - the famous notebook and the walks in the woods and so on, but for all the information given by these observers - the great riddle of how does the creative mind transform scattered musical ideas into a masterpiece - well, that will remain a mistery. Nevertheless - there's enough interesting information (in addition to the repetitive descriptions of the messy room and the harsh manners etc.) to make this book a reccomendable addendum to the library of whoever is interested in Beethoven and his work.

Editorial Review:

Letters, diaries, memoirs, etc., by Rossini, Weber, Liszt, friends, depict accomplishments, strange personality. Includes 16 illustrations.

Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography

Harlow Robinson

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Well worth reading 5 out of 5 stars.
15 of 15 people found this review helpful.

Harlow Robinson's book is excellent; well worth reading. He strikes the right balance between the composer's personal charateristics and the body of his musical creation. The book is rich in detail, yet to-the-point; it is objective, yet reflects the complexity of this sometimes very unpleasant genius. It is perfectly comprehensible for the interested non-expert who has invested a good deal of time listening to Prokofiev's music, and seeing his movies, ballets and operas. As a Russian speaker familiar with every day speech and everyday life in the Soviet Union, I can say that Mr Robinson has a keen understanding of that culture, right down to having a very fine ear for transliterations. The composer is the Beethoven of the twentieth century: the one who has created the musical language which is so much a part of us that we take it for granted. Robinson brings us the man and the mind behind that language.

Editorial Review:

The prolific creator of such classic popular works as Romeo and Juliet, Peter and the Wolf, and Cinderella, Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) was one of the most important and influential composers of the twentieth century. In this definitive biography of Prokofiev, Harlow Robinson provides a richly detailed portrait of a man whose complex character, like his music, combined the traditional and the contemporary in odd and unexpected ways.

Drawing on unprecedented access to previously unknown or unavailable Russian-language sources, including extensive archival material, Robinson traces Prokofiev's extraordinary life from the fairy-tale world of Czarist Russia, through his many years abroad in America and Europe, to his perlexing permanent return to Moscow in 1936 under the Soviet Regime. That Prokofiev died on the very day as Josef Stalin, his principal persecutor, was the final irony of his intense and enigmatic career.

An Autobiography

Igor Stravinsky

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

What a delightful way for any music lover to learn about the first half of Stravinsky's great career. 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

It is always interesting when a great artist communicates with us about their life and art. However, like most of us, they tend to try and put events and ideas in the best possible light. So, it is for later scholars to come along, dig deeper, and get things right. And the history of artists talking about art has proven that what they say about what they do is seldom as useful as the work itself. As Hemingway noted in "Death in the Afternoon", it is always a mistake to meet the author.

And yet it is often most interesting. Stravinsky wrote this in 1934 when he was in his early fifties. The book covers the his life from his childhood to that time and his compositions through the Duo Concertant, Concerto for Violin, and Persephone. Of course, he could not have expected all the music and the direction still in his future. His Symphony in C, the Symphony in Three Movements, The Rake's Progress, and so much more through the Requiem Canticles were all in the future. Who could have expected the horrors of the Second World War at that time? So, it is an interesting document from that point of view because of the way that time was viewed as the context for the past. Nowadays, we would reconstruct everything differently because of what we know of those subsequent years.

Not only is it most useful to know the way his compositions came about (to the extent these anecdotes are accurate), but his views on Beethoven, composition, executants versus interpreters, musical form, and the great artistic personalities he met and knew and worked with along the way. Now, in order to understand Stravinsky's comments about music's inability to communicate anything we have to keep in mind the times. Remember, this was the time when the public lived for Wagner's lietmotive and Richard Strauss's "Ein Heldenleben" (A Hero's Life) and the autobiographical "Symphonia domestica" in which he tried to use music to communicate events from daily life. This was not the art Stravinsky was interested in. And because his music was so different than the nineteenth century musical traditions, it is understandable that his views of how his music should be played free of that tradition make a great deal of sense. His music is much more familiar to us than to his contemporaries, however his rather strident comments about merely executing his music and recreating his recordings is still a cause for great debate in musical circles. Myself, I think we can be informed by his comments and the recordings, and they should carry a great deal of weight, but music requires artistry not merely craftsmanship in the hands of its "executants". Stravinsky's views on the false notion of making Art a substitute for religion are most interesting. He also has a compelling argument why one cannot treat religion and faith critically (as in intellectual analysis) because criticism involves rejection of this or that and that is not faith.

This is a very interesting book and has great historical importance. However, it is also an interesting read for the general music lover. It is a great way to get some context for the first half of Stravinsky's very wonderful and important career.

Editorial Review:

While many hundred thousands of pages have been written about Stravinsky, in this book-the composer's first-we hear from the man himself. An Autobiography chronicles the first half-century of Stravinsky's life, all the while offering his opinions and "abhorrences." A Parsifal performance at Bayreuth? "At the end of a quarter of an hour I could bear no more." Nijinsky? "The poor boy knew nothing of music." Spanish folk music? "Endless preliminary chords of guitar playing."

Mozart: His Character, His Work (Galaxy Books)

Alfred Einstein

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

One of the essentials in Mozartian scholarship. 5 out of 5 stars.
22 of 22 people found this review helpful.

One should be fairly familiar with the life of Mozart before embarking on this book. Full of technical insights, it gives the reader some idea of what was going on in the composer's mind. Chapters which talk about Mozart's compositional influences and the factors which helped cultivate his musical consciousness are particularly informative. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is rather familiar with the story of the man and wants to understand why he was so great.

Essential, but slanted. 3 out of 5 stars.
7 of 19 people found this review helpful.

For anyone seriously interested in the life and work of Mozart, this is a must read. One must keep in mind, though, that the author is wandering out, lost, in left field sometimes when attempting to capture a real human: a slightly mythic presentation still.

Editorial Review:

Written by one of the world's outstanding music historians and critics, the late Alfred Einstein, this classic study of Mozart's character and works brings to light many new facts about his relationship with his family, his susceptibility to ambitious women, and his associations with musical contemporaries, as well as offering a penetrating analysis of his operas, piano music, chamber music, and symphonies.

Conducting Beethoven: Volume 1: The Symphonies

Norman Del Mar

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A must have for any student of Beethoven Symphonies 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

English Conductor and teacher Norman Del Mar provides a detailed and enlightening approach to to the conducting student of Beethoven Symphonies. Modelled on Felix Weingartner's book of the same title, Del Mar provides through his countless experience insights and pointers to any hopeful would be conductors. All the traps concerning the performance of these symphonies, including structure, tempi, balance, orchestration, phrasing and articulation are all discussed. Humorous anecdotes are also included. Any student of conducting, or student of Beethoven must have this book, in as much as a guide to how Beethoven Symphonies were performed in the 1940's.

Editorial Review:

This is an essential guide for students of the nine Beethoven symphonies and a starting-point for young conductors. Drawing on his lifelong experience of conducting these works, Del Mar offers an analysis of the music's structure, pointing out key events in the score and offering advice on how to achieve the desired effect. He also compares variant readings in the different editions and further traces the development of Beethoven's style and that of the symphony over the 24 years of their composition.