Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements
Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements

Author: Anthony Burgess

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2014-10-13

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 0393350169

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Anthony Burgess draws on his love of music and history in this novel he called “elephantine fun” to write. A grand and affectionate tragicomic symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte that teases and reweaves Napoleon’s life into a pattern borrowed—in liberty, equality, and fraternity—from Beethoven’s Third “Eroica” Symphony, in this rich, exciting, bawdy, and funny novel Anthony Burgess has pulled out all the stops for a virtuoso performance that is literary, historical, and musical.

The First Four Notes
The First Four Notes

Author: Matthew Guerrieri

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2014-03-04

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 0804170193

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A TIME Magazine Top 10 Nonfiction Book of 2012 A New Yorker Best Book of the Year Los Angeles Magazine's #1 Music Book of the Year This revelatory book of music history examines what is perhaps the best known and most-popular symphony ever written—and its famous four-note opening. Reaching back before Beethoven’s time, Matthew Guerrieri uncovers premonitions of the opening notes in the rhythms of ancient Greek poetry and the music of the French Revolution. He discusses the Fifth’s impact when it premiered, tracing the artistic, philosophical, and political reverberations across Europe to China, Russia, and the United States, from Romanticism to ring tones, from propaganda to pop. This fascinating piece of musical detective work is a treat for music lovers of every stripe.

The Ninth
The Ninth

Author: Harvey Sachs

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks

Published: 2011-11-08

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0812969073

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The premier of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Vienna on May 7, 1824, was the most significant artistic event of the year—and the work remains one of the most precedent-shattering and influential compositions in the history of music. Described in vibrant detail by eminent musicologist Harvey Sachs, this symbol of freedom and joy was so unorthodox that it amazed and confused listeners at its unveiling—yet it became a standard for subsequent generations of creative artists, and its composer came to embody the Romantic cult of genius. In this unconventional, provocative book, Beethoven’s masterwork becomes a prism through which we may view the politics, aesthetics, and overall climate of the era. Part biography, part history, part memoir, The Ninth brilliantly explores the intricacies of Beethoven’s last symphony—how it brought forth the power of the individual while celebrating the collective spirit of humanity.

Music in the Words
Music in the Words

Author: Alan Frederick Shockley

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 9780754661993

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Can a novel follow the form of a symphony and still succeed as a novel? Can musical counterpoint be mimicked by words on a page? Alan Shockley begins looking for answers by examining music's appeal for novelists and exploring two brief works, a prose fugue by Douglas Hofstadter, and a short story by Anthony Burgess modeled after a Mozart symphony. Analyses of three large, emblematic attempts at musical writing follow along with discussions on two recent brief novels. From the perspective of a composer, Shockley offers the reader fresh tools for approaching these dense and often daunting texts.

Music in the Words: Musical Form and Counterpoint in the Twentieth-Century Novel
Music in the Words: Musical Form and Counterpoint in the Twentieth-Century Novel

Author: Alan Shockley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1351557297

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There is a strong tradition of literary analyses of the musical artwork. Simply put, all musicology - any writing about music - is an attempt at making analogies between what happens within the world of sound and language itself. This study considers this analogy from the opposite perspective: authors attempting to structure words using musical forms and techniques. It's a viewpoint much more rarely explored, and none of the extant studies of novelists' musical techniques have been done by musicians. Can a novel follow the form of a symphony and still succeed as a novel? Can musical counterpoint be mimicked by words on a page? Alan Shockley begins looking for answers by examining music's appeal for novelists, and then explores two brief works, a prose fugue by Douglas Hofstadter, and a short story by Anthony Burgess modeled after a Mozart symphony. Analyses of three large, emblematic attempts at musical writing follow. The much debated 'Sirens' episode of James Joyce's Ulysses, which the author famously likened to a fugue, Burgess' largely ignored Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements, patterned on Beethoven's Eroica, and Joyce's Finnegans Wake, which Shockley examines as an attempt at composing a fully musicalized language. After these three larger analyses, Shockley discusses two quite recent brief novels, William Gaddis' novella Agap gape and David Markson's This is not a novel, proposing that each of these confounding texts coheres elegantly when viewed as a musically-structured work. From the perspective of a composer, Shockley offers the reader fresh tools for approaching these dense and often daunting texts.

New York
New York

Author: Anthony Burgess

Publisher:

Published: 1976

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13:

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Discusses the history of New York City and describes the city, its people and their way of life today.

Anthony Burgess and France
Anthony Burgess and France

Author: Marc Jeannin

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2017-05-11

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1443891517

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Celebrating the centenary of Anthony Burgess’s birth, this book reveals the true relation that the British author had with France. It brings together a collection of papers by a selected group of academics who explore the sizeable French literary and musical heritage that inspired Burgess in his creations and adaptations. It shows that the portrait of Anthony Burgess would be incomplete if the importance and influence of French literary and musical works on his career are not considered. Adopting a multifaceted approach, the book includes numerous in-depth analyses of Anthony Burgess’s works in reference to famous French writers, such as Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Lévi-Strauss, Molière, and Rostand, and French composers, including Berlioz, Bizet, Boulez, Debussy, Ravel, and Saint-Saëns. These artists, indeed French culture in general, left a profound and indelible mark on Anthony Burgess.

The Cambridge Companion to the Eroica Symphony
The Cambridge Companion to the Eroica Symphony

Author: Nancy November

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-06-25

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1108529860

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This Companion provides orientation for those embarking on the study of Beethoven's much-discussed Eroica Symphony, as well as providing fresh insights that will appeal to scholars, performers and listeners more generally. The book addresses the symphony in three thematic sections, on genesis, analysis and reception history, and covers key topics including political context, dedication, sources of the Symphony's inspiration, 'heroism' and the idea of a 'watershed' work. Critical studies of writings and analyses from Beethoven's day to ours are included, as well as a range of other relevant responses to the work, including compositions, recordings, images and film. The Companion draws on previous literature but also illuminates the work from new angles, based on new evidence and a range of approaches by twelve leading scholars in Beethoven research.

Bonaparte
Bonaparte

Author: Patrice Gueniffey

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2015-04-13

Total Pages: 1037

ISBN-13: 0674368355

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Patrice Gueniffey, the leading French historian of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic age, takes up the epic narrative at the heart of this turbulent period: the life of Napoleon himself, from his boyhood in Corsica, to his meteoric rise during the Italian and Egyptian campaigns, to his proclamation as Consul for Life in 1802.