A unique guide to enhance and enrich your enjoyment of classical music, this book is for music lovers who want to better understand the works of the masters.
This text provides the most comprehensive analytical approach to post-tonal music available, from Impressionism to recent trends. It covers music from the early 1900s through the present day, with discussion of such movements as Minimalism and the Neoromanticism, and includes chapters on rhythm, form, electronic and computer music, and the roles of chance and choice in post-tonal music. Chapter-end exercises involve drills, analysis, composition, as well as several listening assignments.
"Sviatoslav Richter was a dazzling performer but an intensely private man. Though world famous and revered by classical music lovers everywhere, he guarded himself and his thoughts as carefully as his talent. Fascinated, author and filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon tried vainly for years to interview the enigmatic pianist. Richter eventually yielded, granting Monsaingeon hours of taped conversation, unlimited access to his diaries and notebooks, and, ultimately his friendship. This book is the product of that friendship. It offers readers the sizable pleasure of lingering in the thoughts and words of one of the most important pianists of the twentieth century. Sviatoslav Richter belongs on the shelves of everyone with a classical music collection and will also appeal to lovers of autobiography and admirers of Russian musical culture." -- Back cover
This book is the monograph of Ukrainian-Russian Classical / Jazz composer Nikolai Kapustin. It grew out of meetings and conversations between the author and the composer. It aims to introduce the fascinating world of this modern day leading composer to a wider audience.