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Author: Daniel Heartz
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2009
Total Pages: 876
ISBN-13: 9780393066340
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA vivid portrait of Mozart and Haydn's greatest achievements and young Beethoven's works under their influence.
Author: Jan Swafford
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-12-08
Total Pages: 832
ISBN-13: 0062433598
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom 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 hilarious. He went at every piece of his life, and perhaps most notably his social life, with tremendous gusto. His circle of friends and patrons was wide, encompassing anyone who appealed to his boundless appetites for music and all things pleasurable and fun. Mozart was known to be an inexplicable force of nature who could rise from a luminous improvisation at the keyboard to a leap over the furniture. He was forever drumming on things, tapping his feet, jabbering away, but who could grasp your hand and look at you with a profound, searching, and melancholy look in his blue eyes. Even in company there was often an air about Mozart of being not quite there. It was as if he lived onstage and off simultaneously, a character in life’s tragicomedy but also outside of it watching, studying, gathering material for the fabric of his art. Like Jan Swafford’s biographies Beethoven and Johannes Brahms, Mozart is the complete exhumation of a genius in his life and ours: a man who would enrich the world with his talent for centuries to come and who would immeasurably shape classical music. As Swafford reveals, it’s nearly impossible to understand classical music’s origins and indeed its evolutions, as well as the Baroque period, without studying the man himself.
Author: The History Hour
Publisher: Greatest People
Published: 2019-02-18
Total Pages: 214
ISBN-13: 9781797451107
DOWNLOAD EBOOKProbably the most naturally gifted musician the world has ever known, Mozart began his career early as a child prodigy. By the age five, he was already proficient on the violin, the harpsichord and piano keyboard, and had begun composing music that had integrity. He was a showman as well, according to contemporary documents, and charmed many of the crowned heads of Europe with his performance and his manner.Inside you'll read aboutEarly Years of ProdigyThe Grand Tour 1763-66Setbacks and Success in ViennaThe Solo Trip to ItalySalzburg to ViennaAugsburg, Mannheim, Paris, and MunichMunich and IdomeneoAnd much more!Unlike other child prodigies though, Mozart developed gradually into a mature musician, composing operas, concertos, forty-one symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas, and many other kinds of music. Although he died when he was only thirty-five years old, he is still one of the most prolific composers who ever lived.***Ludwig van Beethoven is a crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Classical music. Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and by composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe.Inside you'll read aboutBackground and early lifeEstablishing his career in ViennaMusical maturityLoss of hearingPatronageMiddle periodPersonal and family difficultiesLate worksIllness and deathAnd much more!At the age of 21, he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn and gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. He lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life, he was almost completely deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose; many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life.
Author: Charles Rosen
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 1997
Total Pages: 564
ISBN-13: 9780393040203
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPresents a detailed analysis of the musical styles and forms developed by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven.
Author: Glenn Stanley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2000-05-11
Total Pages: 268
ISBN-13: 1107494044
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis Companion, first published in 2000, provides a comprehensive view of Beethoven and his work. The first part of the book presents the composer as a private individual, as a professional, and at the work-place, discussing biographical problems, Beethoven's professional activities when not composing and his methods as a composer. In the heart of the book, individual chapters are devoted to all the major genres cultivated by Beethoven and to the elements of style and structure that cross all genres. The book concludes by looking at the ways that Beethoven and his music have been interpreted by performers, writers on music, and in the arts, literature, and philosophy. The essays in this volume, written by leading Beethoven specialists, maintain traditional emphases in Beethoven studies while incorporating other developments in musicology and theory.
Author: Philip G. Downs
Publisher: W W Norton & Company Incorporated
Published: 1992
Total Pages: 697
ISBN-13: 9780393951912
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHe demonstrates the enormous diversity and constant change that characterized every aspect of music during this period. By dividing his text into twenty-year spans, Downs is able to trace the development of musical style. Within each span he looks at the social conditions and daily life of the musician, and the aesthetics and audience preferences in structures, performing combinations and styles. The lesser composers, or Kleinmeister, are observed, since they are the most accurate mirrors of their times. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven receive full biographical scrutiny at each stage of their development. Copious music examples and abundant illustrations are also provided.
Author: William E. Caplin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2000-12-28
Total Pages: 320
ISBN-13: 0199881758
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBuilding on ideas first advanced by Arnold Schoenberg and later developed by Erwin Ratz, this book introduces a new theory of form for instrumental music in the classical style. The theory provides a broad set of principles and a comprehensive methodology for the analysis of classical form, from individual ideas, phrases, and themes to the large-scale organization of complete movements. It emphasizes the notion of formal function, that is, the specific role a given formal unit plays in the structural organization of a classical work.
Author: Martin Nedbal
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2016-09-13
Total Pages: 260
ISBN-13: 1317094093
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book explores how the Enlightenment aesthetics of theater as a moral institution influenced cultural politics and operatic developments in Vienna between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Moralistic viewpoints were particularly important in eighteenth-century debates about German national theater. In Vienna, the idea that vernacular theater should cultivate the moral sensibilities of its German-speaking audiences became prominent during the reign of Empress Maria Theresa, when advocates of German plays and operas attempted to deflect the imperial government from supporting exclusively French and Italian theatrical performances. Morality continued to be a dominant aspect of Viennese operatic culture in the following decades, as critics, state officials, librettists, and composers (including Gluck, Mozart, and Beethoven) attempted to establish and define German national opera. Viennese concepts of operatic didacticism and national identity in theater further transformed in response to the crisis of Emperor Joseph II’s reform movement, the revolutionary ideas spreading from France, and the war efforts in facing Napoleonic aggression. The imperial government promoted good morals in theatrical performances through the institution of theater censorship, and German-opera authors cultivated intensely didactic works (such as Die Zauberflöte and Fidelio) that eventually became the cornerstones for later developments of German culture.
Author: John Suchet
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Published: 2013-12-02
Total Pages: 321
ISBN-13: 0802192912
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“An ideal ‘first book’ on Beethoven” from one of the world’s most eminent classical music aficionados (Booklist). Beethoven scholar and classical radio host John Suchet has had a lifelong, ardent interest in the man and his music. Here, in his first full-length biography, Suchet illuminates the composer’s difficult childhood, his struggle to maintain friendships and romances, his ungovernable temper, his obsessive efforts to control his nephew’s life, and the excruciating decline of his hearing. This absorbing narrative provides a comprehensive account of a momentous life, as it takes the reader on a journey from the composer’s birth in Bonn to his death in Vienna. Chronicling the landmark events in Beethoven’s career—from his competitive encounters with Mozart to the circumstances surrounding the creation of the well-known “Für Elise” and Moonlight Sonata—this book enhances understanding of the composer’s character, inspiring a deeper appreciation for his work. Beethoven scholarship is constantly evolving, and Suchet draws on the latest research, using rare source material (some of which has never before been published in English) to paint a complete and vivid portrait of the legendary prodigy. “A gripping and thought-provoking read.” —Howard Shelley, pianist and conductor “By exercising a genuine authority in identifying how Beethoven, the man, manifests himself in our appreciation of the music, Suchet brings an incisive freshness to an extraordinary life.” —Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Principal of the Royal Academy of Music
Author: Peter Kivy
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2008-10-01
Total Pages: 303
ISBN-13: 0300135114
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe concept of genius intrigues us. Artistic geniuses have something other people don’t have. In some cases that something seems to be a remarkable kind of inspiration that permits the artist to exceed his own abilities. It is as if the artist is suddenly possessed, as if some outside force flows through him at the moment of creation. In other cases genius seems best explained as a natural gift. The artist is the possessor of an extra talent that enables the production of masterpiece after masterpiece. This book explores the concept of artistic genius and how it came to be symbolized by three great composers of the modern era: Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven. Peter Kivy, a leading thinker in musical aesthetics, delineates the two concepts of genius that were already well formed in the ancient world. Kivy then develops the argument that these concepts have alternately held sway in Western thought since the beginning of the eighteenth century. He explores why this pendulum swing from the concept of the possessor to the concept of the possessed has occurred and how the concepts were given philosophical reformulations as views toward Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven as geniuses changed in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.
