This is a biographical account of the lives of 25 of the world's best known classical composers. The book was written in 1922 so does not include modern composers. It's original intended readership was young music students, but the author herself acknowledges that it could appeal to a wider audience.
An engaging introduction to 22 of the world's greatest musicians, highlighting their struggles and triumphs, beginning in boyhood and lasting until the end of their days. Much emphasis is placed on the ways they learned their craft, whether at a father's knee, by copying musical scores, or in company of great masters who had gone before. Their travels and greatest successes are recounted in detail, making the musicians and their works all the more memorable for the youthful reader.
Discover little-known stories from music history—including murder, riots, and heartbreak—in this entertaining tour through the fascinating (and surprising) lives of classical music masters With outrageous anecdotes about everyone from Gioachino Rossini (draft-dodging womanizer) to Johann Sebastian Bach (jailbird) to Richard Wagner (alleged cross-dresser), Secret Lives of Great Composers recounts the seamy, steamy, and gritty history behind the great masters of international music. Here, you’ll learn that Edward Elgar dabbled with explosives; that John Cage was obsessed with fungus; that Berlioz plotted murder; and that Giacomo Puccini stole his church’s organ pipes and sold them as scrap metal so he could buy cigarettes. This is one music history lesson you’ll never forget!
His principal works are studied in chronological order, with interspersed biographical chapters covering his varied activities, his years spent in Italy and Denmark, his relationships with leading musicians and patrons, the problems presented by the Thirty Years War, and the machinations of court life. One of the greatest creative figures of his time, Schutz emerges as a giant amongst his lesser contemporaries. This book will bring him and his work to a new and international audience."--Jacket.
My story -- Why do we play? -- Beyond limited goals -- Fear, the mind and the ego -- Fear-based practicing -- Teaching dysfunctions: fear-based teaching -- Hearing dysfunctions: fear-based listening -- Fear-based composing -- "The space"--"There are no wrong notes" -- Meditation #1 -- Effortless mastery -- Meditation #2 -- Affirmations -- The steps to change -- Step one -- Step two -- Step three -- Step four -- An afterthought -- I am great, I am a master -- Stretching the form -- The spiritual (reprise) -- One final meditation.
Modest Musorgsky was one of the towering figures of nineteenth-century Russian music. Now, in this new volume in the Master Musicians series, David Brown gives us the first life-and-works study of Musorgsky to appear in English for over a half century. Indeed, this is the largest such study of Musorgsky to have appeared outside Russia. Brown shows how Musorgsky, though essentially an amateur with no systematic training in composition, emerged in his first opera, Boris Godunov, as a supreme musical dramatist. Indeed, in this opera, and in certain of his piano pieces in Pictures at an Exhibition, Musorgsky produced some of the most startlingly novel music of the whole nineteenth century. He was also one of the most original of all song composers, with a prodigious gift for uncovering the emotional content of a text. As Brown illuminates Musorgsky's work, he also paints a detailed portrait of the composer's life. He describes how, unlike the systematic and disciplined Tchaikovsky, Musorgsky was a fitful composer. When the inspiration was upon him, he could apply himself with superhuman intensity, as he did when composing the initial version of Boris Godunov. Sadly, Musorgsky deteriorated in his final years, suffering periods of inner turmoil, when his alcoholism would be out of control. Finally, unemployed and all but destitute, he died at age forty-two. His failure to complete his two remaining operas, Khovanshchina and Sorochintsy Fair, Brown concludes, is one of music's greatest tragedies. Written by one of the leading authorities on nineteenth-century Russian composers, Musorgsky is the finest available biography of this giant of Russian music.
Beginning with Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, Indian art music is renowned internationally for its improvised raga performance. This ancient tradition has for centuries been transmitted orally within the seclusion of hereditary families. Few such families remain today, and not enough is known about their central contribution to the life of Indian music. Master Musicians of India reveals this rich world through profiles and interviews of key musicians from this tradition.
This is a compelling and inspiring look at spiritual beliefs that influenced some of the world's greatest composers, now revised and expanded with eight additional composers.