Beethoven's Theatrical Quartets
Beethoven's Theatrical Quartets

Author: Nancy November

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-01-09

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1107512425

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Beethoven's middle-period quartets, Opp. 59, 74 and 95, are pieces that engage deeply with the aesthetic ideas of their time. In the first full contextual study of these works, Nancy November celebrates their uniqueness, exploring their reception history and early performance. In detailed analyses, she explores ways in which the quartets have both reflected and shaped the very idea of chamber music and offers a new historical understanding of the works' physical, visual, social and ideological aspects. In the process, November provides a fresh critique of three key paradigms in current Beethoven studies: the focus on his late period; the emphasis on 'heroic' style in discussions of the middle period; and the idea of string quartets as 'pure', 'autonomous' artworks, cut off from social moorings. Importantly, this study shows that the quartets encompass a new lyric and theatrical impetus, which is an essential part of their unique, explorative character.

Concerto No. 12
Concerto No. 12

Author: Louis Spohr

Publisher: Alfred Music

Published:

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 9781457470998

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

One of the leading composers of instrumental music of the early Romantic period, Louis Spohr was a violinist, composer, and conductor. In addition to symphonic works, string quartets, and other solo and chamber music, he composed operas, operettas, and songs. There has been a trend, starting in the late 20th century, to revive his instrumental works and songs.

Beethoven's String Quartets
Beethoven's String Quartets

Author: Phillip Radcliffe

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1978-09-07

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780521219631

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Beethoven's string quartets form one of the most intimate and revealing sections of his output, giving a full and varied picture of his musical personality. This study of the quartets by Philip Radcliffe, first published by Hutchinson University in 1965, was reissued by Cambridge University Press in 1978. Each work is examined in detail describing the development of Beethoven's style - a method that highlights the very strong individuality that remained unimpaired throughout the composition of these quartets. They are compared with Beethoven's other music and with the string quartets of composers before and since. This is a book which has proved itself to be of continuing value to the student of music at school and university level and to the general reader.

Beethoven's String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131
Beethoven's String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131

Author: Nancy November

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-05-14

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 0190059230

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Beethoven's String Quartet in C-sharp minor Op. 131 (1826) is not only firmly a part of the scholarly canon, the performing canon, and the pedagogical canon, but also makes its presence felt in popular culture. Yet in recent times, the terms in which the C-sharp minor quartet is discussed and presented tend to undermine the multivalent nature of the work. Although it is held up as a masterpiece, Op. 131 has often been understood in monochrome terms as a work portraying tragedy, struggle, and loss. In Beethoven's String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 13, author Nancy November takes the modern-day listener well beyond these categories of adversity or deficit. The book goes back to early reception documents, including Beethoven's own writings about the work, to help the listener reinterpret and re-hear it. This book reveals the diverse musical ideas present in Op. 131 and places the work in the context of an emerging ideology of silent or 'serious' listening in Beethoven's Europe. It considers how this particular 'late' quartet could speak with special eloquence to a highly select but passionately enthusiastic audience and examines how and why the reception of Op. 131 has changed so profoundly from Beethoven's time to our own.

The Sonata
The Sonata

Author: Thomas Schmidt-Beste

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-03-10

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 0521762545

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An introductory survey of the most enduring and popular genre of instrumental music, perfect for students, teachers and performers.

The Listening Composer
The Listening Composer

Author: George Perle

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1990-06-11

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9780520917835

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

George Perle takes us into the composer's workshop as he reevaluates what we call "twentieth-century music"—a term used to refer to new or modern or contemporary music that represents a radical break from the tonal tradition, or "common practice," of the preceding three centuries. He proposes that this music, in the course of breaking with the tonal tradition, presents coherent and definable elements of a new tradition. In spite of the disparity in their styles, idioms, and compositional methods, he argues, what unites Scriabin, Stravinsky, Bartók, and the Viennese circle (Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern) is more important than what separates them. If we are to understand the connections among these mainstream composers, we also have to understand their connections with the past. Through an extraordinarily comprehensive analysis of a single piece by Varèse, Density 21.5 for unaccompanied flute, Perle shows how these composers refer not only to their contemporaries but also to Wagner, Debussy, and Beethoven. Perle isolates the years 1909-10 as the moment of revolutionary transformation in the foundational premises of our musical language. He asks: What are the implications of this revolution, not only for the composer, but also for the listener? What are the consequences for the theory and teaching of music today? In his highly original answers, Perle relates the role of intuition in the listening experience to its role in the compositional process. Perle asserts that the post-Schoenbergian serialists have preoccupied themselves with secondary and superficial aspects of Schoenberg's twelve-tone method that have led it to a dead end but he also exposes the speciousness of current alternatives such as chance music, minimalism, and the so-called return to tonality. He offers a new and more comprehensive definition of "twelve-tone music" and firmly rejects the notion that accessibility to the new music is reserved for a special class of elite listeners.