You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Since its emergence in sixteenth-century Germany, the magician Faust's quest has become one of the most profound themes in Western history. Though variants are found across all media, few adaptations have met with greater acclaim than in music. Bringing together more than two dozen authors in a foundational volume, The Oxford Handbook of Faust in Music testifies to the spectacular impact the Faust theme has exerted over the centuries. The Handbook's three-part organization enables readers to follow the evolution of Faust in music across time and stylistic periods. Part I explores symphonic, choral, chamber, and solo Faust works by composers from Beethoven to Schnittke. Part II discusses the range of Faustian operas, and Part III examines Faust's presence in ballet and musical theater. Illustrating the interdisciplinary relationships between music and literature and the fascinating tapestry of intertextual relationships among the works of Faustian music themselves, the volume suggests that rather than merely retelling the story of Faust, these musical compositions contribute significant insights on the tale and its unrivalled cultural impact.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is one of the great icons of Western music. An amazing prodigy--he toured the capitals of Europe while still a child, astonishing royalty and professional musicians with his precocious skills--he wrote as an adult some of the finest music in the entire European tradition. Julian Rushton offers a concise and up-to-date biography of this musical genius, combining a well-researched life of the composer with an introduction to the works--symphonic, chamber, sacred, and theatrical--of one of the few musicians in history to have written undisputed masterpieces across every genre of his time. Rushton offers a vivid portrait of the composer, ranging from Mozart the Wunderkind...
In Dramaturgical Leaves: Essays about Musical Works for the Stage and Queries about the Stage, Its Composers and Performers, the third volume in Janita R. Hall-Swadley’s The Collected Writings of Franz Liszt, Liszt heralds his admiration for early nineteenth-century opera and musical stage works. He honors Gluck, the musical prophet, as the cultivator of dramatic truth in the Romantic opera Orpheus, expounds on Beethoven’s harmonic inventions and innovative treatment of form in Fidelio, and argues for the latter’s incidental music to Goethe’s Egmont as the epitome of music organicism, a complete unity of words and tone. He also comments on Weber’s Euryanthe as offering the most pro...
This updated second edition is an in-depth exploration of Elgar's compositions and of writings by and about the composer and his music. The past 16 years have seen a steady increase in scholarly publications and the emergence of The Elgar Society Journal, as well as further discoveries of the composer's MSS and letters, and the new edition incorporates this latest research. The compositions are examined in a work-by-work catalog, in chronological order, in which each entry gives a complete census and collation of manuscript, proof, text, biographical, printed edition and bibliographical sources for each item. The listing also includes unfinished sketches and details of much unpublished mater...
Imagine: Mozart, near death, positioned at just the point when he can reflect on the entirety of his relatively short, but amazingly productive life. Julian Rushton, an Emeritus Professor of Music and author of the New Grove Guide to Mozart and His Music, takes us to him at just that time. The former child genius discusses his upbringing as a wunderkind, his contacts with patrons and fellow musicians, his views on his own works, his method of composing, his teaching and performing, and his life, loves, and the world outside music as well.
Opera, that most extravagant of the performing arts, is infused with the contexts of power-brokering and cultural display in which it was conceived and experienced. For individual operas such contexts have shifted over time and new meanings emerged, often quite remote from those intended by the original collaborators; but tracing this ideological dimension in a work's creation and reception enables us to understand its cultural and political role more clearly - sometimes conflicting with its status as art and sometimes enhancing it. This collection is a Festschrift in honour of Julian Rushton, one of the most distinguished opera scholars of his generation and highly regarded for his innovati...
Ths text ffers an overall assessment of Berlioz's musical achievement as we approach the bicentary of his birth in 2003. This is a full-length musical study of the composer taking into account the rediscovered Messe solennelle.
Particularly in the humanities and social sciences, festschrifts are a popular forum for discussion. The IJBF provides quick and easy general access to these important resources for scholars and students. The festschrifts are located in state and regional libraries and their bibliographic details are recorded. Since 1983, more than 639,000 articles from more than 29,500 festschrifts, published between 1977 and 2010, have been catalogued.
How did the son of a provincial piano tuner rise to international fame? Was the English countryside the principal inspiration for Elgar's music? Was he the mustachioed, red-blooded, imperialist, all that he seemed? This work deals with the critical myths and prejudices that have attached themselves to the figure of Elgar.