Composers: Their Lives and Works

Description

“The only love affair I have ever had was with music.” Maurice Ravel A compelling celebration of more than 90 of the world’s most influential composers from the medieval period to the present day, Composers reveals the fascinating stories of their lives, loves, and works. Biographical entries – introduced with a stunning portrait of each featured composer – trace the friendships, loves, and rivalries that inspired each musical genius. Profiles offer revealing insights into what drove each individual to create the musical masterpieces – symphonies, concertos, and operatic scores – that changed the direction of classical music and are still celebrated and treasured today. Lavishly illustrated with paintings or photographs of each composer, alongside original musical scores and personal correspondence, images of their homes and where they worked, and personal effects and other important artifacts, the book introduces the key influences, themes, and working methods of each individual, setting their works within a wider historical and cultural context. Charting the development of classical music and music movements across the centuries, Composers provides a compelling glimpse into the personal lives, loves, and influences of the giants of the classical music canon. Contents Preface CHAPTER 1 Before 1600 Guido d’Arezzo Hildegard of Bingen Guillaume Dufay Thomas Tallis Giovanni da Palestrina Orlande de Lassus William Byrd Carlo Gesualdo John Dowland Directory CHAPTER 2 17th & 18th Centuries Claudio Monteverdi Francesca Caccini Barbara Strozzi Arcangelo Corelli Henry Purcell Antonio Vivaldi Georg Philipp Telemann Jean-Philippe Rameau Johann Sebastian Bach Domenico Scarlatti George Frideric Handel Christoph Willibald Gluck Joseph Haydn Muzio Clementi Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Directory CHAPTER 3 Early 19th Century Luigi Cherubini Ludwig van Beethoven Niccolò Paganini Gioachino Rossini Franz Schubert Gaetano Donizetti Vincenzo Bellini Hector Berlioz Fanny Mendelssohn Felix Mendelssohn Frédéric Chopin Robert Schumann Franz Liszt Directory CHAPTER 4 Late 19th Century Richard Wagner Giuseppe Verdi Clara Schumann César Franck Bedřich Smetana Anton Bruckner Johann Strauss II Alexander Borodin Johannes Brahms Camille Saint-Saëns Georges Bizet Modest Mussorgsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky AntonÍn Dvořák Edvard Grieg Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Gabriel Fauré Giacomo Puccini Gustav Mahler Claude Debussy Directory CHAPTER 5 Early 20th Century Leoš Janáček Edward Elgar Ethel Smyth Frederick Delius Richard Strauss Carl Nielsen Jean Sibelius Erik Satie Ralph Vaughan Williams Sergei Rachmaninoff Gustav Holst Arnold Schoenberg Charles Ives Maurice Ravel Manuel de Falla Béla Bartók Igor Stravinsky Heitor Villa-Lobos Sergei Prokofiev Lili Boulanger George Gershwin Francis Poulenc Dmitri Shostakovich Directory CHAPTER 6 Late 20th & 21st Centuries Joaquín Rodrigo William Walton Michael Tippett Olivier Messiaen Benjamin Britten Witold Lutosławski Leonard Bernstein György Ligeti Karlheinz Stockhausen Tōru Takemitsu Alfred Schnittke Arvo Pärt Philip Glass Judith Weir Directory Glossary Index Acknowledgments