1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9911046222103321

Autore

Macdonald Hugh <1940->

Titolo

Beethoven's century : essays on composers and themes / / Hugh Macdonald

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Suffolk : , : Boydell & Brewer, , 2008

ISBN

1-282-89498-6

9786612894985

1-58046-715-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xii, 255 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Collana

Eastman studies in music, , 1071-9989

Disciplina

780.9/034

Soggetti

Music - 19th century - History and criticism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 02 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Composers. Beethoven's game of cat and mouse ; Schubert's pendulum ; Paganini, Mendelssohn and Turner in Scotland ; Berlioz and Schumann ; Alkan's instruments ; Liszt the conductor ; Wolf's Wagner ; Massenet's craftsmanship ; Skryabin's conquest of time ; Janáček's narratives -- Themes. Raise your glass to French music! ; Comic opera ; Repeats ; [G-flat major, 9/8 meter] ; The musicians' arrondissement ; Les anglais ; Dr. Mephistopheles ; The prose libretto ; 'Un pays où tous sont musiciens--' ; Modernisms that failed.

Sommario/riassunto

In 'Beethoven's Century: Essays on Composers and Themes', world-renowned musicologist Hugh Macdonald draws together many of his richest essays on music from Beethoven's time into the early twentieth century. The essays are here revised and updated, and some are printed in English for the first time. 'Beethoven's Century' addresses perennial questions of what music meant to the composer and his audiences, how it was intended to be played, and how today's audiences can usefully approach it. Opening with a revealing analysis of Beethoven's not always generous regard for his listeners, the essays probe aspects of Schubert's musical personality, the brief friendship between Berlioz and Schumann, Liszt's abilities as a conductor, and Viennese views of Wagner as expressed by Hugo Wolf. Essays on comic opera and trends in French opera librettos in the late nineteenth



century reflect the author's long-standing sympathy for French music, and strikingly eccentric personalities in the world of music, such as Paganini, Alkan, Skryabin, and Janácek, are brought to life. 'Beethoven's Century' concludes with a wry look at some startling developments in early twentieth-century music that have often been overlooked. Hugh Macdonald has taught music at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and Glasgow, and since 1987 has been Avis H. Blewett Distinguished Professor of Music at Washington University, St. Louis. He has written books on Skryabin and Berlioz, and is a regular pre-concert speaker for the Boston and St. Louis Symphony Orchestras.