Composers Musicians category: 3267 books

An exploration of the world’s most famous and challenging song cycle, Schubert's Winter Journey (Winterreise), by a leading interpreter of the work, who teases out the themes—literary, historical, psychological—that weave through the twenty-four songs that make up this legendary masterpiece. Completed...

A beautifully written and original biography of one of the greatest and most popular of modern composers--which also deeply investigates his much-loved music. Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was that rare creature, a composer who reinvented the language of music without alienating the majority of...

William Vacchiano (19122005) was principal trumpet with the New York Philharmonic from 1942 to 1973 and taught at Juilliard the Manhattan School of Music the Mannes College of Music Queens College and Columbia Teachers College. While at the Philharmonic Vacchiano performed under the batons of Arturo...

This account of the renowned composer’s neglected wife—including her years in a Soviet prison—is “a story both riveting and wrenching” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Serge Prokofiev was one of the twentieth century’s most brilliant composers yet is an enigma to historians and...

John Cage was a man of extraordinary and seemingly limitless talents: musician, inventor, composer, poet. He became a central figure of the avant-garde early in his life and remained at that pinnacle until his death in 1992 at the age of eighty. Now award-winning biographer Kenneth Silverman gives...

According to Wikipedia: "Wilhelm Richard Wagner (22 May 1813, Leipzig, Germany 13 February 1883, Venice, Italy) was a German composer, conductor, theatre director and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or "music dramas", as they were later called). Unlike most other great opera composers, Wagner...

Robert Schumann (1810–56) is one of the most important and representative composers of the Romantic era. Born in Zwickau, Germany, Schumann began piano instruction at age seven and immediately developed a passion for music. When a permanent injury to his hand prevented him from pursuing a career...

The emergence of Russian classical music in the nineteenth century in the wake of Mikhail Glinka comprises one of the most remarkable and fascinating stories in all musical history. The five men who came together in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg in the 1860s, all composers of talent, some...

‘A fine, intellectually sparkling and always engaging little book – a welcome addition to any Wagner library’Hans Vaget, Opera Quarterly Whilst no one would dispute Wagner’s ranking among the most significant composers in the history of Western music, his works have been more fiercely attacked...

Over the past four decades, Richard Taruskin's publications have redefined the field of Russian-music study. This volume gathers thirty-six essays on composers ranging from Bortnyansky in the eighteenth century to Tarnopolsky in the twenty-first, as well as all of the famous names in between. Some...

A sterling collection of essays, commentary, reviews, and personal recollections on art, love, and the musical life, from Ned Rorem, award-winning composer and author extraordinaire Ned Rorem, the acclaimed American composer and writer, displays his incisive, sometimes outrageous genius for...

Jerry Foster is best known as one half of the most awarded songwriting team in the history of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).   Jerry and his writing partner, Bill Rice were inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Association International Hall of Fame in 1994. ...

Recognized as the patriarch of the minimalist movement-Brian Eno once called him "the daddy of us all"--La Monte Young remains an enigma within the music world, one of the most important and yet most elusive composers of the late twentieth century. Early in his career Young almost completely...

A magnificent collection of essays, opinions, and reflections on life, culture, art, love, and music—always lyrical, witty, and brazenly provocative—from one of the most acclaimed contemporary American composers Time magazine has called Ned Rorem “the world’s best composer of art songs.”...