Composers Musicians category: 3267 books

The life and work of the greatest of all Italian composers, Giuseppe Verdi, including the much-loved anecdotes, which the author firmly believes reflect both historical and mythic truths about their subject. Covers all Verdi operas, from the early works in the bel canto tradition to the late masterpieces Otello and Falstaff.

A candid and fascinating portrait of the American composer. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Aaron Copland (1900-1990) became one of America's most beloved and esteemed composers. His work, which includes Fanfare for the Common Man, A Lincoln Portrait, and Appalachian Spring, has been...

In the earliest published diaries of Ned Rorem, the acclaimed American composer recalls a bygone era and its luminaries, celebrates the creative process, and examines the gay culture of Europe and the US during the 1950s One of America’s most significant contemporary composers, Ned Rorem...

The most radical and divisive composer of the twentieth century, Arnold Schoenberg remains a hero to many, and a villain to many others. In this refreshingly balanced biography, Mark Berry tells the story of Schoenberg’s remarkable life and work, situating his tale within the wider symphony of nineteenth-...

In the last decade of his life, starting when he was a sixty-two-year old curmudgeon in a backwater Slavic country, Czech composer Leo Jancek produced operas and chamber music that would stun the music world, one masterpiece on top of another. In Janceks Eternal Love, author George M. Cummins...

“I have been like a blind man groping in the dark, and you have opened my eyes to the splendour and beautiful truth of a love, which I felt but dimly as in a dream, until we met…” For over 70 years the secret romance between the famous Sir Granville Bantock, a British conductor and composer...

Now retired and no longer silenced by a contract, Maggie Cotton presents an honest and long-overdue player’s perspective of life inside a professional symphony orchestra, describing how she became the first female percussionist in what was initially a staunchly male-dominated world. Now retired after...

Manuel de Falla's music perfectly reflected the full-blooded passion and intellectual aspirations of early 20th century Spanish culture. His personal life seemed to echo the spirit of his times and the broad range of his music. From his sensual treatment of Andalusian folk themes to the neoclassical...

Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, in the enormous diversity of his activities, is arguably the most complete musician of all time. Not only does he have a remarkable 300 commissioned concert works to his credit, which have established him among the leading British twentieth-century composers, yet at the...

An absorbing memoir by an eminent broadcaster and classical music critic, full of anecdotes about nearly every major figure in the classical music world over the last 60 years From Leonard Bernstein to Benjamin Britten, André Previn, and Igor Stravinsky, Edward Greenfield had the privilege...

Benjamin Britten was one of the outstanding British composers of the 20th century. He shot to international fame with his operas, performed by his own English Opera Group, and a series of extraordinary instrumental works. His music won a central place in the repertoire and the affection of successive...

Echoes of the Sixties contains intimate profiles of 43 of the musical composers and performers who influenced an entire generation. Groups and individuals highlighted include: The Fireballs, Gary "US" Bonds, The Tokens, The Angels, Peter & Gordon, Pike Pinder of the Moody Blues, The...

The connections between a great artist's life and work are subtle, complex, and often highly revealing. In the case of Beethoven, however, the standard approach has been to treat his life and his art separately. Now, Barry Cooper's new volume incorporates the latest international research on many...

John Adams is one of the most respected and loved of contemporary composers, and "he has won his eminence fair and square: he has aimed high, he has addressed life as it is lived now, and he has found a language that makes sense to a wide audience" (Alex Ross, The New Yorker). Now, in Hallelujah...