Read complete books and articles on: Famous Composers

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: Famous Composers

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Mainstream Music of Early Twentieth Century America: The Composers, Their Times, and Their Works » Read Now
by Nicholas E. Tawa. 214 pgs.

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Chronologically following Tawa's The Coming of Age of American Art Music, this new study examines, in cultural context, the music of the most prominent composers active from 1900 to 1930, among them Frederick Shepherd Converse, Edgar Burlingame Hill, Mabel Daniels, Deems Taylor, Charles Wakefield...
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Chronologically following Tawa's The Coming of Age of American Art Music, this new study examines, in cultural context, the music of the most prominent composers active from 1900 to 1930, among them Frederick Shepherd Converse, Edgar Burlingame Hill, Mabel Daniels, Deems Taylor, Charles Wakefield Cadman, Arthur Farwell, Scott Joplin, Marion Bauer, and John Alden Carpenter. Unjustly neglected by latter-day critics interested in the avant-garde, this music deserves a hearing today. Tawa evaluates the composers and compositions on their own merits and concludes that much of the music will delight anyone not irrevocably opposed to romanticism.
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2.

The World of Great Composers » Read Now
by David Ewen. 578 pgs.

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...most of the time at the famous Papal chapel of St. Peters...Sonatas." But the French composers, especially Francois...he demonstrated in the famous "Forty-Eight,"...
3.

Conductors on Composers » Read Now
by John L. Holmes. 276 pgs.

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A lively commentary by 123 important conductors of the past and present on the music they perform, this work discloses fascinating insights on much of our classical concert and recorded repertoire. It reveals different approaches of these interpreters of great music and also sometimes surprising...
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A lively commentary by 123 important conductors of the past and present on the music they perform, this work discloses fascinating insights on much of our classical concert and recorded repertoire. It reveals different approaches of these interpreters of great music and also sometimes surprising prejudices and enthusiasms. The material comes from hundreds of sources, mainly conductors' autobiographies and their critical writings, interviews with conductors, and biographical works, all interwoven into a cohesive narrative for each of the 71 composers covered. A companion to the author's Composers on Composers, this volume is similarly organized alphabetically by composer. Brief biographies are given of the conductors, and their remarks on the music can be traced via indexing.
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4.

Composers on Composers » Read Now
by John L. Holmes. 192 pgs.

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This important compilation lends a new perspective to music criticism by gathering the comments of 85 well-known composers concerning the work of their peers. Encompassing all forms of commentary, from caustic attacks to perceptive criticism and praise, the book offers new insights into the...
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This important compilation lends a new perspective to music criticism by gathering the comments of 85 well-known composers concerning the work of their peers. Encompassing all forms of commentary, from caustic attacks to perceptive criticism and praise, the book offers new insights into the development of music and its most important creators by collecting under each composer's name the remarks made about him by other composers.
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5.

Composers of Today: A Comprehensive Biographical and Critical Guide to Modern Composers of All Nations (1934) » Read Now
by David Ewen. 316 pgs.

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...a single stress COMPOSERS OF TODAY Joseph...Glazunov, the famous Russian composer...Arthur Schnitzler, famous storywriter.Principal...Henry. American Composers on American...
6.

Composers of Yesterday: A Biographical and Critical Guide to the Most Important Composers of the Past (1937) » Read Now
by David Ewen. 488 pgs.

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...the fate of only a few composers. He was, perhaps, the...the repertoire of the famous Russian Ballet, and...distinguished of Spanish composers, was born at Camprodon...he...
7.

Woodwind Music of Black Composers » Read Now
by Aaron Horne. 150 pgs.

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This pioneering reference contains biographical data on 90 19th and 20th century Black composers from three continents and their compositions for woodwinds, including information on their education and professional experience, and on their continuing musical influence. A separate woodwind music...
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This pioneering reference contains biographical data on 90 19th and 20th century Black composers from three continents and their compositions for woodwinds, including information on their education and professional experience, and on their continuing musical influence. A separate woodwind music index of both published and unpublished works for soloists and chamber ensembles groups the music by medium and numbers into 27 categories that contain 430 works with exact instrumentation, publisher, more. Also contains, a key to publishers, collections, manuscripts, and a discography.
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8.

Modern Russian Composers (1927) » Read Now
by Leonid Sabaneev, Judah A. Joffe. 258 pgs.

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...Revolution, a number of Russian composers found themselves abroad...among these are the most famous and prominent representatives...even the Russian classical composers...
9.

Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits » Read Now
by Michael H. Kater. 399 pgs.

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How does creativity thrive in the face of fascism? How can a highly artistic individual function professionally in so threatening a climate? The final book in a critically acclaimed trilogy that includes Different Drummers (OUP 1992) and The Twisted Muse (OUP 1997), this is a detailed study of the...
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How does creativity thrive in the face of fascism? How can a highly artistic individual function professionally in so threatening a climate? The final book in a critically acclaimed trilogy that includes Different Drummers (OUP 1992) and The Twisted Muse (OUP 1997), this is a detailed study of the often interrelated careers of eight outstanding German composers who lived and worked amid the dictatorship of the Third Reich: Werner Egk, Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Carl Orff, Hans Pfitzner, Arnold Schoenberg, and Richard Strauss. Noted historian Michael H. Kater weighs issues of accommodation and resistance to ask whether these artists corrupted themselves in the service of a criminal regime--and if so, whether this is evident in their music. He also considers the degrees to which the Nazis politically, socially, economically, and aesthetically succeeded in their treatment of these individuals, whose lives and compositions represent diverse responses to totalitarianism.
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10.

From Bach to Stravinsky: The History of Music by Its Foremost Critics (1933) » Read Now
by David Ewen. 357 pgs.

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...societies, drama guilds, composers leagues, and painters...Galilel, the father of the famous astronomer. Pietro...weighed on the first composers of opera --...
11.

Stories of Symphonic Music: A Guide to the Meaning of Important Symphonies, Overtures, and Tone-Poems from Beethoven to Debussy (1937) » Read Now
by Lawrence Gilman. 364 pgs.

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...to music by Mr. Bantock are 1 the famous Hymn to Aphrodite, and the fragments beginning...of Beethoven, wrote at length in his famous Life of the symphonist concerning...
12.

Toru Takemitsu: A Bio-Bibliography » Read Now
by James Siddons. 205 pgs.

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Though often misunderstood in the West, the works of Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) deserve attention beyond their native land. Although he wrote most of his music for Western instruments in international contemporary concert style, to be played by performers trained in the European musical tradition...
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Though often misunderstood in the West, the works of Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) deserve attention beyond their native land. Although he wrote most of his music for Western instruments in international contemporary concert style, to be played by performers trained in the European musical tradition, lists and scores of his music have been difficult to obtain. Designed for use by musicians, scholars, and program directors who need compact, understandable information on Takemitsu, but who are unfamiliar with Japanese language and music, this bio-bibliography--including sections on his works, performances, films scores, recordings, and writings--will be invaluable to musicians, scholars, journalists, and music directors alike.
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13.

Beethoven » Read Now
by Hubert J. Foss, Donald Francis Tovey. 144 pgs.

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...expectation. Now let us turn to one of the most famous arousings of expectation in all music...chord is undermined. And now comes the famous passage with the innumerable...
14.

Bruckner and Mahler » Read Now
by H. F. Redlich. 304 pgs.

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...his twelve children, and the composers father, seems to have given...pupil and chorister in the famous monastery of St Florian, the...renowned for its wealth, its famous...
15.

Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer's Search for American Music » Read Now
by Judith Tick. 458 pgs.

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Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953) is frequently considered the most significant American female composer in this century. Joining Aaron Copland and Henry Cowell as a key member of the 1920s musical avant-garde, she went on to study with modernist theorist and future husband Charles Seeger, writing...
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Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953) is frequently considered the most significant American female composer in this century. Joining Aaron Copland and Henry Cowell as a key member of the 1920s musical avant-garde, she went on to study with modernist theorist and future husband Charles Seeger, writing her masterpiece, String Quartet 1931, not long after. But her legacy extends far beyond the cutting edge of modern music. Collaborating with poet Carl Sandburg on folk song arrangements in the twenties, and with the famous folk-song collectors John and Alan Lomax in the 1930s, she emerged as a central figure in the American folk music revival, issuing several important books of transcriptions and arrangements and pioneering the use of American folk songs in children's music education. Radicalized by the Depression, she spent much of the ensuing two decades working aggressively for social change with her husband and stepson, the folksinger Pete Seeger. This engrossing new biography emphasizes the choices Crawford Seeger made in her roles as composer, activist, teacher, wife and mother. The first woman to win a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in music composition, Crawford Seeger nearly gave up writing music as the demands of family, politics, and the folk song movement intervened. It was only at the very end of her life, with cancer sapping her strength, that she returned to composing. Written with unique insight and compassion, this book offers the definitive treatment of a fascinating twentieth-century figure.
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16.

Alan Rawsthorne: Portrait of a Composer » Read Now
by John McCabe. 320 pgs.

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This is the first comprehensive study of the life and music of Alan Rawsthorne (1905-71), one of the leading British composers of the twentieth century. Rawsthorne came from the same generation of composers as Britten, Walton, Tippett, and Constant Lambert. Since his death in 1971 his music, after a...
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This is the first comprehensive study of the life and music of Alan Rawsthorne (1905-71), one of the leading British composers of the twentieth century. Rawsthorne came from the same generation of composers as Britten, Walton, Tippett, and Constant Lambert. Since his death in 1971 his music, after a period of comparative neglect, is currently enjoying a revival in performance and recording. The composer and pianist John McCabe here brings a lifetime's knowledge of the man and his music to a vivid portrait of Rawsthorne's life, drawing on conversations with his family, friends, and colleagues as well as contemporary documentation. Almost every one of his works is discussed, many of them in detail, demonstrating the versatility and range of Rawsthorne's vision, from popular works, such as Street Corner and the piano concertos, to the remarkable power of his lesser-known later works. In particular McCabe draws attention to the astonishing renewal of Rawsthorne's creative enery during his later period, and the immense broadening of his emotional and technical horizons leading to such masterpieces as the Third Symphony and Carmen Vitale. He makes a powerful case for a thorough reassessment of Rawsthorne's oeuvre. A complimentary CD provides the reader with a representative sample of Rawsthorne's music.
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