Product Description: Jules Massenet (1842-1912) is the author of twenty-five operas, oratorios, over two hundred eighty songs, and numerous instrumental works. When his descendant Anne Massenet was entrusted with the family archives, she discovered more than a thousand letters exchanged with his family, students, colleagues, friends, and even a few competitors! Anne Massenet s new biography, published in France in 2001, is now translated into English by Mary Dibbern...read more

Product Description: In 1850, the French mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot wrote to her friend Turgenev: "Among that mass of talented composers who are witty in a vulgar sort of way, intelligible not because of their clarity but because of their trivilaity, the appearance of a musical personality such as Gounod's is so rare that one cannot welcome him heartily enough...read more

Product Description: This is the first comprehensive overview of instrumental chamber music from the sixteenth-century to the present. There are comparisons of different genres, composers, and periods. Situations for chamber music at different moments in history are brought into a continuum, and all aspects of chamber music are placed into perspective...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Mary Dibbern, Music Director of Education and Family Programs at The Dallas Opera, and adjunct faculty member at the University of North Texas has created a Performance Guide for Bizet's opera "Carmen." This contribution to the Vox Musicae series presents a word-by-word translation and IPA transcription of the French libretto, and her translations of its literary sources trace the opera libretto's development from Prosper Mérimée's short novel, "Carmen," as well as excerpts from Mérimée's "The Story of Rondino," and "Spanish Letters...read more

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