An exploration of the lives and works of Verdi and Wagner as well as their respective legacies to the present day, written by a noted cultural critic. This is the first book to compare these two composers and cultural heroes, both of whom were born in 1813 and achieved huge national and inter- national renown in their lifetimes. Yet not only did they never meet, but the differences between them―in music, culture, environment, significance, and legacy―were profound. Peter Conrad begins his tale in a public park in Venice, home to a pair of statues of the composers that are positioned so as to appear to shun each other. This provides a fitting starting point for his argument that they represent two opposite yet equally integral and compelling dimensions of European culture: north versus south, cerebral versus sensual, proud solitude versus human connection, epic mythmaking versus humane magnanimity. The book is a richly argued tour de force that engages passionately and profoundly with music, biography, history, politics, philosophy, psychology, and culture in the broadest sense. As Conrad concludes, “At one time or another, if not simultaneously, we still need the two contradictory, complementary kinds of music that Verdi and Wagner left us.” 50 black-and-white illustrations

Product Description: Why 1853? For many leading composers this year brought far-reaching changes to their lives: Brahms emerged from obscurity to celebrity, Schumann ceased to be an active composer, and both Berlioz and Wagner became active again after long silences...read more

Product Description: We tend to take for granted the labels we put to different forms of music. This study considers the origins and implications of the way in which we categorize music. Whereas earlier ways of classifying music were based on its different functions, for the past two hundred years we have been obsessed with creativity and musical origins, and classify music along these lines...read more

Product Description: In New Paths, five renowned scholars discuss a variety of topics related to Romanticism, focusing especially on the years 1800–1840. In a much-needed historical and critical overview of the concept of organicism, John Neubauer ranges from its origins in Enlightenment biology to its aftermath in postmodernism...read more

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Product Description: A study of the development of the style hongrois (Hungarian style), a specific musical language used by Western composers from the mid-18th through the 19th centuries (including Weber, Schubert, Liszt, and Brahms) to evoke the performances of Hungarian Gypsies...read more

The composer's writings show the cities, people, and scenes of his travels in the 1830's, and explore ideas about art and its place in the world

Product Description: One of the great figures in the evolution of European music and the greatest German violinist of his time, Louis Spohr has been largely forgotten by the music world. This volume concentrates upon the journeys Spohr took as a young virtuoso, composer, and conductor to Russia, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, England, and France between 1800 and 1820, as well as his travels in Germany itself...read more