Mendelssohn: A Life in MusicOxford University Press, 2003 M10 23 - 736 páginas An extraordinary prodigy of Mozartean abilities, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was a distinguished composer and conductor, a legendary pianist and organist, and an accomplished painter and classicist. Lionized in his lifetime, he is best remembered today for several staples of the concert hall and for such popular music as "The Wedding March" and "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing." Now, in the first major Mendelssohn biography to appear in decades, R. Larry Todd offers a remarkably fresh account of this musical giant, based upon painstaking research in autograph manuscripts, correspondence, diaries, and paintings. Rejecting the view of the composer as a craftsman of felicitous but sentimental, saccharine works (termed by one critic "moonlight with sugar water"), Todd reexamines the composer's entire oeuvre, including many unpublished and little known works. Here are engaging analyses of Mendelssohn's distinctive masterpieces--the zestful Octet, puckish Midsummer Night's Dream, haunting Hebrides Overtures, and elegiac Violin Concerto in E minor. Todd describes how the composer excelled in understatement and nuance, in subtle, coloristic orchestrations that lent his scores an undeniable freshness and vividness. He also explores Mendelssohn's changing awareness of his religious heritage, Wagner's virulent anti-Semitic attack on Mendelssohn's music, the composer's complex relationship with his sister Fanny Hensel, herself a child prodigy and prolific composer, his avocation as a painter and draughtsman, and his remarkable, polylingual correspondence with the cultural elite of his time. Mendelssohn: A Life offers a masterful blend of biography and musical analysis. Readers will discover many new facets of the familiar but misunderstood composer and gain new perspectives on one of the most formidable musical geniuses of all time. |
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Página xix
... oratorio, who produced two examples judged worthy of Handel: St. Paul (1836), which scored early international successes in Germany, England, Denmark, Holland, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, and the United States; and, second only to ...
... oratorio, who produced two examples judged worthy of Handel: St. Paul (1836), which scored early international successes in Germany, England, Denmark, Holland, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, and the United States; and, second only to ...
Página xxv
... oratorio mongering, was not in the foremost rank of great composers. He was more intelligent than Schumann, as Tennyson is more intelligent than Browning: he is, indeed, the great composer of the century for all those to whom Tennyson ...
... oratorio mongering, was not in the foremost rank of great composers. He was more intelligent than Schumann, as Tennyson is more intelligent than Browning: he is, indeed, the great composer of the century for all those to whom Tennyson ...
Página xxix
... oratorios. Scarcely a few months elapse without a “new” Mendelssohn letter or manuscript appearing on the auction block. The composer himself preserved his manuscripts and thousands of letters of his incoming correspondence in bound ...
... oratorios. Scarcely a few months elapse without a “new” Mendelssohn letter or manuscript appearing on the auction block. The composer himself preserved his manuscripts and thousands of letters of his incoming correspondence in bound ...
Página 2
... oratorios on New and Old Testament subjects addressing issues relevant to his family—the conversion of Saul, and the pre-Messianic prophecies of Elijah. In 1729 Moses ben Mendel Dessau was born into a modest family in the Jewish quarter ...
... oratorios on New and Old Testament subjects addressing issues relevant to his family—the conversion of Saul, and the pre-Messianic prophecies of Elijah. In 1729 Moses ben Mendel Dessau was born into a modest family in the Jewish quarter ...
Página 55
... oratorios of Handel, and motets of J. S. Bach—all supporting Zelter's musical diet of austere counterpoint. Felix's engagement with sacred music produced motet-like exercises, mostly fugal settings of psalm verses on wooden, academic ...
... oratorios of Handel, and motets of J. S. Bach—all supporting Zelter's musical diet of austere counterpoint. Felix's engagement with sacred music produced motet-like exercises, mostly fugal settings of psalm verses on wooden, academic ...
Contenido
The Road to Damascus | 199 |
Elijahs Chariot | 345 |
Abbreviations | 571 |
Notes | 573 |
Bibliography | 629 |
Index of Mendelssohns Works | 645 |
General Index | 653 |
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Términos y frases comunes
Abraham Andante appeared April aria August autograph Bach’s bass Beethoven’s Berlin cantata Cécile chorale chords chorus com composer composer’s composition con concert counterpoint December Devrient duet Düsseldorf Eduard Elijah English Fanny Fanny Hensel Fanny’s February Felix Mendelssohn Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Felix to Lea festival final Frankfurt French fugue German Gewandhaus Goethe Goethe’s Handel’s Henriette Hensel Hiller Ibid J. S. Bach January July June Klingemann Kraków later Leipzig Letters libretto Lied ohne Worte Lieder London major March Marx MDM GB melody Mendelssohn Bartholdy Midsummer Night’s Dream minor Moscheles Moses Moses Mendelssohn movement Mozart musicians November numbers NYPL October opera oratorio orchestra organ overture Paulus performed pianist Piano Concerto played premiere Prussian Psalm published Rebecka rehearsals Robert Schumann scherzo Schubring score September Singakademie solo soloists song soprano String Quartet Symphony theme tion Trio verses violin Ward Jones Weber Wilhelm Wilhelm Hensel Zelter