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works (termed by one critic "moonlight with sugar water"), Todd reexamines the composer's entire oeuvre, including many unpublished and little known works.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 28
... Orchestra in Leipzig. The earliest surviving document about any of the children is Abraham's letter to his mother-in-law of November 15, 1805, announcing Fanny's arrival and recording Lea's observation that the matriclinous daughter had ...
... Orchestra in Leipzig. The earliest surviving document about any of the children is Abraham's letter to his mother-in-law of November 15, 1805, announcing Fanny's arrival and recording Lea's observation that the matriclinous daughter had ...
Página 42
... orchestra of about fifty;97 its exclusively eighteenth-century repertoire offered what Lea Mendelssohn later described as “the most serious things.”98 The founding of the Ripienschule broadened the resources of the Singakademie and ...
... orchestra of about fifty;97 its exclusively eighteenth-century repertoire offered what Lea Mendelssohn later described as “the most serious things.”98 The founding of the Ripienschule broadened the resources of the Singakademie and ...
Página 60
... orchestra rather than quartet. In contrast, the Trio and Quartet are unambiguous about their generic identity. The substitution of the viola for a cello in the Trio is unusual but not unprecedented: Mozart had used a viola in his ...
... orchestra rather than quartet. In contrast, the Trio and Quartet are unambiguous about their generic identity. The substitution of the viola for a cello in the Trio is unusual but not unprecedented: Mozart had used a viola in his ...
Página 61
... orchestra performed these works during Sunday musicales at the Mendelssohn residence.41 Felix led the ensemble from a piano, where he provided a continuo part by playing the bass line and improvising a harmonic accompaniment above, to ...
... orchestra performed these works during Sunday musicales at the Mendelssohn residence.41 Felix led the ensemble from a piano, where he provided a continuo part by playing the bass line and improvising a harmonic accompaniment above, to ...
Página 65
... orchestra, the parents underwrote a production in their residence for his twelfth birthday, February 3, 1821. A little-known account of the proud mother reports the event: In the spacious hall... a most charming, ample theater was ...
... orchestra, the parents underwrote a production in their residence for his twelfth birthday, February 3, 1821. A little-known account of the proud mother reports the event: In the spacious hall... a most charming, ample theater was ...
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