- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: OUP Oxford; 3 edition (30 Nov 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0198164831
- ISBN-13: 978-0198164838
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 12.7 x 1.6 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 243,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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the best written and most authoritative study which the lover of Berlioz's music could wish for. (Opera )
Product Description
In this comprehensive life-and-works study, Hugh Macdonald draws on Berlioz's numerous writings - his Memoires, his critical articles, and his extensive correspondence, including many unpublished documents. Berlioz's provincial upbringing, his enthusiasm for Parisian opera and theatre, his marriage to the actress Harriet Smithson, his activities as composer, critic, and conductor, are covered in a biographical section which concludes with a chapter on his character. Discussion of the music is chronological, from the time when Berlioz arrived in Paris in 1821 to study medicine, through the peak of French Romanticism in the 1830's, to the compositions of his later years. In a final chapter Hugh Macdonald traces influences on Berlioz's style and examines his treatment of melody, harmony, and rhythm, and his distinctive orchestral technique.
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First Sentence
The Berlioz family had been settled in the region between Lyons and Grenoble, the Isere departement of France, since the beginning of the seventeenth century, if not before, and from being tanners in earlier generations they had risen to the respectable professions of law and medicine. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The Berlioz family had been settled in the region between Lyons and Grenoble, the Isere departement of France, since the beginning of the seventeenth century, if not before, and from being tanners in earlier generations they had risen to the respectable professions of law and medicine. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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A MARVELOUS PORTRAIT OF AN INNOVATIVE EARLY ROMANTIC COMPOSER
24 Sep 2009
Format:Paperback
This volume in the "Master Musicians" series of Oxford University Press is a worthy study of Berlioz' life (the first third of the book) and his music.
Berlioz' father wanted him to attend medical school, and his mother disowned him when he refused to give up music. (In fact, his parents never even heard a note of his music.) To make ends meet, he worked in a chorus for a theatre, and eventually became a fairly well-known music critic, and a "specialist" conductor. MacDonald notes that "he eventually came to be thought of as a critic who composed rather than as a composer who eked a living from writing." He further notes that Berlioz "regarded writing as an accursed drudgery, a millstone which oppressed him body and soul." Nevertheless, he had no choice, since "for his work as a comoposer he made virtually no money."
The story of Berlioz' fixation on the actress Harriet Smithson, and his turning this infatuation into his Symphonie Fantastique is told in detail, as well as his brief meeting with a young Brahms. Berlioz wrote several highly-regarded religious compositions (such as hsi Te Deum"), yet he was "contemptuous of traditional religion."
For anyone interested in Berlioz and his music, this is an excellent book to purchase.
Berlioz' father wanted him to attend medical school, and his mother disowned him when he refused to give up music. (In fact, his parents never even heard a note of his music.) To make ends meet, he worked in a chorus for a theatre, and eventually became a fairly well-known music critic, and a "specialist" conductor. MacDonald notes that "he eventually came to be thought of as a critic who composed rather than as a composer who eked a living from writing." He further notes that Berlioz "regarded writing as an accursed drudgery, a millstone which oppressed him body and soul." Nevertheless, he had no choice, since "for his work as a comoposer he made virtually no money."
The story of Berlioz' fixation on the actress Harriet Smithson, and his turning this infatuation into his Symphonie Fantastique is told in detail, as well as his brief meeting with a young Brahms. Berlioz wrote several highly-regarded religious compositions (such as hsi Te Deum"), yet he was "contemptuous of traditional religion."
For anyone interested in Berlioz and his music, this is an excellent book to purchase.
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