Books About Composers

Composers (Fandex Family Field Guides) - by David Bouchier More info Buy the composers book Finally my family is able to put a face, and a short biograhy, to the music they love. I used this fandex to supplement my homeschool curriculum. We were able to listen to various recordings of classical music and then look up the composer in our fandex.It worked out beautifully! It was also great listening to the classical station in the car and having our incredibly portable fandex there to answer any questions we had about the composer. As a feild guide it has been both fun and educational.(Customer review)	Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician - by Christoph Wolff More info Buy the composer book The Learned Musician is an apt subtitle for this intellectual biography, which assesses the career of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) with the scholarly rigor one would expect from a Harvard professor. Opening with a 1737 attack by a critic who labeled Bach a pedant who spoiled the natural beauty of his creations with " an excess of art," Christoph Wolff cogently compares the German composer to English scientist Isaac Newton. Both men " about fundamental changes and established new principles" in their chosen fields, he argues; both sought to reveal God's harmonious ordering of their world.(Editorial review)
John Dowland More info Buy the book I'm amazed at how many people tend to associate John Dowland's music with a tragic sense of drama. While no doubt this is art highly based on sadness, the " tragic " sense of it is more a legacy from the Romantic period. During the Renaissance, however, sadness was undestood as a very aesthetic way of approaching life.(Customer review)	Sviatoslav Richter More info Buy the book He expresses dissatisfaction with his own recordings because they are frozen in time and inflexible, no longer responsive to his virtuosity. Richter asked Monsaingeon, who made a film about him, to assemble this book. Music lovers should be grateful, for along with his comments on music and musicians, it displays the foibles, opinions, skills, joys, and sorrows of the publicly reticent keyboard titan. (Customer review)
Story of the Orchestra More info Buy the book Illustrated in exquisite and colorful detail with over 100 original drawings and photographs, this package is a fun and exciting musical journey for children. Young readers will hear the sound of an actual violin as they study the instrument and enjoy the playful tune of a Mozart minuet as they read about the composer's precocious exploits as a child. (Editorial review)	Bad Boy of Music - by George Antheil More info Buy the book " If you like the legendary " Autobiography of Edwark Bok " I think you will like this. It is a wonderful and witty book by a man who had a meteoric career and then was, strangely, forgotten. Extremely entertaining, very well written. One of the top 100 books I've ever read." (Customer review)
The Beethoven Sonatas and the Creative Experience More info Buy the book Be the first person to review this book!	The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger (Music in the Twentieth Century) More info Buy the book Be the first person to review this book!
Four Musical Minimalists : LA Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass (Music in the Twentieth Century) - by Keith Potter More info Buy the book This book offers a biographical and musical survey of four American composers--La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass--who are widely regarded as the first musical minimalists. While attentive to cultural as well as biographical concerns, Keith Potter's main focus is the music of these composers during the period up to the mid-1970s and it discusses these works in greater detail than any previous publications have attempted.(Editorial review)	Felix Mendelssohn : A Guide to Research (Composer Resource Manuals) - by John Michael Cooper More info Buy the book Book Description Detailed bibliography of important composer of Romantic instrumental works. Includes a timeline of his life in relation to important conemporary events amd discussions of his compositions. About the Author John Michael Cooper is a Professor at the College of Music at the University of North Texas. He lives in Denton, Texas.(Editorial review)