A First Book Of Great Composers

Presents arranged music for twenty-six pieces by such composers as Bach, Gluck, Grieg, Mendelssohn, and Mozart.

Provides biographical information on nineteen composers, describes the musical components of their major works, and provides anecdotal background on those works.

Ever-popular themes from the symphonies, concertos, and operas of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Mozart, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, and many others. This collection includes a free MP3 download for every piece.

Nearly eight years after Mozart's death his widow, in response to a request from a famous publishing house for relics of the composer, sent, among other Mozartiana, a packet of letters written to her by her husband. In transmitting these she wrote: "Especially characteristic is his great love for me, which breathes through all the letters. Is it not true—those from the last year of his life are just as tender as those written during the first year of our marriage?" She added that she would like to have this fact especially mentioned "to his honor" in any biography in which the data she sent were to be used. This request was not prompted by vanity, but by a just pride in the love her husband had borne her and which she still cherished. The love of his Constance was the solace of Mozart's life. The wonder-child, born in Salzburg in 1756, and taken by his father from court to court, where he and his sister played to admiring audiences, did not, like so many wonder-children, fade from public view, but with manhood fulfilled the promise of his early years and became one of the world's great masters of music. But his genius was not appreciated until too late. The world of to-day sees in Mozart the type of the brilliant, careless Bohemian, whom it loves to associate with art, and long since has taken him to its heart. But the world of his own day, when he asked for bread, offered him a stone. Mozart died young; he was only thirty-five. His sufferings were crowded into a few years, but throughout these years there stood by his side one whose love soothed his trials and brightened his life,—the Constance whom he adored. What she wrote to the publishers was strictly true. His last letters to her breathed a love as fervent as the first.

His fascinating exploration takes you inside the rich music and colorful lives of the world’s greatest classical composers. From Bach to Stravinsky and beyond, you will learn how the unique life stories of these gifted composers are reflected in the musical masterpieces that we enjoy to this day. Designed as an introductory book on classical music, this comprehensive collection presents biographical snapshots of the major composers in the context of distinct historical and stylistic periods and in relation to their notable contemporaries. Special attention is given to recognizing their prominent musical works. The book delineates the many forms of instrumental and vocal music; and it explores the “basics” of tonality, musical structure, performance criteria, the orchestra and its instruments, orchestration, chamber music, and the cataloguing of musical works. As well, the newcomer to classical music will find advice on building a musical library. This book is an excellent source of information about classical music in a unique and entertaining format. It will help lay the foundation for a lifelong love of classical music, through the great musical heritage of these fine composers.

Welcome to The Independent's new ebook series The Great Composers, covering fourteen of the giants of Western classical music. Extracted from Michael Steen's book The Lives and Times of the Great Composers, these concise guides, selected by The Independent's editorial team, explore the lives of composers as diverse as Mozart and Puccini, reaching from Bach to Brahms, set against the social, historical and political forces which affected them, to give a rounded portrait of what it was like to be alive and working as a musician at that time. In his short life of not quite 32 years – the briefest span of any first-rank composer – Schubert composed over 600 songs, showing a talent for word-setting which for many has never been equalled. However, while his songs gained gradual fame while he was alive, many of the works for which he is renowned were never performed in his lifetime, not even his Eighth Symphony, the Unfinished, or the Ninth Symphony, The Great C Major, which are so ubiquitous now. He was not lionised for the String Quintet in C, whose second movement Adagio remains one of the most requested pieces on Desert Island Discs. Nor did his exquisite quartets and piano music receive much recognition at the time. Michael Steen evokes Schubert's youth as the son of an impoverished schoolteacher and his life among a boisterous, arty set of friends living it up in the dazzling gaiety of early 19th-century Vienna. Their evening gatherings for an intoxicating mix of politics, conversation and music became known as Schubertiads. At 25 Schubert contracted syphilis and was to suffer ill health for the rest of his life, falling into the depression that is so heart-rendingly expressed in some of his works. Schubert died only a year and a half after Beethoven, having been a torch-bearer at his funeral. Even so, he remained prodigiously productive and those last years bequeathed some of his finest works.