Greene S Biographical Encyclopedia Of Composers

From a personally assembled database of 13,859 classical musicians, What Killed the Great and not so Great Composers delves into the medical histories of a wide variety of composers from both a musical and medical standpoint. Biographies of musicians from Johann Sebastian Bach of the Baroque period to Benjamin Britten of the Modern era explore in depth their illnesses and the impact their diseases had on musical productivity. Other chapters referenced to specific composers are devoted to such diverse ailments as deafness, mental disorders, sexually transmitted diseases, surgery and war injuries, to name a few. A unique section of statistics and demographics analyzes various aspects of composers’ lives such as their longevity related to contemporaneous nonmusical populations, the incidence of various illnesses they experienced over the centuries and the type of medical problems suffered by the so-called top 100 classical musicians. Although a precise and complete accounting of the great composers’ ailments may never be possible, a general understanding of the medical problems experienced by these unique individuals, nevertheless, can heighten one’s appreciation of their creative processes despite the hardships imposed by their physical and mental illnesses. Although some individuals surrendered to their disabilities for a variety of reasons, others were able to rise above their infirmities and produce the wonderful music mankind has enjoyed through the centuries.

This index includes mainly composers of 'serious' music who are not to be found in any reference work, and others whose names have not appeared in any reference work since the last century.

Each of the 300 entries lists major works, and most include a personal statment of musical philosophy provided by the composer.

This book provides an in-depth introduction and overview of current research in computational music analysis. Its seventeen chapters, written by leading researchers, collectively represent the diversity as well as the technical and philosophical sophistication of the work being done today in this intensely interdisciplinary field. A broad range of approaches are presented, employing techniques originating in disciplines such as linguistics, information theory, information retrieval, pattern recognition, machine learning, topology, algebra and signal processing. Many of the methods described draw on well-established theories in music theory and analysis, such as Forte's pitch-class set theory, Schenkerian analysis, the methods of semiotic analysis developed by Ruwet and Nattiez, and Lerdahl and Jackendoff's Generative Theory of Tonal Music. The book is divided into six parts, covering methodological issues, harmonic and pitch-class set analysis, form and voice-separation, grammars and hierarchical reduction, motivic analysis and pattern discovery and, finally, classification and the discovery of distinctive patterns. As a detailed and up-to-date picture of current research in computational music analysis, the book provides an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers and students in music theory and analysis, computer science, music information retrieval and related disciplines. It also provides a state-of-the-art reference for practitioners in the music technology industry.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1871. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.