Art music, orchestral and formal music Books

Book SynopsisBeethoven wrote music for times that were changing. His musical aesthetics played an active part in the exchange of thought that shaped the revolutionary culture of his lifetime. He put aesthetic expectations to the test, and we still hear his message today. In Beethoven in the Age of Schiller, Goethe, and Kant: Music for Modern Times, Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen explores twelve themes that reflect Beethoven's compositional development and thought. The result is a fascinating new portrait of the composer and his music, and a panorama of the world of thought, norms, and values that he navigated. Here we discover insight into Beethoven's use of literature, his aspirations for purely instrumental music, and how he transformed contemplation into aesthetic expression. We learn not only how his contemporaries misunderstood him, but also how those in the know did get his message. Was Beethoven philosophical and poetic? Are his last compositions a critique of pure music, are they transcendental? Hinrichsen argues that we must get beyond our stereotypes of Beethoven if we want to truly understand him.

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Book SynopsisPaul Brian Heise’s The Wound That Will Never Heal is an original allegorical reading of Richard Wagner’s epic music drama The Ring of the Nibelung. Heise challenges the standard view that Wagner merely dramatizes the conflict between love and power and demonstrates instead that his greatest work is an allegory exploring humanity’s longing for transcendent value and that quest’s paradoxical establishment of a science-based secular society. By employing a more extensive analysis of primary evidence than any prior interpretation, The Wound That Will Never Heal is the first interpretation to propose and sustain a global and conceptually coherent account of the entire Ring.

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Book SynopsisThis Awareness of Beauty is the first book to consider the orchestral and wind band music of Canadian composer Healey Willan, who was known primarily for his choral work. A succinct biography accompanies historical, analytical, and critical investigations of Willan's instrumental music, asserting Willan's seminal place in Canadian music and the significance of his orchestral and wind band music both nationally and internationally. Each composition is investigated in chronological order to illustrate the composer's evolution as a creator of instrumental music from his early years in England to his later, and more notable, accomplishments in Canada. Willan's orchestral music may be seen as both a reaction to and a stimulus for the significant improvement in Canadian orchestral performance during the 1930s and 40s, a factor in the creation of his large-scale compositions, including two symphonies and a piano concerto. Although much has been written about Willan, most of it has centred on his choral work, with biography and/or musicology as the frame of reference; this project considers his instrumental music in terms of performance, provides historical context for many of the works included, and corrects errors that have crept into the literature.Trade Review`It is in the chapter on the band works that the author's enthusiasms emerge most strongly--and it is here that his book breaks valuable new ground. One of Willan's best-known instrumental pieces, the Royce Hall Suite for concert band, composed in 1949, bears on its title page the indication 'edited and scored by William Teague.'. Teague, a staff arranger with the New York firm Associated Music Publishers, performed this assignment using written indications by the composer. Kinder has examined their correspondence, and uses it in presenting a bar-by-bar critique of the score, concluding with the judgement that a new instrumentation giving greater respect to Willan's notes would greatly improve the Suite's effectiveness. These pages are the most vivid in the book, and make one hope to one day hear a new version, perhaps prepared by Kinder, an experienced band director, himself.'' -- John Beckwith -- CAML Review, 42, no. 2, August 2014, 201409Table of ContentsTable of Contents for This Awareness of Beauty: The Orchestral and Wind Band Music of Healey Willan by Keith W. Kinder List of Musical Examples Preface and Acknowledgments âEnglish by Birth, Irish by Extraction, Canadian by Adoption, and Scotch by Absorptionâ: Introduction and Biographical Sketch Part One: âTender, Lyrical, Forceful, Arrestingâ: The Orchestral Music 1. The Early Orchestral Works 2. The Works for Small Orchestra 3. Shorter Orchestral Works 4. Works for Piano and Orchestra 5. The Symphonies Part Two: âA Couple of Very Pretty Tunesâ: Works for Wind Band 6. Concert Band Works 7. Pedagogical Music 8. The Fanfares Conclusion Appendix 1: Works Reviewed with Sources Notes Bibliography Index

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