Description
Book SynopsisRoger Nichols has created an engrossing chronicle of French music for the 150-year period from Berlioz to Boulez. He begins with Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and ends with his obituary of Pierre Boulez. He looks at twenty significant composers on his journey through this turbulent and fertile period.
Trade Review'Nichols’s prose throughout is elegant and concise, compassionate and witty, which allows him both to dig deep into complex subjects with detailed clarity and provide us with superb sketches of composers such as Lalo, Magnard and Schmitt, condensing lives, personalities and achievements in the briefest of spaces. It all adds up to a lovely book that encapsulates a lifetime’s enthusiasm and understanding, and above all sends you back to the music itself with renewed insight and wonder.' Tim Ashley, Gramophone; '..an engagingly-written style combined with authoritatively-researched content that is both entertaining to read and highly informative..' - Book of the Year, Presto Music. 'Throughout, love for the music, combines with an insatiable curiosity for the culture that nurtured it. Nichols's clear-sighted empathy for composers, complete with (often comical) foibles and flaws, brings their humanity to the fore while prompting a desire to listen anew to their music.' - Christopher Dingle, BBC Music Magazine. 'This is a book to be savoured slowly like a fine wine. A work to relish and to linger over for a lifetime. It can be dipped into rewardingly but read from cover to cover it is an enthralling chronicle of a turbulent and fertile period in the history of French music, from Berlioz to Boulez.' - Jeremy Sams; 'From Berlioz to Boulez truly takes you over a span of some 150 years - from the late Romantic to the Modern - all through the work of the greatest composers in France. Roger Nichols tracks trends, he follows friendships, notes where enemies were made, and places us in the middle of the most exciting periods in the development of music in France. We cannot recommend this book highly enough.' - Maureen Buja, Interlude.hk
Table of ContentsForeword by Jeremy Sams, Preface by Roger Nichols, 1. Hector Berlioz - fantasy and fury, 2. ... and beyond ..., 3. Frederic Chopin - a difficult genius, 4. Charles Gounod, 5. Edouard Lalo, 6. Camille Saint-Saens, 7. Leo Delibes, 8. Jules Massenet - a man of pleasure, 9. Chabrier - selected letters, 10. Heap, heap, Hurrah! - a review, 11. The Angel of Laughter, 12. Gabriel Faure - Pelleas et Melisande, 13. Debussy - the reception of his music in Britain up to 1914, 14. Debussy as man and artist, 15. Debussy and Degas - beyond Impressionism, 16. Debussy, Ravel and an orchestra for the 20th century, 17. Debussy, d'Annunzio and Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien, 18. Pelleas et Melisande / L'Enfant et les sortileges, 19. Pelleas et Melisande - reviews by d'Indy, Dukas and Willy, 20. Who was Melisande? 21. Pelleas et Melisande - interview with Irene Joachim, 22. Alberic Magnard, 23. Florent Schmitt, 24. Erik Satie, 25. The Trouble with Satie, 26. Parade - a mix of extraordinary talents, 27. Le Groupe des Six - 100 years on, 28. Reynaldo Hahn, 29. Raveliana - new insights, 30. Ravel and the 20th century, 31. Ravel and the Dance, 32. Ravel and Spain, 33. Ravel, Dreyfus and Sex, 34. Ravel and the critics, 35. The Chatelet Ballet Gala of 22 April 1912, 36. Music and Impressionism, 37. Jean Cocteau and Igor Stravinsky, 38. Arthur Honegger - Incantation to the fossils - a documentary, 39. Francis Poulenc, French ballet, and the pleasure principle, 40. Francis Poulenc - and the road to La Voix humaine, 41. Maurice Durufle, 42 Messiaen and the journey to a world beyond, 43. Messiaen - ornitheology and all that, 44. Messiaen at 70 - an interview, 45. Debussy and Messiaen, 46. Ravel and Messiaen - accords and discords, 47. Messiaen - Interview with Pierre Boulez, 48. Messiaen - Interview with Dame Gillian Weir, 49. Music in Paris in the 1940s, 50. Henri Dutilleux at 75 - Conversations, 51. Henri Dutilleux at nearly 90, 52. Henri Dutilleux - Obituary, 53. Pierre Boulez and Andre Schaeffner - a review, 54. 30 years of IRCAM, 55. Adieu, Pierre Boulez - Obituary, Index.
