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From the agile beauty of Mozart's "Jupiter" and the fierce power of Beethoven's Fifth to the celebration of heroism in Shostakovich's "Leningrad," the symphony has long held a prime place in the Western musical pantheon. Now, in The Symphony, renowned teacher and critic Michael Steinberg offers music lovers a monumental guide to this most celebrated of musical forms, with perceptive commentaries on some 118 works by 36 major composers. Enriched by biographical detail, historical background, musical examples, and many finely nuanced observations, this volume is a treasury of insight and information. Readers will find illuminating discussion of the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Elgar, Sibelius, and Mahler, as well as of the most loved symphonic works of Schubert, Bruckner, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Vaughan Williams, Prokofiev, and others. We learn, for example, how to listen more sharply for Haydn's humor, to Mozart's singular combination of pathos with grace, and to the evolution of Beethoven's musical ideas in his epoch-making nine symphones. The range and variety of composers are remarkable--Schumann's musical poetry, Tchaikovsky's melodic genius, Mendelssohn's patrician elegance, Mahler's wild and beautiful innovations, Bruckner's mighty cathedrals in tone, the brooding mysteries of Sibelius, Stravinsky's fascinating engagements with the past, and Aaron Copland's ebullient American athleticism--and all are illuminated by Steinberg's deft, inviting, and intensely personal essays. The book boasts generous coverage of American composers, with sections on Howard Hanson, Walter Piston, Roger Sessions, Aaron Copland, William Schuman, and John Harbison. Steinberg gives us such a vivid portrait of each composer's personality that we get the most immediate sense of how the work is a direct expression of the person from whose soul and brain it has sprung. Tracing the ways in which composers have dealt with the extraordinary musical challenges that have engaged them throughout the centuries, Steinberg takes us through the revolutions of expression, sound, and form that have shaped the symphony's remarkable history. Whether beginners or veterans, music lovers will listen to the symphony with enlivened interest and deeper understanding with Steinberg's masterful guide in hand.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Introduction(p. vii)
• Ludwig Van Beethoven(p. 3)
• Hector Berlioz(p. 59)
• Johannes Brahms(p. 67)
• Anton Bruckner(p. 92)
• Aaron Copland(p. 128)
• Antonín Dvořák(p. 134)
• Edward Elgar(p. 155)
• Henryk Górecki(p. 169)
• Howard Hanson(p. 178)
• John Harbison(p. 183)
• Karl Amadeus Hartmann(p. 188)
• Joseph Haydn(p. 196)
• Paul Hindemith(p. 248)
• Arthur Honegger(p. 256)
• Charles Ives(p. 266)
• Gustav Mahler(p. 274)
• Bohuslav Martinů(p. 364)
• Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy(p. 376)
• Wolfgang Amadè Mozart(p. 385)
• Carl Nielsen(p. 404)
• Walter Piston(p. 418)
• Sergei Prokofiev(p. 426)
• Sergei Rachmaninoff(p. 443)
• Franz Schmildt(p. 455)
• Arnold Schoenberg(p. 463)
• Franz Schubert(p. 470)
• William Schuman(p. 493)
• Robert Schumann(p. 503)
• Roger Sessions(p. 524)
• Dmitri Shostakovich(p. 533)
• Jean Sibelius(p. 574)
• Igor Stravinsky(p. 611)
• Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky(p. 624)
• Michael Tippett(p. 642)
• Ralph Vaughan Williams(p. 654)
• William Walton(p. 673)

Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Critic, lecturer, and program annotator Steinberg describes 36 composers and, movement by movement, 118 symphonies, including all the standard repertory regularly programmed by North American orchestras as well as a few by less well known composers such as Gorecki, Harbison, Martinu, and Sessions. The writing varies from formal and factual to chatty, with candid asides and stories relevant to the composer, the composition, or an important performance. The information is on the level of good program notes (the origin of most of it), although reader familiarity with some basic musical technical terms is assumed. A well-written, informative introduction to the repertory for most music collections.‘Timothy J. McGee, Univ. of Toronto (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Here's a treat for those addicted to reading the program notes before the concert begins. They will find that Steinberg has done for symphonies what Milton Cross did for operas. These essays, based on program notes Steinberg wrote for the Boston and San Francisco orchestras during the past 20 years, combine insight into a composer's personality and times with thorough analysis of the music, and their coverage ranges from the complete symphonies of cornerstone composers Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler to selected symphonies of such moderns as Copland, Sessions, Harbison, Tippett, and Piston. They offer both the concertgoer and the audiophile the chance to study a symphony from a point of view that is more personal than that of most recording liner notes. Many a reader will keenly anticipate Steinberg's next volume, which will give concertos similar treatment. --Alan Hirsch

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Michael Steinberg is the program annotator of the San Francisco Symphony and the New York Philharmonic and earlier served the Boston Symphony in the same capacity. He has been on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music and the New England Conservatory, has lectured and taught widely in America and Europe, and was the music critic for The Boston Globe for twelve years.