The Faber Pocket Guide to Handel offers a detailed but accessible exploration of George Frederick Handel, his composition, and his legacy. A larger-than-life figure in his time, Handel's reputation has been less than steady since his death in 1759. Was he (in the words of Berlioz) just 'a great barrel of pork and beer', or (as Handel himself claimed) truly 'the master of us all'? Now, more than 250 years after his death, there is more interest in Handel than ever before, with his ...

The music of J.S.Bach has a unique power and attraction some 300 years after it was written. From annual performances of the great Passions and BBC Radio 3's hugely successful Bach Christmas, to its use in adverts, films and popular arrangements, the imaginative strength of Bach's music continues to draw listeners to explore its mysteries.This new Pocket Guide looks at all Bach's music, sacred and secular, and explores why he speaks so profoundly to our age about both the ...

As featured in the Telegraph and on Radio 4's Today programme.'A magnificent treasury . . . a fascinating tour de force.' Observer'Year of Wonder is an absolute treat - the most enlightening way to be guided through the year.' Eddie RedmayneClassical music for everyone - an inspirational piece of music for every day of the year, celebrating composers from the medieval era to the pr...

Biography of the composer. According to Wikipedia: "George Frederic Handel (23 February 1685 14 April 1759) was an English Baroque composer of German birth who is famous for his operas, oratorios, and concerti grossi. Born as Georg Friedrich Händel in Halle, the native German spent most of his adult life in England, becoming a naturalized subject of the British crown on 22 January 1727.[3] Perhaps the single word that best describes his life and music is "cosmopolitan": he was a German com...

The hidden history of the women who dared to write music in a man’s world.‘Lucid, engaging and exuberant... [Sounds and Sweet Airs] is terrifically enjoyable and accessible, and leaves one hankering for a second volume.’ The Sunday TimesFrancesca Caccini. Barbara Strozzi. Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. Marianna Martines. Fanny Hensel. Clara Schumann. Lili Boulanger. Elizabeth Maconchy.Since the birth of c...

Kenneth A. Christensens THE TOSCANINI MYSTIQUE, is the first full length biography about the legendary Italian conductors life and career in almost thirty-five years. Maestro Toscanini had a frigid and extremely unhappy childhood, along with a severe musical education at the Parma Conservatory. This unglamorized account of a gifted teenagers professional conducting debut at Rio de Janerios Teatro Imperial, is told as it really happened. Toscanini was married to a ballerina, Carla De Martin...

Andrew Gant's compelling account traces English church music from Anglo-Saxon origins to the present. It is a history of the music and of the people who made, sang and listened to it. It shows the role church music has played in ordinary lives and how it reflects those lives back to us. The author considers why church music remains so popular and frequently tops the classical charts and why the BBC's Choral Evensong remains the longest-running radio series ever. He shows how Engla...

Puccini's obsession with detail ensured the success of La Bohème, his opera about the impoverished 'artistes' in Paris in the 1830s. Soon after its première, people started calling their baby daughters Mimi. The story of this seamstress, her hectic but fraught love affair with the poet Rodolfo and her tragic death from consumption (tuberculosis), never fail to touch the audience. Che gelida manina, Mi chiamano Mimì …, and O soave fanciulla have become some of the most popular operatic exce...

Bel canto, or 'beautiful singing,' remains one of the most elusive performance styles vocalists strive to master. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, composers routinely left the final shaping of recitatives, arias, and songs to performers, and singers treated scores freely so that inexpressively notated music could be turned into passionate declamation. In other words, vocalists saw their role more as one of re-creation than of simple interpretation. Familiarity...

Chopin is one of the great originals of musical history and among the most universally beloved of all composers. Every one of his compositions involves the piano and his contribution to the development of the instruments potential cannot be underestimated. This biography offers a clear perspective on Chopins complex character, whose innermost feelings were only fully expressed in his music. It draws widely on contemporary sources, with detailed commentary on all Chopins works, making it bo...

With four famous operas each from Mozart, Verdi and Puccini, and two each from Rossini and Donizetti, there is a feast of information. Here are short guides to The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni; to the splendour of Aïda, the heart-breaking La Traviata; the drama of Tosca. The range is very broad. There is Wagner's great love story Tristan und Isolde; there is Johann Strauss's light comedy Die Fledermaus. On the way you can be briefed about such favourites as Handel's Giulio Cesare, B...

In the chaos of the English Civil War and Puritan Commonwealth, churches were defaced and organs broken, but the tradition of fine music survived. When Charles II returned from exile in 1660, one of the first things he demanded was music, sacred and profane, anthems and motets, pavannes and gavottes. In 1659 Henry Purcell was born, and his genius would give the period and nation an unforgettable voice.Jonathan Keates traces Purcell's development against the turbulent movements of h...